Yorkie with Broken Toes
 

My 1 year old, 5.6 pound Yorkie slipped off the couch last night and immediately began holding up her foot. The vet found that she had broken the 4 toes on her right foot. He questioned how it happened and indicated he had never seen broken toes from a fall from a couch... stating he would expect this injury if the foot had been run over or something had been intentionally done to her (leaving me with the awful feeling that he believes this to be true). He indicated that if she had broken the toes from a fall from the couch that she would have to have a bigger issue with her bone density and if that were the case we'd expect to see breaks continue throughout her life and would need to consider her quality of life. I asked for a referral to a specialist at this point.
He ran blood-work to check calcium and phosphorus levels. When these came back normal I emailed to find out if she may have landed on top of her foot... he responded "normal, healthy bones do not break just by falling"... I was able to get an appointment with the specialist tomorrow but I am left with this awful feeling of basically being accused of mistreating my dog, who is like my child. And terrified that something is seriously wrong with her since the break was caused by falling from a normal height couch onto carpet (with very little padding unfortunately). Monroe & Rylee are my first Yorkies and the smallest dogs I have had (Rylee is 5.6 pounds and Monroe is 4.5 pounds). So, I am reaching out to more experienced Yorkie owners to see if you think it's impossible for a healthy dog to sustain this type of injury from a fall from a couch... I'll get more info tomorrow during the appointment with the specialist but I was hoping for any thoughts and/or feedback you may have about this as I'm going crazy with worry about something being seriously wrong with my little girl. Thank you so much for any feedback you may have to offer!

Don't beat yourself up over it! I mean freak accidents happen all the time and thank goodness it wasn't a bigger bone break! That would have been a much longer recovery and possibly surgery. You know what happened bc you were there and honestly I would be insulted if my vet insinuated otherwise. I'm sure she will heal just fine.

Sorry to hear your baby has broken toes! Does your vet have much experience with small dogs, let alone Yorkies? I have read here on YT about broken toes from accidentally stepping on paws -- which is very easy to do even with my bigger Yorkies.

Doesn't surprise me at all that she broke toes falling off the couch. It's possible to do just jumping off the couch, which is often discouraged because of Yorkies' size and their delicate legs.

Wishing your little girl a speedy recovery and I hope everything checks out okay with her bones. I would think about shopping for a new general vet.

Sorry for what happen to your baby! I hope she will be okay soon. All you need to do now is to monitor her during this period of what happen to her, and make sure that it doesn’t move the injured toe too much. Still, you need to find a way to exercise the dog – some sort of a game that doesn’t involve running will do fine. Don't worry a broken dog toe will heal in between six and eight weeks. Just be sure to monitor her everyday and go to vet every weeks to check for the improvement of her toes.

I just realized I didn't post an update/ reply on here! Thank you for the input and caring words! After spending an evening feeling like the worst dog mom in the world because of the accusing tone/comments... When I took Rylee to the specialist the next morning he was unsure that she had any broken toes. He believed two were injured, not broken, the third toe appeared to have calcification but no injury (previous injury possibly) and the 4th was 100% fine. We kept her in a splint for 6 weeks just to be safe & she's been great since then! Anytime she's on the couch or bed the floor below is covered with pillows & blankets so there will be no more accidents.

I was very upset by the first vet we saw and found his conduct extremely irresponsible considering his completely inaccurate diagnosis. I have drafted & redrafted a letter to him but haven't sent it to date...

Thank you all again!!! (I'm not sure if this reaches those who responded as I'm still learning this forum)

Make sure the specialist sends his medical report to your general vet and request a copy of it. Essentially you have two vets that disagree with one another.

In terms of what your general vet said to you, it was very hard to hear and harsh of him or her. If your previous experiences with your general vet have been satisfactory I would ask them to explain the rationale for their diagnosis of four broken toes. See what they say, then go forward from there.

I do hope you have found a new vet.

Thank you! This was the first time I had seen this vet as we had recently moved to a different city and I hadn't been established with a new vet yet. I got a recommendation from the specialist and I think we've got a good regular vet now, thankfully. They have the scans from the specialists and I also keep an electronic copy & a snapshot on my phone... fingers crossed we won't be dealing with injured toes in the future thought! Eek!

We definitely did! This was the first & last visit to that vet. I think we've got a good one in town now!

I definitely would find a new vet also. Glad your baby is doing better. Susan