Sometimes when dogs have injuries we have to remove them from their environment while they heal. In the case of buttons he had a rather severe ear injury that resulted in bullying among the other male members of the pack. Also, since buttons is unable to clean this wound, it was badly infected and was only going to get worse as the parasites set in.
We have to make a judgement call in these situations because it is almost never a good idea to keep a dog away from their pack for long stretches of time unless the intention is to never return them there. The reasons is because they become dependent upon care and food provided by handlers and may not take too well to returning to the life on the streets, so to speak. We would love to find a wonderful home for all of these animals but that simply isn't possible.
Buttons got named this way by our staff because the special procedure used for reconstructing his ear is called a "button process" and I don't understand how it works, I just know that it did.
Without getting too gruesome with the gory pics, I will show you a few steps of the road to recovery with Buttons.
There was a lot of tearing on his right ear and we were concerned that we may have to cut it off because of initial concerns about infection. It normally can be a very bad thing to do this to a dog that lives most if its life outdoors because having an open ear canal invites other problems as well as annoyances such as rain falling directly into the ear canal which annoys all dogs. If you want to test this theory go ahead and blow some air into your own dog's ear and see how much they like it. They don't.
The buttoning technique involves stitching actual buttons into the ear as the cuts heal and this prevents the dog from being able to re-rip the wounds back open and also facilitates proper growth of the ear as it is healing. I am not a veterinarian, I do not know why this works nor if it is a worldwide technique in dealing with this sort of thing. All I know is that it worked and after a couple of weeks of hanging out with us at our kennels "Buttons" was ready to go back and join his pals at the temple.
There was some concern that Buttons might not actually want to be back there when we dropped him off but we were quite happy to see that the others that came out to greet us appeared to be quite happy to see him and they started to play. We offered everyone treats so that maybe Buttons can be seen as a bit of a hero that when he disappears that he comes back with rewards for all! This is humanizing dogs way too much but it is a nice thought anyway. We stuck around for an hour or so to make sure there were no problems and in that time Buttons didn't appear to be overly attached to us and after a while he wandered off with his mates instead of sticking around us waiting for us to look after him.
This is an ideal result. There is always a concern when we look after a dog for a few weeks out of necessity that the dog is going to get used to that sort of treatment that we unfortunately are incapable of providing in the long term. Buttons was grateful, and was looking forward to some rubs and pats as we were there, but he didn't seem at all distraught to be returned to where we found him
Just like I am whenever any dog stays with us for a bit, I am a little heartbroken that Buttons is not going to be around anymore but I will come by to check up on him on a regular basis.
if you would like to see how you can help out or simply spread the word, please visit our website at
http://krabianimalwelfare.org
Krabi Animal Welfare is a charity run entirely by volunteers and are a registered non-profit organization in Thailand and the U.K.. We aim to relieve the pain and suffering of dogs and cats within Krabi Province.
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