Scoobie is an 8 year old Maltese with a very strong mind of his own, so I guess it was not all that surprising when he decided to cross the street unexpectedly while on a walk with his person around Christmas time. Unfortunately, being a little Maltese dog, you’re not a great match for a car. Poor Scoobie, and his distraught people, ended up at the emergency clinic on a Sunday evening in pretty bad shape.
After emergency stabilization for shock and pain it was determined that Scoobie had multiple fractured ribs but seemed to be relatively lucky as far as internal injury goes. The emergency vets were concerned about Scoobie’s neurological status, though, as he would not stand or even right himself properly. A referral was made to a neurologist and Scoobie was sent home, partly because he was so distressed being away from home and from his family.
I saw Scoobie a few days after the incident and despite good conventional pain medication (fentanyl and tramadol), Scoobie was still extremely painful and would scream bloody murder when touched even lightly. He could walk but would fall over after a few steps. His people reported that he was quite restless, not eating properly and just seemed uncomfortable and freaked out overall. At this point they were still worried that he would not make it.
Knowing how incredibly powerful homeopathy is in the trauma department, I assured the clients that Scoobie’s chances of full recovery were good, but that it might take a little time and patience, especially for full mobility.
We started him on a homeopathic remedy called Aconite for the shock and fear and then after a few days of that switched to the trauma king of remedies Arnica.
Scoobie started eating properly quite soon after starting these remedies, and we slowly weaned him off his pain meds as things improved. Other remedies that we used over the week included rhus-tox (for joint pain), Chamomilla (a remedy Scoobie had done well on in the past when he had back pain), cuprum, bryonia and arsenicum (for diarrhea from the stress of it all).
Scoobie has continued to improve, and although I’m not sure he’s 100% normal (I’m not sure he was ever 100% normal and I think his people would agree!), he is currently a happy dog, going on his walks, running the house, and proud that he may be a small dog, but he challenged a car… and…. won(?!)
Update:
the last remedy that helped Scooby was Cina. I wonder if this is even Scoobie’s “constitutional” remedy since he had such a wonderful response to it (in fact, I haven’t heard from them in months, so I know he continues to do well!). Interesting, because Cina is in the compositae family, which are remedies that are known for injuries and for that feeling of being injured. Cina is also known for being a bit of a cranky personality and Scooby can sometimes attest to that!
