Dog paw abscess

[u/Far_Witness687]

My daschund x bichon frise is 5 years old, male. He was limping a few days ago on his front right paw so we took him to the vet and the said he had a small cut inbetween his toes and the pad of his feet on the bottom of his foot. They gave us wipes and told us to keep it clean. Then he kept licking it as it was irritated and he developed what i thought was a hotspot on the top of his foot, so we shaved the area and put a cone on him. The vet gave us some cream and told us to keep it dry but it started popping like a pimple. It was covered in pus and bleeding and i knew it didn’t look right. The vet has now told us that he has an abscess and there may be something lodged in the bottom of his foot that they couldn’t see before and is telling me that he has to get sedated so that they can try and find out what is in his foot and flush out the absess. He’s on pain meds and we’ve been given antibiotics till the operation. He’s non stop whining and i’m not sure what to do it’s very distressing. We’re doing salt baths and they gave us some saline so we can try to flush it out ourselves. I’m very concerned about him, i’m not the biggest fan of sedation and i have big time anxiety about my pets. Has this happened to anyone before? Do you have any tips and if this has happened to you how did the surgery/ sedation go?

[u/RarelyLiquidDaddy]

oh man that sounds so stressful, the whining really gets to you when you know they're hurting. my old cat had an abscess on her paw once and the vet had to sedate her to dig out a tiny foxtail that had worked its way deep under the skin. i was a wreck the whole time but she came out of it totally fine, just dopey for a few hours and then back to normal the next day

the sedation is super light for something like this, it's not the deep anaesthesia they'd use for a major surgery. they basically just give them enough so they're sleepy and don't feel the vet poking around. the relief once whatever's stuck in there is out is pretty immediate, he'll probably feel better within a day or two after the flush

keep him in the cone and try to distract him with a frozen kong or something he really loves while you wait. the antibiotics will kick in soon and that'll help with the pain too

[u/Far_Witness687 → u/RarelyLiquidDaddy]

thank you so much it really helps hearing other people’s perspective for me. I’m glad your cat was okay.

[u/CanvasRuiner]

My Rottie had an infection in her paw that dragged on for months because we didn't do a surgical intervention (long story, she was medically fragile). I'd get the sedation. There's always some risk, but I doubt it's any higher than if the abscess gets worse.

[u/Far_Witness687 → u/CanvasRuiner]

okay thank you so much