Cleo the chihuahua by Dr Anne Fawcett

A couple of years ago we operated on Cleo, a tiny nine-week-old chihuahua, who was brought into our Inner West vet hospital in Sydney with a severe limp in her right foreleg.

Upon a closer examination we discovered that Cleo had swelling from the carpus (wrist) down and we suspected she had injured her paw by jumping off a bed. We advised X-rays to be taken.

It turns out that Cleo had fractured all her metacarpal (front paw) bones – the long bones in the X-ray. We applied a cast to Cleo’s right foreleg from the elbow down to stabilise the paw, to allow healing.

Cleo healed up very well and has full use of her right foreleg.