Tell me how this happened (warning: wound pic)

[Taqroy]

I found this on Tipper Friday night. It had to have happened between 3:30 and 7 o' clock on Friday. She was in the backyard playing fetch and loose in the house. I never once heard her scream, cry, stutter step, wince, or give any indication that she got hurt. The puncture wound is an inch and a half deep (per the vet who cleaned it out on Saturday), and fur seems to have been pulled out - there is NO fur in the area that's bald. There was nothing in the wound and there was nothing (ie splinters, dirt, shards) around it. And I don't think that Tipper can reach it to lick it.


PuncturedTipper by taqroy, on Flickr

This picture makes it look better than it actually is - because of the way I pulled her leg up it makes the puncture look smaller. It's probably 1/2 inch long and looks...nail file shaped is the best way to describe it. We've searched the backyard and the house and can't find anything that would both poke into flesh and pull fur out. I'm mostly spreading this picture in hopes of ideas, because if she had been hit like this almost anywhere else it could have been really REALLY bad. I would like to figure out what it was so that nobody else can puncture themselves.

[monkeys23]

Weird!!! Glad she is okay and I hope you figure out what it was.

[sillysally]

She may have stepped on a large stick, flipped it up while still stepping on it, and stabbed herself with it. Jack has done this before, but not nearly hard enough to cause a wound like that. Sally sliced herself badly enough chasing a critter into a brush pile to require 6 stitches and there were no splinters in the wound.

[milos_mommy]

My friend's dog had a similar looking wound from a stick...I think a branch on a bush actually.

Do you have a chain link fence? Could some of the wire gotten loose and caused it?

[darkchild16]

Sci had that once and we never figured it out. Same kinda situation we figured he got into something in the yard no other dog got hurt though.

[Greenmagick]

My guess is stick as well. Quke had something similar several weeks back, only on his side kind of in between two of his ribs. A deep puncture. He was not bothered by it and we have no clue how it happened but know he was running around the yard so I can only assume he almost impaled himself on a stick

[Taqroy]

Hmmm. I can buy the stick thing - we have sticks all over the yard. Its the missing fur I can't figure out. We do have a chain link in the back but its very rare for Tipper and Mu to run around back there. I'm going to go check tomorrow anyway though.

[Dizzy]

That looks very like Bodhi's puncture she got from a stick, in almost the exact same place. I hate sticks!!!

[crazedACD]

You know...I can't tell very well...but it could be an abscess that ruptured? The hair can fall out pretty quickly when it's getting to the point of rupturing, you might not have noticed. Maybe the physical activity facilitated it rupturing?

I just have a hard time thinking something could puncture a dog like that and you didn't notice bleeding? I'd probably bet on an abscess.

[sassafras]

I'd guess stick. Dog skin doesn't have nearly as many capillaries as ours, so it's not unusual for a wound not to bleed as much as you'd expect (also why they tend not to bruise as easily as we do). If it was sort of a combination abrasion/puncture it could easily shear the hair right off and then poke into the skin, and sticks more often than not don't leave any debris in a wound unless they break off IME.