Tell me how this happened (warning: wound pic)

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

WHen we were staying at Grammy's Victor was out playing with the other dogs. That was when I saw a very similar wound on his side. As far as I can tell, I think he ran into a piece of metal, possibly a small pipe that gouged out a hunk of skin and a small bit of muscle. There was nothing to do but pack it with ointment because you can't stitch closed what is not there and there was obviously a round patch of skin missing and because the small bit of meat was gone, it had to heal from the bottom up. I kept it greased and covered and it healed without issue. To see it now you would think it was another lemon freckle on his side, if you looked really close you would see that there is no hair there. But it is so small to be unnoticeable which is amazing considering how bad it looked originally.
Mary did something similar when she jumped a fence and tore her breast again, on a piece of metal. I am sorrym vibes that it heals quickly, will be sore for awhile I imagine, not an easy heal in the bend like that.

To be honest, I don't know how I could have missed an abscess. I have hands on Tipper (well all my dogs) everyday and she always gets a belly rub when I get home. Unless she developed an abscess between 4 and 7 on Friday and it burst in that time frame I don't *think* I would have missed it.

Interesting. I just assumed that a stick would leave little bits of splinters and what not all around the actual puncture. I didn't know that about bruising, that's actually kind of fascinating. I did think it was odd that she isn't developing any bruising - just some redness and some swelling (from the vet messing with it).

Thanks smkie! It's going to be an interesting heal for sure - the vet said it wasn't worth it to put her on crate rest and Tipper apparently doesn't think it's worth slowing down for. She's a pretty quick healer though so we'll see how it goes.

That's weird. Something similar happened to my Laekenois this fall. One weekend we were at a Rally trial in NC, and two days later he had a 5 inch incision from his operation. There was some kind of puncture wound on his hip that the vet said was old and needed to be "cleaned up". At the Rally trial, me and my friend had our hands all over this guy and never noticed anything.

I hope he gets better soon. I had trouble with Balto because twice I accidentaly left his cone off and left the house for several hours, so after all the restitching/stapling, I was out about $1,000.

Was she with the other dogs? Is it possible it was an accidental tooth puncture? Not a bite, but another dog running open-mouthed into her?

That happened at day care once...we had a very friendly dog go after a ball and slam face-first open-mouthed into my boss's ridgeback. There was just one single NASTY tooth mark on the victim. It pretty much looked exactly like that, but deeper (It was a big dog)

I had two dogs that managed to come up with mystery wounds like that... one of my spaniels years ago on his leg and Maeve my collie on her side.

The only explanation we could ever think of in both cases were sticks...

Hope she heals quickly...poor girl.

She was out with Murphy but I don't see any way for him to have done that. It's in a REALLY awkward place for a bite. And there are no other marks on her, just that. Also, Murphy is very careful with his mouth. I'm not trying to say, no, no way ever, that's un-possible but I would be really surprised if it was a dog bite, especially from Murph.

Add me to the "stick" group. I've seen some weird injuries caused by sticks

Yeah, a stick could have caused the puncture wound. Tipper may have stepped on a protruding stick and stabbed herself. Glad to know that despite the wound Tipper is OK.