Layla
Rescuing Layla
I rescued Layla whilst I was in the East Coast, on the last day I was there, and throughout that week, I had seen numerous homeless dogs and wanted to pick many of them up, but didn’t.
Strangely, the day before rescuing Layla, I had seen a puppy who looked just like her, and in hindsight, I’m sure that he or she was one of her pups, as she had given birth maybe a couple of months prior.
I saw Layla hobbling along in the cold, at night, looking for food, she had an injured paw and she was thin and obviously homeless as she was very dirty and smelly.
This time, I had to stop, and she didn’t put up a fight at all, she just lay down and became a dead weight, and I picked her up in my arms and put her in the car.
It took me 3 washes to get her clean and smelling nice!!!
Back To My Accommodation
I had no option but to take her back with me and I just sneaked her in to my accommodation and hoped for the best.
The Manager saw me and I explained my predicament, and seeing her need, he very graciously allowed Layla to stay and she slept on a rug on the floor next to my bed.
At first, she wouldn’t eat anything I offered her as she was very weary of me, but eventually, she ate nachos and milk, which was all I had at the time!
I had to let her out to use the toilet and not having a lead or anything to hold her with, she kept trying to hobble away, but not being able to move quickly, I was able to catch up with her and bring her back.
Eventually, she slept peacefully, and after a short walk the following day, we headed home, on a 15 hour drive.
Overnight Stay
Being such a long journey, we had to stop off multiple times for toilet breaks and food, and we always made sure to go somewhere that was dog-friendly.
Everyone was very kind to her and one café even gave us dog food and some to take away also, and in the car, Layla slept the deepest sleep of her life, the whole journey.
We then had to stay overnight somewhere and I explained that I had just rescued a dog, and they too, allowed her to stay.
That night, the only food we could think to get her was KFC chicken, and we got her 2 pieces with chips which she inhaled at record-breaking speed!!!
God bless Layla, she has been addicted to KFC ever since and once, when she had been with us for a while, we left a box on the side within her reach by mistake, and it was gone within seconds, bones and all, which was very worrying, but thank God she was OK!!!
Layla’s Injury
When we took a closer look at Layla’s injury, we saw that a bit of her pad on the underside of her paw had been sliced off, perhaps by something sharp, causing her to limp, but we believed it would grow back and amazingly, after months after wrapping and bandage changes, it did.
But then another problem started and this culminated in about 2 years of research, trial and error and looking for the root of the problem.
It began with Layla incessantly licking her paw, to the point of almost chewing a hole right through, and we had to keep it covered, with frequent changes, until we could figure out what it was.
Several vets said it was an acral lick granuloma, but that they didn’t know the cause and wanted to amputate her entire leg, which felt very drastic and we absolutely did not want to do that, especially bearing in mind that they didn’t know the cause.
And so, we set about getting to the root of the problem so that we could treat that and eventually, we found a very experienced vet who determined it was osteomyelitis, a deep-seated bone infection.
Research & Diagnosis
By this time, I had done tonnes of research and this was on my list to be checked, together with nerve injury, pressure along the nerves that supply her foot or leg, a pinched nerve in her spine or cervical discs or a bone fracture.
She’d had biopsies and x-rays, which showed nothing and we’d been to a chiropractor and tried all sorts, all to no avail.
In the end, I stopped agreeing to see vets, who took my money but couldn’t help, and I waited for a recommendation with someone who really knew their stuff, and insisted on a call with them first to discuss the problem and potential solution, in order to see if they were truly able to help.
When I spoke to the vet who ended up helping her, I knew that he was our man and he suggested everything I had on my list to do, including a culture and sensitivity test to see what bacteria was affecting the paw so we could target her with the right antibiotics.
I had a foot infection myself at the time, from going into the Ocean with a small open graze, foolishly thinking it would be good for it, but resulting in a very bad infection which caused pain in my bone, and I believe that God used that to show us what Layla was suffering with.
Treatment & Wound Care
We treated her with 3 months of specialised anti-biotics, as determined by the culture and sensitivity test, and for the first 2 months, we changed her bandages and cleaned the wound daily.
As it began to heal, she stopped wanting to gnaw at it, and we were able to change it every 2 days, and then every 3 days, and eventually it healed completed.
Unbeknown to us, the cohesive bandages we were using were dangerous as they were tightening on her paw and stopping the blood flow and the vet told us we mustn’t use those and we changed to adhesive bandages.
There is so much to learn when you are treating a long-standing and chronic condition and perseverance is key.
After almost 2 years, we finally healed Layla’s wound, took the last bandage off, were overjoyed to find that Layla wasn’t interested in chewing it anymore, but unfortunately, one of our other dogs started licking it and opened it up again!
Starting Again
Unfortunately, we weren't able to heal Layla's wound and the whole sorry business started again.
Not knowing what to do next, we kept it covered for a while longer to minimise the damage whilst we figured out next steps.
I spoke to the vet again and we determined that it might just be best to take off one of her toes (the equivalent of our thumb) and the portion of bone that it was affecting, which was the absolute minimum, and we resolved to do that.
We could have done a deeper biopsy and sent a bit of bone in for testing, but we determined that whatever it was, was such an old injury, that it was unlikely to fix it anyway.
The last push is to make the area sterile through another course of antibiotics, in order to prepare the area for surgery and as I write, we are in Capetown, awaiting our appointment, which we hope will end the problem once and for all.
Hydrotherapy
Because of 2 years of limping and not being able to put any weight on her injured paw, Layla had lost all the muscle mass in her shoulder and was now out of alignment skeletally.
She will likely need to see a chiropractor a couple of times to put things back into their correct position, and we have a lovely animal chiropractor who is brilliant with the dogs.
Next step, in the warmer days, we will be taking her for daily swims in the pool to build up her strength slowly and gently in order to get her back to full health.
Layla is a very lucky and blessed girl as not many people would go to the lengths and expense as we did for her, but all our animals deserve and get the best and that’s just how it has to be.
When you shoot for the stars, sometimes you get to touch them.
Layla Laylani
Layla is very street-wise and street-tough, because she had to be, and she is more than capable of looking after herself if necessary.
She's mostly pretty chilled, happy to have a warm bed and nice food and she loves going out for walks, and refused to stay home even when she had a sore paw!
Being used to her freedom, going out and about is very important to her and she's the best dog to take shopping and on errands as she just stays close, lies down and waits patiently.
She used to howl when we were trying to heal her first paw injury, so we made her a waterproof shoe with duct tape so she could go out walking with the other dogs.
Layla means night, and Laylani means Royal Child of Heaven in Hawaiian, and one thing is for sure, God was certainly smiling on her the night He caused our paths to cross.
