Our baby Marmaduke had his right front leg amputated from the knee down three months ago. A few days after surgery he developed an infection and sutures burst open. After antibiotics and a good cleaning the wound was left to drain. It ulcerated to a pretty large size and the vet said it would close back over some time and there wasn't enough skin left to close. Here we are three months later and it's still open. It has granulated to almost half the size but now has slowed down alot. It bleeds sometimes if he bumps it pretty good. We clean and rebandage it everyday. But now the skin around it is getting tough and turning white. Another vet said it will either close or we need to reamputate taking out the shoulder. We just don't know what to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, seeing as though financially another amputation is almost impossible, though the money wouldn't be the reason to not do it. Basically is there any hope it will still close after this time or no other choice but to amputate?

 I'm either in their office or calling them atleast once a week and it's the same thing everytime. It looks great and oh it will heal just give it time. our vet is fairly young no more than a few years older than me ( I'd say she's about 27-28) So I'm just trying to see if any vet that's had alittle more experience with this had any other tips or techniqes that might help.

  We're in Amarillo, Texas so there's not really an ortho vet for dogs here. I just want to try everything I can before deciding to amputate again. We've been to two vets so far and our original vet was very hopeful it was going to heal and the other vet kind of gave us a 50/50 chance of it healing. From what they said the wound isn't causing really any pain to him, which made me feel alittle better. I just really dont want him to have to go through another surgery, it puts alot of stress on him with us leaving him somewhere and then the surgery itself. So trying to avoid it at all cost. Thank ya'll so much for your concern you truly are caring people.

Well we started the honey yesterday on his bandages with vet wrap and it actually looks alittle better. Not as much swelling and he even acts like it feels better. We've got an appointment for tues so we're going to hope for the best and see how it goes. thank you for the advice so much.

I will ask him about that. They have moved his surgery to wednesday so we are just hoping for the best. We're just ready for him to be healed and finally be able to be a "normal" dog, just not looking forward to the surgery. The recovery period is actually the scariest part for me. I'm like a nut following him around to keep from getting hurt lol