[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by axoalum

Here's the pics of me (I was talking about on another thread) during my surgery lab today. This is my 1st time seeing all of them. I didn't post them all, but they're from both sides. Doing a dewclaw is so frustrating.

Interesting pictures Cheerfulgreek.
Question...I always thought that a dewclaw was not removed unless it was done when the dog was a puppy. This one looked kind of big. Was it a big puppy or am I confused about removing them? Why is it frustrating? Are they hard to remove?

They are commonly removed from puppies, but not always. In fact, though they're commonly removed from puppies, I can't say I've witnessed that yet. I've only seen my boss do two of them, though he has done a lot more. The dog in the pics is a 24 week old lab. I wouldn't really say it's frustrating for everyone, it's just that I'm only a student and this was my 1st one, so I still have a lot to learn. They're not common in junior surgery lab, so I was pretty excited about doing it. What made it so frustrating was because everytime I tried to ligate the artery, after doing so, I would keep hitting it when I was trying to suture the tissue, and doing that causes bleeding and it makes it that much harder to do.