Healing from a dog bite

[Gotituseit]

February 20th my 10ish month old Box Turtle was briefly used as a chew toy by my newly adopted doxie. I took him to our vet school, the only exotic vet in our area, and they kept him over the weekend and sent him home with an antibiotic (Ceftazidime) and Silvadene cream. Other than this the vet really didn't give me any information as to what to expect in the future. Another damaged chunk of shell fell off today. He eats, forages, adventures and is gaining weight as he was before. The vet did say that if I hadn't brought him in, I wouldn't have known if he was sickly for weeks and that by then it would have been too late. Is this normal healing? I/m not sure my vet has extensive experience with this. Photos are: first happened, 2 weeks later, notice the triangle shape? That fell off today. 3 & 4 are today.

 

[mark1]

I've seen way worse than that do fine , and I seriously mean a lot worse …..it will take a long time for that to heal over , keep it clean , keep his water clean ……. I think your vet was exactly correct ……….turtles are constantly exposed to all kinds of bacteria , if he did get an infection that became systemic , he'd act reasonably normal until he couldn't , at that point it's pretty serious ………..

 

[ColleenT]

Reptiles take a very long time to heal. Glad you got him to the vet when you did.

 

[Yvonne G]

He was a pretty lucky turtle. At his size it could have been much worse. He'll be fine. They are very hardy animals.