On the Mend

“I didn’t think our dog would stray out of our yard,” says Sally Sparrell, who lives on a small farm in rural Ohio. But Heidi, a 1-year-old Australian Shepherd, thought otherwise. She wandered across the street just as a pickup truck came along. A few moments later, the unlucky Aussie lay in a grassy ditch, unable to move. Her pelvis was broken in two.

Getting hit by cars, being dropped or stepped on, and jumps and falls are the most common reasons more than 360,000 dogs are treated for fractures each year. Although any bone can break, the most common canine fracture sites are the limbs, pelvis, and back.

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