Dinky's Christmas started badly. He was already having a little trouble settling in to his new home. This was because he was a four-and-a-half pound Yorkshire terrier living in a small house that was already occupied by two adults and four children.

He had been in his new home about six weeks and had already become very nimble at avoiding the many pairs of feet that came and went around the house. He had also learned to love the children and was delighted when he managed to crawl up on to the settee while the younger two were watching television. From there he managed to climb on to the back of the settee and go to sleep.

Unfortunately when he had been asleep for a little while he rolled off and landed on a Lego transformer on the floor behind the settee. He straightened his right fore leg just before he hit the toy so the full force of his fall was transmitted into his right elbow. He landed with such force that the little soft growing bones in his elbow had no chance of surviving the impact, and promptly split into pieces.

There are several reasons why a broken elbow is a particular disaster in a young puppy. First, because the break involves a joint the bones have to be put together in exactly the right place. If they are not then the joint quickly becomes arthritic. Secondly, the leg has to be allowed to go on growing otherwise it will end up shorter than the opposite leg.

His owners did hope at first that Dinky's leg was only bruised, but by next morning when his elbow had swelled up and he could not put his foot to the floor it was clear he needed urgent treatment.

After examining him and talking to his owners I put him under an anaesthetic and took a series of x-rays of his damaged elbow. They showed how the two halves of the end of his humerus had split apart in the impact. There was no hope that the break would heal in a plaster cast so I took Dinky straight to the operating theatre.

I opened his elbow joint and carefully lined up the fragments with a series of clamps. Then with great care I drilled a hole through the fragments and inserted a screw and a pin to hold them in place. When I released the clamps everything stayed put and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

Sadly, he had to spend Christmas in hospital lest any of the repair move. After three days he was able to go home with his leg wrapped in a large padded bandage on the strict understanding that he stayed in a quiet room where he could not climb on anything or get stepped on.

A few days later he had an almost full range of movement in his broken elbow was starting to walk on the broken leg.

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