Should I Inspect the Dahlia Tuber or leave it?

[GardenGeisha]

About a week or so ago, chickens jumped in my flower pot and badly dug all around a dahlia. One tuber was severed from the plant. For a time the two-sided green growth of this plant, which was minimal anyway, before the chicken episode, looked like it was surviving, but one side got limper and limper, and I realized it was barely connected to its tuber and severed it. The other side looked much better, but yesterday I think I hit it with the sprinkler wrong, and it knocked it over. I tried propping it up, but it's not looking good. My question: Should I dig up the tuber and inspect it and see whether there are any more viable tubers or signs of rot? Do you think any new green growth could still emerge at this late date? Would it help the green growth to emerge if I were to remove the sick looking green growth still above ground, by detaching it from the plant? Or would any potential green growth come up on its own and would digging up the tuber to inspect it slow any green growth from emerging? The chickens also bad dug a much larger dahlia, that has massive growth, and it was unaffected by their actions. But they sure damaged the smaller dahlia. This is a different dahlia, in my picture below, "Procyon." It was not dug by the chickens and is doing well.

 

[GardenGeisha]

I blamed the cats, initially, for the digging, which I did not see. But my neighbor said he saw the chickens doing it. He said they looked so blissfully happy, digging in the dirt, that he didn't want to stop them...

 

[GardenGeisha]

While the leaves were surviving, before I knocked them over with the sprinkler yesterday, they seemed pretty tightly closed. They didn't open fully like the dahlia leaves in the picture above. It was as if they were conserving energy or something? They weren't limp, exactly, just not open. I suspect these leaves are also just barely connected to their tuber below, especially after the sprinkler episode. Should I leave them alone and shade them from the sun? It is to be in the 90s today.

 

[aftermidnight]

How big is the dahlia and in what size pot? I think digging it up will just stress it more so if it was mine I'd leave it alone and hope for the best, maybe put a stake in for support. Any leaves or stems that are broken I'd snip off, still lots of growing season left for it to recuperate.
Annette

 

[GardenGeisha]

Thanks for your suggestions, aftermidnight. The dahlia is only about 5" tall with just a few leaves, in a big pot. It had a second set of 5" tall leaves that became severed from the tuber, and the chickens detached a tuber.

 

[GardenGeisha]

I put some fertilizer on it yesterday, to try to encourage new growth. I should not have done so, considering it was stressed, but I thought it might perk it up. But it didn't.