Ruptured cruciate ligament...

blackcob

blackcob

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...please tell me that isn't as bad as it sounds? :(

Somebody went haring off after a squirrel today - fell over at top speed - got up not weight bearing on a hind leg. Able to squeeze and flex it all over so fairly sure it's not broken but she was so unable to walk I had to carry her back to the road and get OH to bring the car and pick us up.

Had one of those adrenaline-fuelled super-strength moments to carry 25kg of sibe half a mile. :o

Have left her at the vet's pending sedation and x-ray. :(
 
Oh no, sorry to read that. Well if she was a professional footballer you'd be looking at 6 months off :D Sorry stupid joke. No experience of it at all, hope it heals quickly!
 
If you google it, you will get really dis-heartened I'm afraid. However, my mum's labrador ruptured both of his last year. The vet quoted her £1500 per leg to operate on them - unfortunately her insurance only covered her for £1000 so she decided to seek out alternatives to the operation.
She took Paddy swimming once a week at a local hydrotherapy pool and she just walked him on a lead for a couple of weeks. After about 4 weeks of swimming and gentle exercise, his lameness was barely detectable.
Now he is as good as he has ever been - and mum is £2000 better off!

Having said all that, a colleague of mine has just had her JRT operated on for its ruptured cruciate and he is now doing really well just a couple of weeks after the op.

Healing vibes on their way to your doggy.
 
Slightly different but our fat lab, was diagnosed with a ruptured cruciate a couple of months ago, xray showed that it was an old injury, and therefore not really an option to operate. In addition her hips are shot so the op would't really have made a huge difference, so we managed it with rest and anti inflamms and working on an aqua treadmill. The treadmill is so that she uses the leg whilst the water supports her weight, with swimming she can favour the leg.
Fingers crossed xxx
 
Oh no, BC, poor Dax. Mattilda's Sage is currently recovering from a cruciate op, and her Dexter had it done too, and has made a good recovery, she could probably tell you about the op. I have heard of quite a few working/agility dogs who have made a full recovery after the op so hopefully even if the cruciate has gone it won't be too bad. Keep us updated.
 
Oh no!! Let's hope it's not as bad as you fear. If it is a cruciate then it is repairable. Dex has had both of his done and Sage is 4 weeks in to her first one. I am fast becoming an expert!!
There are 2 ways to deal with the cruciate. One involves a band of some sort which basically becomes the ligament. For bigger dogs apparently this is not the best way.
Mine have both had the 2nd method. This involves plating the leg so that it is in the correct position and hey presto....dog becomes sound and pain free.
It is expensive. I have paid around 3 grand each time plus the cost of x-rays which was about another thousand (2 lots).
The recovery period is 6 to 8 weeks of minimal movement/exercise (it is doable).
Please feel free to PM me. Cayla also had her Regan done.
 
If she has done her cruciate it sounds like a truly traumatic rupture, which has a better prognosis than rupture due to degeneration of the ligament (her age/breed doesn't really fit with this too).

Hopefully your vet will advise immediate surgery - conservative management is only really appropriate in little dogs (<15kg) and the longer the joint is left unstable without treatment the more likely she is to get arthritis later on. Quite a few big dogs (rotties etc) do the 2nd cruciate after surgery because of the stress on the other limb, but in some ways this is better as it means the other leg can be fixed while the original repair is still new and strong!

There are a few different surgeries to fix it, all of which have the same recovery time. I think full recovery after surgery can take around 12-16 weeks, so your looking at some rather testing times ahead, but hopefully she will come out the other side ok. I've seen a few cruciate ops done now, and the dogs have all done ok afterwards, including those who were having surgery on a 2nd leg.

Good luck.
 
Well, good news is she can come home tonight. :)

X-ray is clear and the vet is hopeful that it's not an ACL rupture but rather a traumatic strain to the hip joint? :confused: I only spoke briefly to her on the phone, leaving now to pick her up so I'll have more info in a bit.

She is insured, thank god, it was the first thing the vet asked - she did warn me that surgery would be in the thousands. Thankfully physiotherapy and hydrotherapy is also covered, should she need it.
 
Phew, huge sigh of relief for you.
I love to see my dogs hooning around (they are both major league hooners) but given their history find myself looking away sometimes!!
Hope Dax is back to her normal self before too long and your vets bill is relatively short!! :D
 
If it's not ruptured, take super care with her from now on! I know it's hard!

My dog had the tibia plateau levelling op (like Mattilda's dog) and her fees were the same as mine-both legs and the 2nd not covered by insurance. He had his done 3 and 4 years ago and is now starting to show signs of arthritic changes-to be expected with metal plates holding the joint together.:(
 
Well, the x-ray was clear - 'cos they'd already shoved her hip back in. :eek:

Apparently when they put her on the table one leg was loads longer than the other, classic dislocation, so they clunked it back in and confirmed with the x-ray that everything's in place.

Poor bugger is extremely sore, still totally unable to bear weight on it, and had to be carried out for a wee (and then dither for five minutes because she couldn't squat). :(
 
Bless her! Did they tell you about the towel under belly trick so you support her weight while she wees? Or you can hold her under her belly. Stick her on glucosamine to encourage the hip and ligaments to heal quickly.

Have you got a crate to pop her in so she can't run round too much at home?
 
cinammontoast said:
Bless her! Did they tell you about the towel under belly trick so you support her weight while she wees? Or you can hold her under her belly.
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She used to be a really shy wee-er and is sometimes still a bit daft about it so she wouldn't let me help. :( There's a crate in the shed but for now she's glued to her bed, fast asleep, she's been dosed with the good stuff and has plenty of painkillers so fingers crossed she'll stay quiet. Got to go back on Saturday but I foresee a good few weeks of being housebound at this rate.
 
Hope she is on the mend soon, on the bright side you'll have plenty of time to do EVEN MORE focus training with her :p

Must have been horrible to see, but glad it is something relatively fixable :)
 
She's going to drive me mad. :p Not sure it's possible to do any more focus work, she already has to make eye contact for anything she could possibly want to do in the house, lol.

What I would like to know is how a dog manages to fall over on a totally flat field - it's a sports ground, they play cricket on it, so there's not a damn thing to trip on. :confused:

Next squirrel I see on the road is a squashed squirrel. :o
 
Just probably so excited she went a-over-t, seen it happen before, especially with young dogs and particularly if she was already a bit tired from her walk, like young horses, they forget where to put their feet sometimes.

At least she didn't think she was super-dog and was able to jump/fly from a great height :rolleyes:
 
She's scared of heights - she even death-grips the table at the vets in case she falls off the edge. :D

She's fallen over many times going downhill too fast, proper un-coordinated puppy legs flying everywhere despite my best efforts to contain her exuberance. :o But only my daft dog could fall over so spectacularly on the flat...

Been a properly stressful day, my dad's family have come over from Germany and I'd promised the little girl that she could come and ride my schwarze Pferde* this afternoon, so had a good blub in the car on the way to the yard and then had to plaster on a smile while I led the bugger round for an hour.

*Disclaimer: My german is limited to what little girls shout around horses. My kleinepferde(?) was very well behaved, at least. Achtung, schnell, das ist verboten. :p
 
Guten jungen (sp) is good boy. I asked this when I brought Whisk over from Germany. Haven't used that particular phrase too often though. He learnt English swear words much more quickly. :D
 
Oh poor Dax :( I hope it heals completely and quickly, or else how will she be able to do the Siberian 'I'm going this way, bye bye hoomin' dash? Give her a cuddle from me :)
 
CaveCanem said:
At least she didn't think she was super-dog and was able to jump/fly from a great height :rolleyes:
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Mine did that from a cliff in the Hemlockstone bit in Nottingham-20 feet while we screamed and screamed. He was fine, the little swine.

blackcob said:
*Disclaimer: My german is limited to what little girls shout around horses. My kleinepferde(?) was very well behaved, at least. Achtung, schnell, das ist verboten. :p
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I had to learn all the voice commands when I got my Hanoverian -he stood still when I did it in English but went straight off if I did it in German! His ears would go antenna-like crazy when I spoke to him in German. :)
 
cinammontoast said:
I had to learn all the voice commands when I got my Hanoverian -he stood still when I did it in English but went straight off if I did it in German! His ears would go antenna-like crazy when I spoke to him in German. :)
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Must try speaking to mine in Welsh sometime. In my head, if she could speak, she'd have an atrociously broad Welsh accent. :D

Thankfully she is immune to the delighted screeches of little blonde German girls and was an exemplary riding school pony for the day. She was also sporting a tidemark, little girls can only brush so far up! :p

The patient is finally awake, shuffling to and from sleeping spots and huffing at me because she's bored. Just carried her out to a wee spot and she lurched back into the house herself, putting a bit of weight on the leg every few strides, which has reassured me that the damn thing hasn't popped back out as it's more than she could do yesterday. Have lured her back to bed with a cow's foot to keep her busy.

Fingers crossed tomorrow's x-rays show it's still in there and she won't need surgery to keep it in. :)
 
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