ACL

azgundog wrote:
Go Dogs - I find your vets comment interesting "bad breeding & overweight"
I have friends with field trial & hunting dogs that are in prime shape with excellent breeding and they have had ACL injuries. I think just like people they step the wrong way and pop it goes.

I agree that breeding and weight are huge factors in an increase in ACL injuries, at least in my experience and our practice. That being said, a well bred, optimal weight, athletic dog can injure a knee with just the right (wrong :B) torque on the joint.

Doug, DVM

I suspect a couple of other factors as well. Like humans it does not have to be one big trauma. It can be a serious of smaller traumas, until the ccl fininaly lets go.

Also dogs can be pretty stotic, they can not talk, and do no express when they are having some discomfort.

But they are also pack animals with millions of years of evolution. Were they to express pain they would have been cut out of the pack, and left to starve.

So I believe they tend to go on as long as they can, without expressing pain. until it gets to that point they can no longer go on.

In hindsight I believe my dog was giving me signals that the knee was sore. But being a dumb human I did not pick up on them. Something I regret.

Go Dogs - I find your vets comment interesting "bad breeding & overweight"
I have friends with field trial & hunting dogs that are in prime shape with excellent breeding and they have had ACL injuries. I think just like people they step the wrong way and pop it goes.

Go Dogs, you have a point. When I was a kid we rarely ever saw a purebred dog, most were mixed breeds as spay/neuter was not common. Still, I don't remember any dogs with with disabilities. Nobody in our neighborhood would've had the $$$ to afford surgery for a pet. I assume that injured dogs were considered terminal and disposed of, one way or another. There was always a replacement just around the corner. :(

I might add, since I've been through this twice. The specialist that we went to, did a lot of TPLO procedures. The waiting room was full of dogs with the same 'hair cut' on a back leg, and the underbelly sling. Big dogs, little dogs, mixed breeds, pure-breeds, overweight, old, young-you name it.
It seems like an epidemic! Never heard of it when we were young, and we had lots of active dogs. Maybe they just never called it an ACL tear, and maybe they didn't have a surgical fix-but it sure is common, now!
I asked the Vet tech about why so many dogs with ACL injuries. She said that she figures their office had done every Saint Bernard, Great Pyrenees, and English Mastiff in the Tri-state area. So, she basically blamed the breed type. Well, that didn't explain all the other dogs in the waiting room.
I asked the vet. He said it was because of bad breeding and overweight dogs.
Whatever, if I knew a young vet student-I would tell he/she to go into ACL surgery repairs!

I was not one to jump into the surgery as well. My pup has not been the same since April where we did the rest and restrict for 3 weeks and she seemed better. But even playing outside it was 3-4 runs the fetch and she was done. This was nothing normal for her to be that inactive with fetch when before April we could be in the yard for an hour before she would go in an lay down.

Her energy started to ramp up 3 weeks ago, and 2 weeks ago is when she started wincing in clear pain and holding her weight off the leg. By the time I got her to the specialist I chose (one of 3 referral orthopedics my vet worked with) she was putting weight on it again but it was clear there was no running as the knee was not stable even walking or turning.

I picked her up this morning after the surgery yesterday and this practice standard procedure to keep them overnight for monitoring. She is laying on the main level, pretty much tired as all heck and I am just trying to keep her comfortable. She will be in her crate when I am not here to keep an eye on her, but we are looking at 8-12 week recovery, it stinks but I already been given the OK for her to go with me camping as long as the same rules that applied at home apply in the RV.

I figured there were a few out there that had gone thru it too and I really appreciate all the replies. Lucie is a 3.5 yr old 18 lb shih tze / maltese mix. She was very active playing with her big brother until this. The meds seem to be helping a great deal. Since I am retired I am home with her everyday and do not let her climb, jump and limit her outside walks to a degree. She has figured it out that whenever we go upstairs or outside she waits until I pick her up. I think it is getting better but as Dr. Doug and others suggested I may wait a little longer than a couple of weeks but not too much longer. Since she is so young and has so many years left we want her quality of life to be as good as possible. Our vet suggested the "fishing line repair" as opposed to other means of repair as being the most successful at her age. We are going to postpone any travels though as most of our travels include beach, water and sand until later on in the fall.

This is one of those medical issues that is different for every dog and every owner. In our case, I had moved in my office chair, not knowing our chi mix was lying under it, and her foot became trapped by a wheel. In jerking away, Rosie yelped and tore her ACL. Our vet told us to crate or confine her for several weeks and the injury would probably would get better without surgery. That sounded good, but the dog soon told us different. Her eyes watered with pain and she was confused and upset at not being able to use her leg. Confining her only made it worse. We took her to a veterinary orthopedic surgeon who x-rayed it, checked her and over gave us our options. We opted for the surgery, and were never sorry. Rosie did develop a little arthritis in that leg after a few years, but never had a problem with the other ACL.

Bless her heart. You're wonderful parents to the fur babies.

Sorry to hear about Lucie's torn ACL (CCL). My 9.8 lb., 10-11 year old chihuahua, Rascal, is now day 4 post-op from bilateral ACL tears. The rehab is harder to deal with than the surgery itself. After his right leg tear was diagnosed (he had been having more and more problems jumping and stair climbing), we were trying to keep him from jumping on the couch and placed a gate in front of the stairs. Things were going well until he was determined to come upstairs to see me and jumped the gate, thereby tearing the left ACL. Due to his size, the orthopedic surgeon determined the older "fishing line" repair would be best. it was my decision to do both knees at once since it would mean one anesthesia and one rehab period. The price was around $2500 for one and $3400 for two at once, so that was a factor also.

Keeping your pet's activities as limited as they need to be to allow a conservative medical approach to stabilizing the knee is very difficult and requires constant vigilance for quite a few months. Having to keep our Rascal in a crate, which he HATES, has been sad and exhausting, but after 2 weeks he'll be allowed limited walks and start physical therapy.

I hope whatever you decide, Lucie gets to feeling better real soon.