Help! My dog has a torn ACL!

[X] said:
In my case, the vet said it could be caused by
- jumping/large steps
- running/activity
- being run over by a larger dog

In our case, we have all three happen often.
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For acute primary injuries, yes.

The majority of cruciate injuries are the result of chronic degeneration, which probably results from abnormal loading in dogs with excessively straight hind legs.
 
Gus isn't really a high-energy dog, just a high-milage one. I think the injury happened when she was walking on the side of a small hill. She just did a little stumble motion, and that was it.
For three days after the surgery, her left leg was wrapped up in a Ace bandage. Since I live on the second floor, I had to use a large bath towel like a sling across her middle to help her up and down the stairs. After she go the bandage off, she didn't need any help with stairs. I just keep a close eye on where she's going, she doesn't need to go off any steep drops.
 
Haywire said:
Gus isn't really a high-energy dog, just a high-milage one. I think the injury happened when she was walking on the side of a small hill. She just did a little stumble motion, and that was it.
For three days after the surgery, her left leg was wrapped up in a Ace bandage. Since I live on the second floor, I had to use a large bath towel like a sling across her middle to help her up and down the stairs. After she go the bandage off, she didn't need any help with stairs. I just keep a close eye on where she's going, she doesn't need to go off any steep drops.
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That would be typical of the chronic degenerative version where the final instability arises from an apparently trivial incident.
 
We got Mall-o-dog back from the vet yesterday. She's limping around on three legs, of course, and would lick her staples clean off if we didn't keep an Elizabethan collar on her.

We have to give her four pills a day. No fun.

Now I'm wishing we went with the homeopathic remedy. That way, it wouldn't matter whether she actually swallowed it or not.
 
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I feel for you dog, she's so pretty looking. Reminds me of my long lost doggy...

I did find your comment about not giving her the homeopathic remedy funny, but I also have a pill hint.

We had a very large dog (he's my momma's doggy, and lives with her now) whose name was Beron, and for a while he had a mosquito-borne illness. He quit eating altogether, and lost 20 pounds.

We tried vienna sausages to get him to take the pills, and that worked. Then he figured that trick out. *Sigh* okay, so... we hid them in another kind of food... something sweet. I don't remember what it was that we used, but it worked about as well. He figured it out, and would spit the pill out.

Then we stuck the pills in a little bit of velveeta. He couldn't separate the pill from velveeta, and he finally started eating the pills and gaining weight regularly (this was a 'he will die if he doesn't take these pills and start eating' problem). I'm sure it's not a vet recommended trick, but I thought I'd share that. (We didn't use much, just enough to coat the pill.)

I'm sure another processed cheese would work, and I know they have pill pockets in the pet stores, and I'm sure there's many other ways to get your doggy to take pills, but velveeta is so thick and sticky that they can't separate the pill from the 'good stuff'.

Hope your baby gets better soon.
 
My dog had TPLO surgery in 2001. She's about 11 years old now, and the surgery was a success, it seems. She and I didn't meet until 2003. Her surgery was paid for by Pets in Need in Redwood City, CA, as they obtained her from the Humane Society and then found out she had a problem with her leg. Pets in need paid about $2,400 for her surgery and meds - and then kept her for months at their center, and followed a strict rehab schedule. I only learned this because my vet in CA gave me a copy of her records. If anyone out there is looking for a charity to give money to, this place sure does deserve some!

Anyway - just wanted to let you know that it was successful, but expensive. She weighs about 60 lbs and is an active dog.

I interpretted cranial as "of the cranium", which confused me in the OPs reference to the cranial cruciate ligament! :) I would opt for "rostral" instead, but cranial makes sense, too.
 
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You're lucky she doesn't need Tommy John surgery. That would keep her out until next season.
 
Lilith said:
I interpretted cranial as "of the cranium", which confused me in the OPs reference to the cranial cruciate ligament! :) I would opt for "rostral" instead, but cranial makes sense, too.
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Rostral would not really be a better anatomical term elsewhere than the skull because of its derivation. Rostral \Ros"tral\, a. [L. rostralis, fr. rostrum a beak; cf. F. rostral.] http://dictionary.die.net/rostral
 
aggle-rithm said:
There's a 100% chance that I didn't want to hear that.
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No, no, no, my dog, Gus. Sorry about the confusion.:o

The day she got her Ace wrap off, she also got her own Elizabethan collar. On the way home, I was feeling pretty sad for us both. She looked like a clown-dog, and I owned a clown-dog. I rolled down her window so she could get some air, and she stuck her head out, collar and all. The wind blew her head around a little bit more than I think she expected. That cheered me up a bit.
Cheese and dog medicine, a great mix.
 
Badly Shaved Monkey said:
Rostral would not really be a better anatomical term elsewhere than the skull because of its derivation. Rostral \Ros"tral\, a. [L. rostralis, fr. rostrum a beak; cf. F. rostral.] http://dictionary.die.net/rostral
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Yep. I learned "rostral-nostril" to remember the direction. And since most of my anatomy training pertains to things in the skull, I hadn't considered that the general rostral direction might need a new term away from the head. I love learning new things!
 
biostudent said:
Awww, poor thing. I hope she gets well soon.
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She's starting to get back to her old, precocious self. She figured out yesterday that, since she's not allowed to lick the staples, she can roll onto her side and rub her leg on the grass when we take her outside.

She's also learned that the Elizabethan collar makes a handy tool to torment the cats. She just runs up to a cat and scoops them up.

The cats are not thrilled with this development.
 
I'm just a poor struggling pathology type, but I thought "Anterior Cruciate Ligament" kind of said it all?

Rolfe.
 
Sorry I am late to this thread. It is difficult to determine the best treatment for an anterior cruciate ligament tear for several reasons. One problem is no one (almost no one) does randomized controlled studies on this problem. You have to look at short term and long term outcomes. Some procedures such as TPLO seem to be good short term except have possible more serious side effects than other procedures. Long term all joints undergo degeneration. There are new non steroidal anti-inflammatories that are better than aspirin. Physical therapy can make a big difference in the outcome of surgeries for this problem. As far as nutrition goes there isn't enough scientific information about most nutrition and most diseases to say anything meaningful about it. Fish oil has anti-inflammatory actions however does that make any difference in the course of the disease? (unknown) Lastly some dogs will do well enough without surgery so you need to have randomized controls to say something more meaningful.
 
Unfortunately the disease does not lend itself to good quality studies. No one wants their pet to be the control.
 
Well, Mallie was making great progress until yesterday morning, when she suddenly came up lame. She won't put any weight on the leg at all.

Then yesterday, my wife noticed that her leg was starting to swell and was warm to the touch.

This morning, the suture wound started to ooze pus.

She is back at the vet's. Still waiting for word on what's gone wrong.
 
Erk. I think we get the basic idea.

It takes two days to get a sensitivity report though.

Rolfe.
 
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