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Jazzy did something to her back leg and she favored it for half day or so. It went away so we resumed working the following week. She was fine. But when she went back to daycare, the limping returned, only for an hour or so. I checked her throughly but didn't notice anything unusual. I didn't want her to get sore from the daycare so I haven't taken her back to daycare since. I played with her for two minutes yesterday and the limping came back. She'd put weight on it but favors a little.

 

I took her to the vet this afternoon. She was too stiff to be examined so I'm taking her back tomorrow morning. They'll sedate her just a little so she'll be more relaxed. In the mean time, she'll be on full bed rest for 2 weeks minimum :rolleyes: and be put on anti-inflamatory med. The vet also suggested x-raying but I'm going to wait on that until 2 weeks later. I did my research and talked to another vet. My guess is that she has a partial tear on her CCL based on the symptoms. If it was a complete tear then she wouldn't put weight on it. On one of the studies I found, it says once a dog has a tear in a ligament, it would never heal. It always end up in a complete tear... and that medication and rest will not heal it. What does this mean??? Does she need to retire sooner? I feel so terrible for not taking her to the vet when she hurt it the very first time. I didn't think it was as serious as it diminished quickly.

 

When I talked to the other vet earlier, she said that sometimes it's better if it's a complete tear so that it can be 'fixed' surgically. If it's partial, it's harder to diagnose and 'fix'. I know there are some of you who went through similar things. Can you please share your experience? I tried to search CCL and ACL but it won't let me search a word with less than 3 letters.

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You can still fix a partial tear with surgery. Don't know why someone would tell you otherwise. There are, however, may different surgical options so you need to find a good ortho surgeon to find the right one for your dog.

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ACL = anterior cruciate ligament for your search. CCL = ? cruciate ligament I'd find a good ortho surgeon. Our BC Brandy tore her ACL several years ago and it was repaired with TPLO surgery; she was doing agility again in less than 5 months. The longer you wait for a repair, the more chance there is of arthritis setting in.

Barb S

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Barb,

Did your ortho surgeon mention anything about the weight of Brandy? My dog is 33lbs and here's what I just found. (see the last sentence)

 

Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy® (TPLO) is a technique that utilizes a different approach to treating cranial cruciate ligament injury. Rather than trying to oppose the forces acting on the cranial cruciate ligament in the normal knee joint, a TPLO® eliminates these forces -- and thus the need for a cranial cruciate ligament -- by changing the anatomy of the knee joint. This procedure requires that a bone cut be made in the tibia, which is then stabilized with a specialized bone plate. Only veterinarians that have been trained and licensed by the developer of the technique are permitted to perform this surgery. In general, dogs weighing less than 40 pounds are too small for this procedure.

 

More and more I read it sounds like ACL/CCL partial tear. I'm taking her in for x-rays and exams tomorrow but will definetely contact one of the ortho doctors. The sooner the better. X-rays would show if there's any signs of arthritis at this point.

 

Our BC Brandy tore her ACL several years ago and it was repaired with TPLO surgery;
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My dog-walking friend has a 4-year-old lab who was, on and off, kind of stiff and limpy in general. A few months ago she started favoring one rear leg even more than usual. Vet visits, arthitis diagnosis, pain meds, and then WHAM, she screamed and couldn't put any weight on the leg. Seems that the partial tear had become complete, just as your vet predicted your dog's would. Ditto with a lab/PB mix just down the road. No vet-level experience, but seems as though lots of young dogs who start out limpy end up tearing it through.

 

Mary

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TPLO can be done on dogs less than 40 lbs. My acd has had TPLO on both knees and she was weighing the first time at 36 lbs and the second time 28 lbs. She is 10 yrs old and is still playing flyball after surgery.

 

Since you want to continue search and rescue - I would get to an othro vet ASAP. Xrays will only show arthritic changes or other abnormalities, they will not show a CCL tear. Some vets will repair partially torn ccls but many will not.

 

When Foster tore her ccls, they were both partially torn for a long time before she blew them out 2 years apart. We chose to allow her to continue her flyball activities and if she blew the knee, she blew it and we would do surgery. TPLO surgery is not cheap. Now I would explain to the ortho vet you have a S&R dog and they may (slight may) give you a discount.

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X-rays came back normal. We ruled out arthritis and joint problems. The vet says he couldn't determine by examining her if it was the muscle or the ligament. He thinks she pulled muscle and suggested 2 week bed-rest and if she didn't get better, then take her to a ortho doc. I called 2 board certified ortho surgeons and made an appointment with one of them for am exam in two weeks - just in case. They said it'll be around $3000-4500 for a surgery. It was good that I went to my vet first as the ortho doctor wouldn't see me unless I was refered. If TPLO is necessary, I can take the xrays from today. The girls at the office said Jazzy entertained them by showing off her tricks all mornng. Thank you for all the tips and suggestions.

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I'm certainly no expert in joint issues - but once had (well, still have!) a dog who pulled her iliopsoas (the "p" in that weird word is silent...and it's basically a groin muscle.), and it took 3 vets and 3 months to get it diagnosed. THAT was a long three months!!! Hopefully your appt. with ortho will check for that. There was no surgery to fix - just rest, certain exercises, and a long work back up to full performance (which she did in spades!). But all the rest in the world wouldn't have fixed it for long without the exercises. Best of luck to you.

 

diane

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I want a HUGE disclaimer here - this was my dog, her particular situation, and I have no idea if it would be appropriate for other iliopsoas strains, let alone any other muscle. Maybe it mattered WHERE on the muscle the problem was? In any case...

 

First thing we did (several times, actually, until we got a good dx), was two weeks of crate rest; two or three (I don't recall) weeks of short flat leash walks; then longer leash walks. Then the specific exercises:

 

1) walking sideways on a slope. This was hard to find! I finallly found a soccer field, that was "recessesed" on two sides, so it was an even angle, good footing (grass), and long enough to do some good. We'd walk with the strained muscle on the downhill side (to stretch it out) around the two sides, then back on the top of the hill/flat, then back. As I recall, we worked up to about 20 minutes doing this. And after about 5 minutes of warm-up on the flat.

 

2) walking in water, about chest deep on the dog. This was harder! It was summer, so we'd go to the local lake. But I had to put a harness on the dog, keep myself between her and shore (since she wanted to RUN so badly!), and try to avoid rocks. Ugh. An underwater treadmill would have been great, but we didn't have regular access to one.

 

3) minimal massage and stretching. This was only after several weeks of 1 & 2 above. I'm sure the vet didn't think anyone but himself should stretch the leg, but I did it gently until there was just a hint of resistance, then just held it for a short time.

 

Vet did say that swimming was NOT good for this. Dogs "doggie paddle" with their front legs, and their back legs tend to flail about without purposeful movement. Mine does use her back legs, but there's little resistance and coordination going on, so I do believe this is true.

 

As a sidelight to #1 above: this was a school field, and road access was on two sides. The main side was near tennis courts, etc. and there was a sign there that said "no dogs allowed." I never parked there. I parked on the other side, behind the VoTech building, where the sign said, "no pets allowed." Mine of course was not a "pet" but a "sports dog," so I figured it was OK. We just always went early in the morning, and never got any flack about it. Whew.

 

It took several months before this dog was really back to normal, and I'm always quite careful now about her slipping on wet rocks (which is how it started), etc.

 

diane

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Interesting. My dog was diagnosed with a "probable" iliopsoas strain and the exercises you describe are about what i was told to do with him. It's funny, for what is supposedly such a common injury, there's not a lot of info out there about it. Mine ended up being a different muscle all together. And yeah, i understand about it taking months (and months and months in our case).

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If it turns out to be a partial tear of the cranial cruciate ligament sometimes a dog can recover with out surgery (conservative management). The trick here is for complete rest for at least 3 -4 months to allow scar tissue to build up and stabilise the joint. The tear doesnt heal but scar tissue that forms will stabilise the joint. This can been successfull especially for the lighter dogs but you have to be rigourous in your mangement of the recovery process

 

My ACD had two partial tears which were misdiagnosed by the local vet. I decided to have TPLO surgery which was an easy choice for me becuase one of my family members is a surgeon who diagnosed it for me and it didnt cost much. I decided not to go down the conservative road just in case after 3-4 months of complete rest it didnt work and I would then have to go through the same time frame for recovery from surgery. Today she is fit and still doing agility.

 

There are two yahoo sites which deal with the conservative and the surgical approach.

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  • 3 weeks later...

We had a consultation with an ortho-vet today. Turned out her CCL was good but it was her iliopsoas muscle. I was ready to schedule her TPLO/TTA surgery but we didn't have to!

He gave me a different type of NSAIDs to try. I am leaving the country tomorrow to take care of my mom after a surgery and I was getting really stressed out about leaving her for two weeks. I am so glad I took her to the specialist.

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We had a consultation with an ortho-vet today. Turned out her CCL was good but it was her iliopsoas muscle. I was ready to schedule her TPLO/TTA surgery but we didn't have to!

 

Same thing happened to me last week with one of my dogs. I was agonizing over a probably $3500 surgery and it's his iliopsoas muscle. I think I'll probably have 1-2 months of rehab ahead of me but that's better than surgery.

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Thank you Barb.

The trip to Japan was much more smooth than the trip to Australia (13 hours instead of 60 hours). Mom is doing well and she was surprised and happy to see me. Leaving Jazzy with my husband was hard but I know he will look after her. It's probably better that I'm not there for two weeks while she rests. I miss her so much... I can't wait to give her 'snuggle'.

Hi Inu - just wanted to say I hope your mother recovers well - and that although it's a pain (literally) it's good that you've got an ortho vet diagnosis and treatment plan for poor Jazz.
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