So Zak may look the wounded soldier but the dog with it really bad is Tara. For a while Tara has shown sporadic lameness in her back legs especially on getting up from being asleep. Initially we thought it was poor circulation from lying on the leg, massage seemed to clear it up. Recently it has become worse and is evident in her left back leg. These kinds of signs are always worrying in a large breed and especially when Wolfhounds have a history of joint problems.

A visit to the vets this morning and the vet thinks that she has a Cruciate ligament rupture (the same as sports people get). This is likely to have either been caused by landing badly or a slow degeneration of the ligament. Given it has crept up on Tara I guess that it is due to her size and breed.

Tara will be going for an X-ray tomorrow to confirm what the problem is. I presume that they will look at both knees as if it is breed rather than injury related it may be present in both legs.

In essence the problem is that the ligament is the one that stops the thigh bone from popping out forwards. Although it is not serious at the moment if not treated the joint will bow outwards damaging the bone and cartilage causing osteoarthritis.



According to the vet (and my research on the web) there are 2 treatments.

The first which is only really done in small dogs is to put a tieback in place, but this is not likely to work in a dog the size of Tara.



The other and the one the vet is recommending is to take a bit off the bone so that the knee is pushing down flat rather than outwards (Tibial plateau levelling osteotom). The TPLO surgery levels the tibial plateau and eliminates the need for the ruptured cranial cruciate ligament.

This will make the leg more stable and arrest the decline. This appears to have a reasonably high success rate but will require 8 weeks of lead exercise and slowly building up the leg. This in Tara could be hell as she is an incredibly active dog and gets very frustrated when she can't run and play.

Obviously the x-ray tomorrow will tell us if this is the problem, but the vet was pretty certain.

Has anyone else had any experience of this problem?

One solution for post op recovery is hydrotherapy (if we can get the vet to refer us). This may give Tara the exercise she needs and I have found a place in Fife http://www.caninehydrotherapycentre.com/ that does it. Has anyone used hydrotherapy?

Just a bit scared as the surgery sounds like a big thing.

Claire

-- Edited by silverhippo at 13:37, 2007-12-04

-- Edited by silverhippo at 14:28, 2007-12-05