Dogs!!
9We have a 1.5 year old mostly lab dog with severe hip dysplasia in both hips. One hip had no socket whatsoever and she got FHO surgery on Tuesday on that one. She came home yesterday, is seriously doped up, and is starting to put some weight on the leg. Although the leg does this little jig everytime she uses it - apparently this is normal - and it kinda cracks me up... anyways, just glad our little girl is home. It was a sad, nerve-wrecking tuesday... If I remember right, meh has a lot of dog owners, right? Anybody else dealing with hip dysplasia? ... or just, you know, have any dog related stories, since dogs are awesome?
oh, and I'll go ahead and thank @Pavlov for her surgery going perfectly.
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So, Loki is a 3 year old Husky/GSD/?? who dogged too hard and tore out the front ligaments holding his knee joints in place - both rear legs. Had to have bi-lateral TTA surgery to fix them. Both legs, same time. He walked out of there 2 days later on his own feet, but it took 5 months to get him to fully healed.
He was fine for the first week - good drugs will do that. He was miserable for the next 3 weeks, frustrated for the next few months. But he's okay now - and a few weeks ago, he put on his turbo speed for me and he's stilled damned fast - not so tight on the turns though.
Letting someone knock out and cut open your furry family members is nerve wracking, but it's for the best and I'm glad everything went well. Your pup will heal, especially after a perfect surgery. You have the well wishes of our family - human and 4 legged.
Now, pictures! (Seriously, make with the pics of the puppup!)
@Thumperchick Our other dog, a collie mutt, does the turbo speed. She's 5 now and I know she's going to bust something eventually.
She is pretty cute too... damn you for asking for dog pictures... This one is pretty good at wearing hats, so it's just a matter of time before I find those and start posting them...![][1] [1]:
@Thumperchick Gold Standard Dubradoodle? I know I could google it, but… what's a GSD?
@brhfl German Sheppard Dog
@Mehntok She is super adorable!
Here's pre-surgery. She's just about the cutest that every was @Thumperchick
And yesterday, with the sad post surgery eyes. Still pretty cute though.
@Mehntok Aww, poor baby!
@Mehntok I think she's just embarrassed by the bad bikini wax job. ; ) Cuddles and good wishes on her speedy recovery.
@Mehntok My cat Mowgli & I both send our best. (Mowgli has these moments of generosity...)
@beachbum At least she's not wearing the Cone of Shame.
@SSteve she gets the cone at night. she gets the cone all night long.
@Mehntok the sad, post-surgery eyes are heartbreaking!
@Mehntok, oh my goodness, that face. I hope she's feeling better!
We adopted Swiper in 2009, at 7.5 years old. He already had arthritis in his back, a torn knee ligament (not operable per a specialist), and early dysplasia, but he could handle stairs, walked a couple of miles at a stretch (with a bobble), bunny-hopped to run and did just fine.
We had him on glucosamine/chondroitin, MSM, fish oil, and various prescription NSAIDs over time and while there's no way to know for sure, we think the supplements slowed down the degradation of his joints. Towards the end we switched out the glucosamine/chondroitin for HA due to other issues, but he did fine with that too. We also monitored his weight and controlled his diet; you could really see the difference in his mobility with a 2-3 pound variation (we aimed for 54 pounds).
Watch your dogs weight! It really matters a lot once the joints are having problems.
He got a little slower, and couldn't walk as far (we maxed out at 1/2 mile his last few months). You could feel the grinding in his hips... I carried him upstairs to the bedroom each night, but he could get himself back down.
We lost him last month to cancer. Right up to his last day he was walking ok, snarfing food, guarding the house, and being the best dog ever. If we get another dog with joint problems and arthritis we'll likely try the same supplements again.
@duodec I'm sorry for your loss, but thanks for sharing. Yes, once we discovered her hip problems we got her on a strict diet and got her from the upper 50s to around 50. We're obviously quite scared considering Ollie is still just a puppy, but it feels good to finally be having the treatments done.
@Mehntok Sounds like you're doing well by her. I hope you have many many years of happy Pack togetherness and Ollie keeps her mobility. There are options... our bouncing Bonnie Rocket Dog had nerve problems that disabled her rear legs. We got her a rear support wheeled cart (Doggon wheels) that kept her mobile for a while. Then we became her support... she could walk around the block with us carrying her hind end with a belly sling (much easier with a girl dog!). It was a lot of work but she was a brilliant, happy dog and adapted to it well. We didn't have the option with Bonnie but since then a hydrotherapy place has opened up. The dog is on a treadmill in a tank filled with water up to a certain level; that supports the dog and reduces any impact. Some folks at our vets' office have used the service and say it seems to help the dog without exacerbating joint wear and pain because it is very safe exercise. If there is one near you perhaps its worth some research.
@Mehntok Yeah, what @duodec says. Our dog had elbow dysplasia surgery and the underwater treadmill did him great. Also check with equine vets. They can put less water in and use it with dogs. Jemaine got his therapy on a horse treadmill.
@duodec Hydrotherapy! Yes, we do that. We were doing it before her surgery to strengthen the back legs, which she had stopped relying on and needed to be stronger to improve the chances of success. In a couple weeks she goes back to hydrotherapy to rehab from the surgery... She really likes the hydrotherapy, and the therapists too. She gets excited whenever we go to the vet now.
@Mehntok Dogs and water make a wonderful combo. Amber (a Golden Retriever) would stand rear legs out of a wading pool, front legs in, then start bouncing her front end. Splash splash splash.... it took us a couple of weeks for us to get her to understand the joy of four wet feet.
@duodec What's "HA" that you started using instead of glucosamine/chondroitin? We have a couple of elderly Shelties that need some help. Now the younger one is getting finicky with her eating so it's hard to give her supplements.
@Stumpy91 hyaluronic acid. We get it at Walmart. The vet thought that the glucosamine could be causing him some kidney related problems so we switched to increased MSM and started HA
@duodec Your story sounds so much like ours. We had our Malcolm for 11years and he was almost 15. He was the biggest fan of the game catch I had ever seen. He would play for hours, if only we would let him..being mean parents, we didn't..lol. He was part Chow and part German Shepherd. As he got older we started giving him glucosamine/chrondrotinsince I knew the issues he could have. He started getting stiffer and slower until one day he was playing ball and slid on some wet grass. His leg wasn't strong enough and he got injured. Couldn't really walk for several days, and my husband did the carrying him up the stairs thing. He never really recovered after that and went on Rimadyl and higher doses of the supplements we were giving him. Eventually we couldn't even throw the ball right to him because he would do a little jump to catch it. He got so bad,he could hardly get up and down the stairs without help and other symptoms were showing up. Took him to the vet, who knew him very well by this time and loved him as much as we did. She did a biopsy and found Cancef in his leg. She wasn't sure how severe it was but he was too old for the treatments and leg amputation wasn't an opt. So we took him home with pain melds and kept him comfortable. The second week this past May he was getting worse. We were on vacation but home when my husband came and said we had to get him to the vet right then. Unfortunately he passed away. We were both devastated but he had lived a very happy life and wasn't sick long so I don't have any regrets, just great memories of a great dog. I'm sorry for your loss (and my very long story), but I'm glad Swiper had such loving parents.
My 12-year-old lab has had TPLO surgery done on both rear knees to repair torn cruciate ligament. Injured one 7 years ago and then the other 6 years ago. She is still wicked fast and has zero problems with stairs. Only signs of slowings down immediately after rising from an extended sleep.
@jimmyd103 Ah, your dog also dogs too hard.
@Thumperchick She never lost her puppy.
@jimmyd103 If you don't already, give her glucosamine every day. I buy mine at Petsmart, the GNC brand, but you can also give her human pills. My vet told me that my dog would have been so much worse so much sooner if I hadn't given it to him.
@jimmyd103 I couldn't edit my post but I meant to say the vet said the stiffness and pain would have been a lot more if we hadn't given him those supplements.
@mehbee thanks. Our vet never suggested any supplements.