Cruciate ligament damage in dogs

pamril1

Little madam is currently having a lovely long snooze after getting her doggy pants in a right twist over me making her go back in her crate as she was getting a bit over excited and trying to jump on me. Sulked for a while and was telling me off husky style lol.
Still not eating much but using leg and doesn't seem in any major pain or discomfort.
Doesn't seem to like the antacids much now (seems I spoke too soon about her being a good patient lol) and tries to avoid taking it, so it's a case of prising her mouth open and squirting the liquid in quickly them closing her mouth until she swallows it properly. We were told we could add it to her food but with her not eating that much she simply won't get her correct dosage and bribery doesn't work with her, so it's unfortunately the only way but I feel really wicked about doing it.

MRSCARNEY

Are you allowed to excercise her at all ? At least we can give Briar 3 ten munite walks a day on the lead - not much in Springer terms but better than nothing. If you're having trouble with the antacid can they not give it you in solid form so that you can disguise it in some cheese or pate?

5AM

I hope she is feeling better soon and her crutiate heals well.

I know several (4) "tripods" which have had legs amputated as a result of crutiate damage. They manage amazingly well.

They are all lurchers and sighthounds do tend to damage their crutiates very easily.

In my experience, the post op healing and recovery has been easier for the tripods than for those who have had repair work done as it is a nightmare keeping a dog quiet when all it wants o do is RUN!

Regarding your early question regarding whether people are in vets overnight, I thought it might be worth me mentioning that it varies from one practice to another.

Some shut the doors at night and hope their patients are alive in the morning (and yes, they do actually do that!). Others have a receptionist on site answering the out of hour emergency calls and he/she will often pop a head round the door to see they are OK, but again this isn't much use when the receptionist has no veterinary training.

Some have a vet or vet nurse on site throughout the night, but to find one that does is a real gem.

I personally demand that my dogs come home with me and I can moniter their drips, condition etc.. through the night and call the on call vet if there is a problem. After the the on call vet would take as long to get to the vet surgery as it would to my house and I would be aware of a problem before the receptionist was.

However, not all would allow this.

MRSCARNEY

5AM, that is quite shocking :mad:

I guess we are lucky that the vets where our dog had her op do provide 24 hour care, don't know about our normal vets though? (Briar was referred to a specialist for treatment). Mind you, it would explain why their charges are so high but fortunately she's insured.

pamril1

She's allowed 5 minutes twice a day in the back garden on the lead.
I ended up asking about the staffing situation on a night and they said that they had staff in attendence 24 hours a day, so that put me at ease a bit.
I'll be honest I heard something along the same lines, I don't know if it happened to be on this forum or during my hunt for some information but a woman had taken her dog for treatment one day and had to leave him overnight and when she rang to enquire how he was 1st thing in the morning, she was told he had just been found dead in his crate when the staff had come in for shift :mad:

MRSCARNEY

Thats so terrible How can people who work with animals treat them like that, it beggars belief

pamril1

I think some only consider the money and don't even consider the care of the animals they profess to care for :mad: . I suppose I have been really lucky to have had two different vets practices who bend over backwards for the benefit of the animal patients, I can not sing their praises enough right now.
The "patient" calls must need me for something lol will train her to use a bell its less noisey lol

iccemum

Hi sorry to hijack this thread slightly but does anyone know if the insurance will pay out for a cruciate injury to a second leg? We are insured with ASDA and just under a year ago our dog Roxy injured her cruciate and ultimately had to have aTTA operation, it cost around £3500 (which was the maximum luckily enough) including some hydrotherapy sessions. Anyway to cut a long story short it looks as if her other leg might have gone the same way, is this considered the same injury or a seperate one? ive tried to read all the small print but the wording is a bit hard to dicipher! Any help would be appreiciated.

simontheiceman

pamril1 wrote: »

Hi mrscarney, Iska has been fairly quiet today so it hasn't been too bad. The other dog is desperate to play and keeps nudging at her but she's not at all interested. She isn't eating a great deal but I guess thats to be expected.
She's quite a good little patient, she takes her medication and hardly fusses bless her. When she walks her leg seems to be turned out slightly, is that normal?

in a word: NO.
This was unfortunately answered above but answered wrongly - there could actually be a serious reason for this - either the repair of the tibial osteotomy has led to a varus/valgus deformity ( I check these at time of op and am absolutely obsessive about this after a previous issue), or it could be a rather more subtle abnormality of gait known as "Pivot shift" which is best dealt with by post-op physio. Please get it checked out by the surgeons ASAP as it may require attention. Of course it may not, I can't see the dog right now. Some dogs will lie down in a different way after TPLO and this can give the impression of a "turned out" conformation. You NEED a proper assessment of this.

gomer

iccemum wrote: »

Hi sorry to hijack this thread slightly but does anyone know if the insurance will pay out for a cruciate injury to a second leg? We are insured with ASDA and just under a year ago our dog Roxy injured her cruciate and ultimately had to have aTTA operation, it cost around £3500 (which was the maximum luckily enough) including some hydrotherapy sessions. Anyway to cut a long story short it looks as if her other leg might have gone the same way, is this considered the same injury or a seperate one? ive tried to read all the small print but the wording is a bit hard to dicipher! Any help would be appreiciated.

Only your insurance company can answer that one. Some will, some will not. They all have thier own interpretation of what they cover.