From this site:
Luxating patella


Dogs that have a higher grade of patellar luxation may have increased risk for reluxation of the patella

yeah not a big fan myself after everything i read. I also after going through with dd and learning about acl tears and ruptures not a fan either unless after 2 mos rest is done to build scar tissue

But unfortunately in this case i think she is stuck :( sounds like no way around it with a leg dragging - just bums me out as she is dealing with so much already with the other two. Seems unfair to me

more info
 

Ok, back with my girl. Apparently the surgeon spoke to my vet about the case today. We have to wait until the 27th for the consultation but it was his feeling that this is NOT LP -- he thinks CCL tear. He said if he did surgery on her that his knees do not fall apart :D

I have the xray on film - it is interesting and if I can figure out how to view it on my computer, I will uploaded it for us all to gawk over!! LOL

Meanwhile, we are on crate rest and tramadol and have to wait unless he has a cancellation. I think we will be ok until then - she does not make a peep and she is feeling alright I think, all things considered. She certainly has not lost her appetite or friendly spirit. She is really resilient!

Yes, it was a Grade 4 LP in her leg - she was completely lame before the surgery. Her other leg is a grade 3 and pops in and out. The surgeon refused to do surgery on that leg and takes a conservative approach...if not lame, no surgery.

It's going to be a long week until he can see us. :(

did they do digital xray? They gave me a CD on dd's and i emailed it off to a couple vets but the person seeing it has to have the program or disc i think

here is a pic and ccl is same as acl i believe - it is cruciate ligamanet

DEE DEE :: stifleanatomy.gif picture by dwerten - Photobucket

this stinks so she is not lifting just dragging it ?

well basically what they told me was they put a hole in each bone and using a fishing wire from bone to bone to create the tendon then scar tissue builds up on it. There are a couple different ways they do it but this is what is usually done in toy breeds

I'm sorry to hear that she has reinjured her previous surgery site. once the surgeon gets in there to fix the ACL he will be able to see if the patella is still tight.

My morgan has grade 3/4 LP in both back legs. She never acts painful or limps. She's 4 years old now and has had this since she was a baby. I had it confirmed when she was 10 months old by the surgeon i worked for. At that time he said they were grade 2. During the almost 3 years that i was there i had them checked a few times every now and then and by the time i left they were grade 3. A few weeks ago we went back to the same surgeon to have her knees evaluated again and he said they were between a 3 and a 4. Her knees are easily manipulated in and out of the groove. Sometimes when we're laying on the couch i will check her patella and it will be out so i just pop it back in. it doesn't seem to bother her at all.

Anyway, the point of my rambling is that not all grade 3 or 4 LPs are painful. Morgan doesn't act like she's in pain at all, nor does she ever limp or skip when running. If she was owned by someone without my experience the owner probably wouldn't know she had an LP problem. most people see her walk and they think she's got a cute strut. what they don't know is that she walks like that because of her knees. :rolleyes:

Yeah it's a digital CD with a bunch of files on it and a program of some sort. I can't seem to run it from my MAC but when I get upstairs later I will try it on DH's computer.

She's more dragging than lifting but she was just up and out of the crate for potty and it's not stopping her. If I would let her, she'd run up the stairs! She's amazing! The boys are the crybabies around here.

someone sent me this site when dd hurt her leg and dd xray looks identical to one on the left in both back legs

Medial Luxating Patella - VeterinaryPartner.com - a VIN company!

I feel so bad for you as i know i was so nervous as dd has mvd but she cannot take any nsaids as she got so sick from one dose of metacam and she is on steroids which can weeken ligaments and tendons. Well the good thing is acl repair is easier than LP surgery from what i learned so hopefully she will heal up real fast :)

hey Kellie

I am afraid to put the doggie stairs back up after dd hurt her leg. So now dex and demi are jumping on and off the couch :( What should i do as i do not want any of them to hurt themselves but dd cannot get on the couch without stairs so dh and i fight over it as i do not want the stairs up for fear of her hurting herself but he is worried about demi and dex as i am as well:(

DD some times stands like a bulldog and i read they compensate with front legs to take pressure off back legs have you seen this with Morgan? DD never lifts her legs either other than that one time after she hurt herself.

We use to play frisbee with her for 3 hrs a night and she would slide all over the hardwood and tile as we had no clue and she never hurt herself or cried out ever. We were real stupid back then as she could have hurt herself :( Vet said no more frisbee so i had to hide all the frisbees now as she was obssessed. I think she had built up alot of muscle from playing so much frisbee too - The vet said no more twisting and turning for her - so bummed

I know you have alot of experience with this so want to learn more as do not want any of my three getting hurt :(

lol yeah dex is much more wimpy than dee dee. DD is one tough chick - she will jack you up for sure lolll Some times she makes me nervous as she corrects demi alot for her barking

here she is man is she tough

some will put more pressure on their front half if they rear legs are bothering them. morgan never stand like a bull dog. she does have a very mechanical gait though that i notice and others just think its a cute little prance.

I have two sets of stairs for my couch and ones for the bed. morgan will jump off the couch if both sets are not there. I told the surgeon she did this and he asked if it bothered her front half and i said no. he also asked if she will go upstairs but not down and i said no, she'll do both. so her front half isn't bothered by her weaker back half. I would rather have the stairs there because its safer for her to walk up and down the stairs then to jump on and off. Also i have wood laminate floors in my room in the basement. morgan has to walk up the stairs to go outside and to go upstairs to the main part of the house. i put little rugs at the bottom of the steps because she slips when she first makes that leap to go up. she can't seem to calmly walk up the steps. :rolleyes: she needs to make a running start and sometimes she'll slip and not totally make it up the first step.

morgan is pretty smart about the hard wood floors. she knows she doesn't feel comfortable doing anything other then walking on them. when she plays, she does it on the big rug in the center of the room. she also won't do any of her tricks, other then sit and lay down on anything other then carpet. she doesn't like to slide around (even tho i make sure her pads are always shaved). Also she won't jump on or off the couch/bed when there is no carpet around it.

ok thanks as we have laminate, hardwood and tile where the dogs are. I had to rip out carpet due to her allergies and of course it was brand new carpet we put in prior to 3 dogs lol. We have stairs going up to our bed but she will not go up or down those as they are too steep for her but the other two go up and down them fine. We usually hold her in our laps when she is on the couch but there is that occassional crow that she sees and flies off before we know it. But i do have flat dog beds all around the couches and back of couch as dex likes to lay on back of couch with no wall behind it :(

I have heathens i know :( So now you know I know nothing about TRAINING and why i am never on training threads :(

Kellie why do they say ACL when it is actually CCL ?

i have these by my couch Deluxe Doggy Steps - Dog Stairs and As Seen On TV Dog Steps from PETCO.com
and this by my bed Petmate Pet Stairs Pup Step Dog Steps Ramp - eBay (item 280468438858 end time May-21-10 21:15:42 PDT)

morgan will jump on and off the couch up stairs that i on carpet. :rolleyes: little buggers are quick

thanks

these are the ones we have for bed that dex and demi use- our bed is high and these were the only ones i could get custom made high enough

Dog Steps: Stair Steps for Older or Arthritic Dogs by Drs. Foster & Smith

these are like the ones i was using by two couches as i put them infront of ottomans and they would go up and down them - i am just scared she will hurt herself again but i think it was bc my nephew threw the toy in a awkward position and she went after it but i was not in room :(

Pet Stairs - Hi-Riser in Microsuede Fabrics

Do you think i should get ramps instead?

CCL - cranial cruciate ligament
ACL - anterior cruciate ligament

they are both basically the same thing

you can have the anterior cruciate ligament and the posterior cruciate ligament or you can call them the cranial cruciate ligament and the caudal cruciate ligament.

cranial is to anterior as caudal is to posterior.

i believe ACL is used with humans and CCL is used with dogs. When describing the problem to the owner they usually understand ACL as oppose to CCL.

In dogs when a repairs is done its called a CCLr. crancial cruciate ligament repair. then there are the types of repairs (CCLr, TPLO, and TTA being most common). CCLr's are usually done with a fishing line type wire. TPLO and TTAs are done with metal hardware.

thanks i was thinking it was a human to dog thing as in humans it is acl

so is the fishing wire cclr usually done in toy breeds as read that is what is usually done?

A ramp might be easier for the bed since DD doesn't like to use the steps in there. I think she'd be fine using the steps in for the couch too but you can do ramps if you want. i don't think the 3 steps to the couch would be much of an issue though.

when morgan was a baby, i had my dad build her a ramp out of plywood and then i just put a towel over it for traction. she had no problems with it.

DropShots.com

yes, the fishing wire is usually done in the toy breeds. I do recall the surgeons doing TTAs on some of the larger "toys" like big shih tzu's

Well Cathy, things have got to get better from this point on ;)
Yorkies are amazing to me...little tiny bundles of steel in their minds but oh so stinking fragile too. We hope you know we'll be watching to see how Daisy is doing; take care, chin up & all that :bighug:
Thanks for sharing her story too as we're all bound to learn something from the discussion. I know I have.

good idea. I may check into ramps for our bed as she just growls at us if she has to go potty as she will not go down the stairs - thanks for your help

I'm a Dumb Dumb
 

Ok so it is not the same leg. Daisy had surgery on the Left leg in 2002 and this is her right leg. Good thing I'm not the Dr.:D

Also she threw up 4x last night after eating dinner and having tramadol. We have her off it now to rest her GI and only fed 1/2 her food which she kept down.:thumbup:

She is doing great, she is even acting like nothing is wrong. But the xray says otherwise.

dang what a bummer - poor baby - I hope everything goes great and glad it is not in the same leg - sometimes they can compensate with the other leg leaving the other susceptible to injury but 8 years she has done well. Glad to know it was not the same leg as was bummed about that.

Hang in there and hoping for a speedy recovery - get that pack n play out so she can roll around the house in style lollll

All I can say is that if I ever have surgery on anything in my body that has a right and left and you are there checking me in, I am going to scream. :D Wrong what? :eek::D:p:)

I guess this is somewhat good news since one leg had been repaired and the other leg had been a grade 3. I mean at least the repaired leg has stayed that way. So sorry the tramadol is causing an upset stomach, I'm amazed how much pain some dogs can take without showing outwards signs of pain. Praying all goes well for you, I know this has to be very hard on you, one sick puppy is so hard, and three with problems, would really be difficult.

LMAO

she has us all jacked up over here loll

when i had surgery on my achilles rupture they signed my leg and made me tell them which one - do the owners do this with their dogs - I hope not lollllll

we have to make her laugh she needs a good laugh poor thing

Yep...I had knee replacements done and they did that. Honestly, they probably should with dogs....they could make errors just like any surgeon.

BUT......107barney is OUT as a medical assistant. :D Yep..she could definitely use a chuckle. :)

yeah i saw an op on here post once that the surgeon told her surgery was being done on one leg and when she picked up dog the surgery was on the other leg and she freaked. He said the one leg was worse than the other so he did that leg first and she would need to bring dog back for surgery on the other leg. YIKES

So Barney107 get some flourescent sticky gauze lolllll well i guess you cannot miss a leg dragging huh?

Yeah well if I could figure out how to put up the picture, you guys would clearly see the affected leg and her frog-like stature. :rolleyes: She's cute as a button on her xray!!:aimeeyork

lol do you make human pee pads as i might need one right now lolllllllllllll You are killing me girl