Talk to be about ruptured cruciate ligaments

[frayble]

We are on holiday and got a call from my mum yesterday to say our little 8 year old Staffie was chasing her ball and went suddenly lame yesterday. She was seen at the vets today (not our usual vets as she is staying away from home) and they suspect she has ruptured her cruciate ligament.

They have given her painkillers and steroids and advised us to take her to our normal vet when we're home next week.

Our Staffie has a complex medical history - she is currently on long term Masitinib for high grade 3 Mast Cell Tumour which limits what medications she can have. I am also unsure if this will affect her suitability for surgery. The plan is currently to x-ray and make that decision next week.

Has anyone else been through this before and what were recovery outcomes like? We are unsure how long our girl has left anyway after the cancer diagnosis but currently lives a full and happy life with no side effects from her usual medication. She lives for chasing her ball which is sadly how this injury happened in the first place, and from reading online she might never be able to do this again?

Id really like to hear experiences of the healing process and rehabilitation of this injury. Thanks!

Typo in thread title - should be 'talk to me' 🙄

I only have experience of this in a cat. The vet kept giving painkillers and telling me to give it time to heal. Some time later she needed a repair, and needed a false ligament putting in as the old one had shrunk and couldn’t be repaired. If they’d done it in the first place it would have saved the cat a lot of pain and medication, and me a lot of money.

No direct experience but cruciate injuries are a bugger to heal. It's also the case that once they "do" one of them, they're very likely to do the other. It's one of the things I'm really paranoid about with my dog.

I would really stop the ball chasing. It's not good for them anyway.

Our rescue collie tore her cruciate, she was old (10+) when she did it but very active and lived to play ball too. She was really miserable during the healing, I remember she wasn't allowed to walk for more than 10 minutes for a while and it was months before she was back to normal from what I remember. I guess all you can do is talk to the vet and see what they say and then decide what you think is best.

We are just in midst of this with our ddog. She went lame overnight (hers most likely age related)
Painkillers and anti inflammatory meds whilst assessed her via X-ray. We then had options of 1) no surgery but rehab ( very slow and very limiting for an otherwise v fit and healthy active dog)
2) surgery that attaches an additional support to the leg to create another anchor for the joint - this has a slower initial recovery (ie crate rest entirely bar loo breaks for 4-6 weeks then rehab) and 3) TPLO surgery which does something jazzy with the leg and puts a plate and pins in. This has quicker initial mobility and then rehab.
We opted for 3 - insurance covered the surgery (she's old so we had to pay 25% any way) but it's about 4k currently. She's was on crate rest for first few days, then room rest and at 4 weeks she now is still on downstairs rest with short lead breaks for loo and short toddle about. She's about to start physio and is crates again at 8 weeks to check everything has set correctly. She can't jump go up down stairs or steps be on slippy floors during this time.
It's been a pain I'll be honest ! We have had to put weird mats down throughout our downstairs to avoid her slipping in the floors and have to ensure she isn't over excited!
But prognosis even in her aged 13 is v good as long as other leg doesn't go !

Hi OP, sorry this has happened. Our dog ruptured her cruciate ligament earlier this year. She had the surgery, though if she was a smaller dog I think rest it and hope for the best would have been the only viable option. It was a very long process of healing, and more or less took over our lives for about three months, but she is more or less back to normal now. We are very mindful of it though and don’t overextend her.

We are going through this with our cat. She suddenly started limping about two months ago. She's an indoor cat so not sure what she did. We tried a few weeks of rest and she was walking better but holding the foot at an odd angle so we went for the surgical option. She had TPLO last week and we are off to the vets shortly to see how it is healing and how much longer she will need the cone of shame. She doesn't seem to be in too much discomfort but is hating cage rest. She loves human attention so we get yelled at for fusses every time we walk past.

It is a big surgery with a long recovery but vets have lots of experience with this in dogs (it is a relatively unusual injury in cats). My cat is only 4 and could live for another 15 years so it wasn't fair for her to be in pain and limping for that time. She is hating the recovery but hopefully will have a good life afterwards.

I am going to contradict Margotrose.

Surgery for Cruciate is usually straight forward and most dogs will make an fantastic recovery. I have had a lab with a cruciate and several fosters that we have had to look after after the surgery.

The recovery sounds horrendous but we have always found it very doable. The dogs need to be on crate rest for 6 weeks with short toilet walks only.

In all of the cases that we have been involved in they have gone on to have a very successful and happy active life.

It is also not a foregone conclusion that the other cruciate will go. It can be down to wear and tear but it sounds like your dog had a injury which ripped the ligament so a lower percentage chance of the other one going.

Re your dogs complex medical history. I dont know of the impact of surgery for him but rest and painkillers will help him a lot and if time is limited he can have a comfortable life without the surgery with some adjustments.

Ball throwing will have to stop (but to be honest you are lucky to get to 8 years with no injury from ball throwing) However that does not mean ball games have to stop - adapt them for him to hunt out a still hidden ball rather than chase a moving one. He will be as happy I promise you.

What is his weight? Lighter dogs can heal with rest if the cruciate is not totally torn but this is time consuming and can be frustrating

Really hopes you can find a solution that works out for your guy

Yes - my dog has had it in both knees. Don't let a normal vet operate, take her to an osteopathic surgeon. If you happen to live in the SE I can recommend an amazing surgeon.
The operation was fiendishly expensive but recovery time was fast - about 6 weeks. That's not for fully healed, but for her to stop being uncomfortable and to be able to go in a decent lead walk.
She also had about 5 sessions of hydrotherapy after each operation which the surgeon recommended.

To add - when it happened to my dog's first leg, we waited to give it time to heal before opting to operate. We shouldn't have waited as it didn't heal, it got worse and completely tore. She must have been in agony.

My GR has had two done. She was only 3 when she had her first, so it was a no-brainer to get it done in the most comprehensive way (and we had insurance). However full recovery takes probably 6 months, and the start is not nice. The second recovery took longer as we had a younger dog then and we couldn't stop them playing and chasing each other.

If she was a lot older and the pain was more akin to discomfort and could be managed with anti-inflammatories, I wouldn't do the surgery, just because full recovery took so long.

My staffie tore his at a similar age to yours, OP. He was operated on, recuperated, had physio and and the water exercise thing which name escapes me!

He was prescribed green lip mussel (from memory) and lived happily and full of energy until he was 14.

Hydrotherapy! Thanks PP.

As others have said, it was very expensive but he was fully insured so I only paid the excess of £100 and everything was covered, including the meds and hydrotherapy.

I worked at a referral vet surgery for years where this surgery was carried out daily. My own dog also has had the surgery done.

They recover really well. If not hesitate to get the surgery done but I would ensure it was carried out by a specialist.

The cancer treatment may or may not affect the surgery, I'm sorry I don't know the answer to this but your vet will be best placed to tell you.

Poor little dog. Hope she feels better soon.

@IngGenius but I never said the surgery wasn't straightforward or that dogs didn't recover well

I just said that the healing is an absolute bugger - because for most people, it is. It's not very easy to suddenly find yourself with a dog who can't exercise or jump or use stairs for months on end.

Sorry I may have misinterpreted.

However the 6 dogs I had through the recovery period it really is not too bad.No great but ok.

6 weeks cage rest sound horrendous but it is very very doable and dogs get used to it and the time does pass.

The dogs can go out for toilet breaks and be out of the crate if they are being supervised. We also took ours out for drives and watching the world go by in the car. During the end of the 6 week period they were taken out in buggies etc.

My whippet had this at 8 years old (chasing a deer). He had the simplest form of surgery (basically creating scar tissue that acts as a ligament is how the vet explained it to me). He was on complete rest for about 10 days, and then very slow short walks for about 4 weeks to encourage him to put weight on his leg. It was probably another month or so before he was fully recovered, and my heart was in my mouth the first time afterwards that he tore off up a hill after another deer. But he then had another 4 or 5 happy years chasing deer before old age caught up with him. He would never have recovered without surgery.

No worries @IngGenius.

I do think the surgery is an excellent option but I also think that the recovery is a real ball ache for many owners who have to now juggle a dog on crate rest around work etc.