Well if I didnt have bad luck, I would have none at all. 

Had the pups, and Cher at the vet today for vaccines, and asked the vet to check Cher's leg.  She injured it approximately 5 weeks ago, pulling all the muscles in the leg.  Crate rested her, for 2 weeks and she seemed fine.

The past week or so, I noticed that she had started bringing the leg up again.  Thinking she must be twisting the toes on the blanket or getting her nails caught in it (as I must admit, I let her nails get too long - not overly, but longer than I like since having to take care of Reba and her broken leg).  But after a couple minutes, her leg would go back down, and she would run across the room as if nothing was wrong.  Trimmed her nails (a task that is LOL) but it didnt seem to help. 

The vet told me today, that she had Luxating Patellas, and that it is very easy to pop her knee out.  I am so shocked!  Gutted!  Upset!  Everything!  I have had her knees tested several times, for breeding purposes, and had always been told her knees were solid.  This came out of left field!

So the vet is reccomending surgery, and I am a bit nervous about it.  I have luxating patellas, and have had 6 surgeries done to try and fix the problem.  Pain every day now, etc.  But I want what is best for Cher.  The surgery also worries me, because when she has had surgery before, her throat closed.  I am very worried about this as well.

The vet asked if I was going have Cher PTS because of this.  The answer is NO!  I love my girl, and if it was the best thing for her, then I would, but at this point, I want to weigh out my options before making a decision. 

What are people's results with patella surgery?  Is there anything I can do to make her feel better before I get the surgery done (it will take a while to save the money, as I am still having to pay for Reba's broken leg).  Is there any other options before a surgery is done? 

My poor Cher Baby!!

how old is she
could be cause by a injury, then time will heel over the months.i would give it 6 to 8 month if in an injury before rushing into an op.
if it gentic then op.
do you know how to pop it bck it when she holds her leg up when it has come,
ask the vet he should show you hoe to pop it back in.
then remmber the soft tissue around the area has the heal and get stronge to  just wait.

Sorry to hear about Cher :(

Firstly, what breed is she and how old is she?

My last golden had luxating patella's and was diagnosed with this at 1 year,  I was advised by the vet not to operate until he had completely stopped growing at 2 years of age.

He had 3 operations as the first 2 were unsuccessful, and eventually he had to have an external fixator on his leg to hold it in place, so with all 3 operations and recovery it took a year out of his very short life :(

The operation itself is simple, the recovery is another thing altogether and the bigger the dog the more problems the dog encounters during recovery.  We eventually cleared a room in the house of all furniture so that he wouldn't climb and we stopped all visitors so that he didn't jump and get excited.  I am not saying this will happen to you, but if we had to decide on the operatioin for our dogs now we would definitley say no to it.

I would make sure your dog doesn't use the stairs, or jump too much until she is fully grown.  You may want to introduce her to hydrotherapy to strengthen her muscles without putting weight on her joints.  I have a friend who has a small breed dog who was diagnosed with the same as a puppy, they chose not to have the operations and he is 9 now and absolutley fine!

If you do go down the route of operation then make sure you see a consultant and not your own vet but I would definitley wait to see how she copes with it.

I know there have been posts on here about luxating patellas and specialists doing both legs at the same time, and the owners always think they have the best vet who will work miracles but it is rarely that easy, you have the experience of your own operations so you know it isn't straightforward as it seems.

My dogs luxating patella was a secondary problem from HD which was severe in both hips, so maybe get her hips checked out.

Hope I have been of some help, I don't want to sound all doom and gloom as you will make the decision you feel is best for your girl, but my decision would be not to operate.

Good luck with your girl and please keep us updated with her progress.

my staffy had a luxating patella and was eventually operated on and we have had no problems at all and she is a lot heavier than your cher.  She was also overweight at the time and I wanted to hold off until she had lost some weight but the surgeon suggested going ahead anyway.  I took missy to the local hydrotherapy centre a couple of times a week which was great.

It helped her lose a bit of weight prior to the op and in the water we could see how much she used the leg.  the same after surgery.  I think she went back in the water 4 weeks after surgery so she could exercise as she was on total rest on dry land.  I would say that the only indicators we now have that she had the surgery is the scar up her leg and that the toenails on that foot grow longer than on the others due to her putting less pressure on that foot but she still runs about like a dafty using all 4 legs.

> Firstly, what breed is she and how old is she?
>

Chers an adult min pin perry, so teeny tiny and shes just had a litter. Kory's had it tested for several times in order to breed and its not shown up before so prob not genetic.

edited to add: not a breeder so may be a silly question, but do bitches become more prone to injury like women do during pregnacy because of increased relaxin levels? could this have made what should have been a relatively small injury worse?

> not a breeder so may be a silly question, but do bitches become more prone to injury like women do during pregnacy because of increased relaxin levels? could this have made what should have been a relatively small injury worse? <IMG class=qButton title="Quote selected text" alt="Quote selected text" src="/images/mi_quote.gif" width=20 height=10>

Kim, I dont know, but it seems like an interesting question, one that should be looked at.  It seems plausable.  Especially since I had her tested several times, and she was rock solid. Definately gets me thinking.....

And everyone, thank you so much for your replies.  My head is still shaking about this, as I dont understand, how one minute she is rock solid, the next its like she has no knee.  Cher is a min pin, who is 3 years old this past month.  The vet checked Reba's knees and they are solid at this point. Reba is 4 months of age. 

I stayed up quite late last night, trying to find information on it, and all I got was a definition of Lux Patellas, and not treatment options or causes. 

Cher is the most hard rear driver in the world.  Very hard to make it look like she isnt pulling.  She has been so active, running, catch, everything.  And she would walk several hours a day.  She was over muscled to the point of almost looking coarse.  Since the pregnancy, she has become flub.  She hasnt been as active, and she injured herself. 

Im gonna call the vet, and see if just doggy physio would help her.  I dont want to over work her, of course, but I would rather try something that may not work that doesnt cost an arm and a leg, before doing an expensive surgery that didnt work on me (before my knee injury, I was a dancer!  Dancing several hours a day!)

> Kim, I dont know, but it seems like an interesting question, one that should be looked at.&nbsp; It seems plausable.&nbsp; Especially since I had her tested several times, and she was rock solid. Definately gets me thinking.....
>

just i know that pregnant women can hurt themselves quite badly. Think its relaxin thats the stuff- anyone whos had kids confirm?

maybe try googling it kory to see if there is a link. as for treatment options maybe try google scholar instead of normal google?

I just talked to my vet clinic, and they are putting together a physio regimine to do on Cher.  It will be ready for Friday. 

Will try googling, to try to find google scholar.  Have never heard of the search engine before.   Thanks!

you just go to normal google, choose the more option at the top and choose scholar. its all accademic articles. I was thinking you might find research and treatment plans from vets to look at.

edited to add:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119849042/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118621276/abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8337795

are a few journal abstracts. you can pay for the full journal article but the abstract should give you an idea of the findings without the figures. your vet i would hope should be able to access the articles through athens or another journal site for proffessionals/accademics.

this one looks interesting, just glanced though

http://www.vettechjournal.com/Media/PublicationsArticle/PV_24_04_292.pdf

i dont know why I cant get to the last article, but all the other ones, seemed good.  More data to make my decision on. 

its a PDF file, can you open them? its a whole article for you

for some reason I cant open PDF files, dont know why???

> I stayed up quite late last night, trying to find information on it, and all I got was a definition of Lux Patellas, and not treatment options or causes.

Mine was a bit different that your situation due to the size of missy but the surgical treatment options included either creating a deeper groove in the knee so it sits deeper and doesn't slip or pinning the leg and tendons if it was a conformation issue. 

I think missy's may have been due to trauma as she was running about a bit of wasteground one night in winter (very hard ground as it was frozen) and she yelped so may have tripped or stumbled over something.  that was when the limping started and when the surgeon was trying to manipulate her leg during consulatations it didn't move easily which indicated it wasn't due to too shallow a groove.

He ended up doing a combination of both treatments and it only cost me around £300 but I can't remember exactly how much.  HTH

eta: I had a thread on here last year and quite a few people on here have had the op done on their dogs so ti might be useful for you to have a look.

> I had a thread on here last year and quite a few people on here have had the op done on their dogs so ti might be useful for you to have a look.

I looked to see if I could find any threads on Luxating Patellas before posting this one, went down about 40 pages out of 300+ so it was probably on page 41 being my luck!  Thanks, I will search for your old thread. 

don't say I am not good to you Kory!
lol

http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/board/topic/107419.html

http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/board/topic/102016.html this is one with a smaller dog

http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/board/topic/101375.html

YOU ROCK!!!!  

As someone has already pointed out - you are going to get both sides of opinions. 

My Toy Poodle had the operation at 11 months of age.  And 6 weeks later the vet did the other leg.  I was horrified, as she still hadn't started putting weight on the first leg.  I hasten to add, he had done hundreds of patella operations.  And his advice was that the younger it is carried out, the more successful the outcome.

Many years later, when in for something else, the pins showed up really clearly on an X-ray.  She could do a standing jump to my shoulder well into old age.  For us, it was the most successful of operations.  Unfortunately, it did mean that I wouldn't have a litter from her, as I was convinced that it was genetic, as opposed to an injury.

My girl had no problems at all once she had recuperated - I did have to restrain her from much active exercise for months.  But as far as the pins were concerned, they stayed in place, and did what they should.  I lost her last month, 12 weeks short of her 17th birthday.