My westie came in limping yesterday after chasing our cat and i took her to the vet this morning to get horrible news that her ligament is completely severed and her other knee has also been dislocated for a long time. He said that this can be common in small dogs, they can be born like that but she has arthritis now and will subsequently get it in the other leg too.

I am horrified and wondered if anyone else had ever had this problem. They may have to put a plate in her knee as there is no ligament to support it and the other knee will get worse in time. She is only 3 and a lovely active wee dog.

At the moment her leg is dead and being dragged around which is awful to see. there is a good chance that the plate will work however will the athritis take long to imobolise her? Has anyone else had to have this operation?

I was also wondering if there is anything natural that i should start to give her to help her joints??

Any advice is welcome!

Hi, I have an American Cocker that partially tore his cruciate ligaments last December. The vet wanted to operate, but I wanted to be more conservative. I immediately started him on Glucosamine and Condroitin tablets and also gave him cod liver oil capsules and vitamin C tablets too.

It took 6 months, but he did eventually recover. I rested him for 16 weeks, then built up his exercise very slowly over a period of 8 weeks, and heis now back to normal. I think though that if the vet has suggested an operation on a completely ruptured ligament it is likely to be the right thing to do. The supplments will do no harm if they do no good though.

Good luck,

Dawn R.

Thanks Dawn for the advice.

I will know in a week when she returns to the vet if there is any chance of the ligament healing although he does think it is completely severed. Were you told that your Cocker will get arthritis as a result of this injury and do you still give him these suppliments?

I am glad that your dog got better without surgery which i am hoping is a last resort.

Thanks

Lorna

One of my past shelties ruptured her cruciate ligament when she was 5. The vet decided not to operate immediatally as she was a small dog and surgery was thought (then - don't know about now) to be less successful and less necessary in small dogs. She recovered but ever after she would go completely off the leg for no apparent reason about 3 times a year. She always recovered the use of the leg in a few days. She was on no medication or supplements apart from a few days course of rimadyl when she went off the leg. She lived to be 18 and never had any problems with the leg apart from the above and she didn't have any significant arthritis in her last years.

At the moment her leg is dead and being dragged around which is awful to see. there is a good chance that the plate will work however will the athritis take long to imobolise her? Has anyone else had to have this operation?

I was also wondering if there is anything natural that i should start to give her to help her joints??

Any advice is welcome!

Fourpaws has had it done quite recently with one of her dogs hopefully she will see this message and advise.

my lab had to have a cruciate ligament repair, it was a bit tricky as it was her only back leg, so they decided to do it keyhole surgery so she would be weight bearing the same day, it worked out fine. arthritis was never mentioned to us, we had to go to liverpool teaching vet hospital to have it done by a Professer McInnes.  Hope your little Westie is as lucky as we were.

Justi

Hi

My mastiff has just been operated on for her cruciate ligament 6 weeks ago. Like you she suddenly went lame, I suspected vthe cruciate and took her to the vets who left her a few days on metacam and complete rest to see if it was partially ruptured or totally ruptured. The outcome was it was totally ruptured. I then got referred up to a veterinary hospital in Newcastle, they saw her on the wednesday morning, operated on the Wednesday afternoon and was home Thursday, obviously still quite lame but weight bearing. She had the TPLO as that is what the surgeon up there specialised in but also because I did quite alot of research and asking around and decided that this sounded like the best procedure for her. She did have quite a large wound on her back leg that has healed lovely and now her coat is growing back it is hardly noticeable.

At the time I was devastated but since it hasn't affected her that hugely. She was back up there yesterday for the day for her follow up consultation and x-rays to check that everything was healing well and it was which was such a relief!!! She hasn't been allowed to have exercise off the lead for the first 6 weeks but they said yesterday that we can start that again. I can start her hydrotherapy again in a month and by then he said she should be back to normal. They have said she will be able to continue her show career and continue life as if she'd never had it done.

Hope that I have helped a little bit, if you need to know anything else PM me. Hope everything works out thought, you never know it may be just partially ruptured and not need operating on. But if it does, my girl at least coped with it well and I have a friend who has just had it done on her bitch too but different procedure and she is recovering well too.

Paula.