Dog Posture - Hips - Luxating Patella?

[Mark G M]

Hi All,
A few weeks ago I asked about my dogs poor sitting posture. He has never sat straight but always favors the right side when slouching. I was concerned and took him to the vet to make sure there were no hip problems before he went into training. Vet took Xrays of spine, hips and knees and could not find any problems. Granted the dog is only six months old and sometimes things don't show up at this age but the vet found nothing alarming.

Today I notice my dog is holding up his rear left leg (just a few centimeters off the floor). I had noticed this a few times before. When he lays down he has seems to struggle getting up.

I googled the left leg and found something about a Luxating Patella.

Have any of you had a dog hold up its rear leg? I notice he can't put a lot of pressure on it when he runs.
Any thoughts about the issue?

thanks,

Mark

[Skip C]

Mark,

Have a lab going on nine that was diagnosed with stage 1 luxating spp. patella at roughly 18 months old. The vet said that surgery wasn't indicated at this stage. I put him on glucosamine and chrondotian. To my knowledge he has only dislocated his knee twice since then. Don't know if the glucosamine helped but it sure didn't hurt.

Skip C

[Mark G M]

Mark,

Have a lab going on nine that was diagnosed with stage 1 luxating spp. patella at roughly 18 months old. The vet said that surgery wasn't indicated at this stage. I put him on glucosamine and chrondotian. To my knowledge he has only dislocated his knee twice since then. Don't know if the glucosamine helped but it sure didn't hurt.

Skip C

Thanks. Did you have to keep him calm (no long walks or running) for a while while the medicine took affect?

thanks again,
Mark

[Chris Meyer]

Don't know if this will help but I had a 9 month old pup that went for a bumper on a retrieve and didn't notice how deep the other side of the ditch was until he landed hard on his front legs. He limped for a couple weeks. I put him on straight glucose tablets and the condition cleared up in a couple days. I guess my point is like stated before us it can't hurt to try.

[Bridget Bodine]

You may be dealing with cruciate.injury...best not to self diagnose but see an Ortho vet, if your reg vet did not find anything, and your dog is lame.

[Kevin Eskam]

This sounds just like what happened to Jake slight tear of his CCL when he was 7 months old sat funny and kept his leg elevated, had TPLO surgery on it when he totally ripped it last winter !

[Mark G M]

This sounds just like what happened to Jake slight tear of his CCL when he was 7 months old sat funny and kept his leg elevated, had TPLO surgery on it when he totally ripped it last winter !

Thanks Sighttosea. I agree about the self diagnosis. I just saw this tonight and am a little upset for the dog. My vet said he has a radiologist come in once a week to double check all Xrays the vet as taken the previous week. I am emailing my vet also about the latest. If the radiologist cannot detect anything and my vet can't either again then I will definitly do the ortho vet.
thanks again - Mark

[Bridget Bodine]

I believe they find cruciate injuries by manipulating the knee and checking for stability, not by xray....It is soft tissue injury.
I would recomend crate resting and NO throwing bumpers or twisting turns until you find out, in case it is the cruciate, maybe it is not blown....
Good luck!!!

[Mark G M]

This sounds just like what happened to Jake slight tear of his CCL when he was 7 months old sat funny and kept his leg elevated, had TPLO surgery on it when he totally ripped it last winter !

Thanks Keskam. What is the recovery time for ACL surgery? Of yea, and average cost?

[Kevin Eskam]

3 to 4 months and around 3 grand!! not cheap...