Best Laid Plans....

[not_hathor]

*Mope*

Yesterday. Took Bel to the vet for the remainder of her annual shots --
mentioned to vet the way Bel's been favoring her left hind leg. Vet felt her up (to the tune of an extra 40+ buckaroos, since that's considered 'an exam') and gave the opinion that at some point over the past 6 months Bel tore a ligament in her knee joint. But the only way to know for certain and to properly treat would be X-rays... and most likely treatment would consist of surgery.

Cr*p.

There goes what's left of the money Mom gave me for our Anniversary. I HAD hoped I could use it for a little mid-July cammping trip in Minnesota that PlanetgalJess has been organizing (provided I could manipulate my work schedule to accomodate).

Poor Bel. Not her fault, my sweet and sassy PrettyBel....

ETA:
Y'know, NONE of the books I've read over the years about Chows ever said ANYTHING about Chows being 'jumpers' or 'climbers', and yet, I've had three of them now! And Kahvi was so good with her Obedience training that our Trainer was talking about the possibility of taking her to Trials before she died. Makes me wonder about the competance of those book-writing experts, sometimes.

Comments

[rekallthegreat.livejournal.com]

Aww, poor Bel! I hope she's okay!

[coffeecat33.livejournal.com]

poor baby... both of you. someone at work had a fat cat and he jumped and tore ligaments in both legs. my kitten was so reckless that he broke his leg (top of the femur) and of course needed surgery - $1,000+ ;( hope you all recovery quickly.

no camping trip? *pouts*

You won't believe this!

[reziac.livejournal.com]

[hat type="canine professional" duration = "38 years"]

When there is damage in the stifle (knee), ordinarily the dog will pack the leg, or hitch the whole leg sharply upward with each step (or whenever the leg is bothering it). This is definitive enough that it's the first thing I ask about if someone reports a dog is limping.

Torn ligament (in dogs, usually meaning anterior cruciate) is quite dramatic when it happens -- there's screaming and don't-touch-me and the leg goes pretty much useless, and the dog will NOT put weight on it. It is not subtle nor something that comes on over time. -- Minor tears improve over time w/o surgery and are best left alone. However major tears do not heal properly (the pain goes away but the dog does not regain full use of the leg unless the tear is repaired).

Given Chows' typical post-legged rear structure, I wouldn't be surprised to find subluxating patellas, but that usually has either no symptoms at all, or will lock up the leg in the flexed position.

Fractured patella is common in young dogs, due to whacking it on something -- they pack the leg for two weeks, then are fine. (This should NOT be treated.) Bel is a little old for this, tho it could happen. However, again this is acute, not chronic, and goes away by itself in no more than 3 weeks.

But chronic limping is more typically from some form of arthritis -- usually hip dysplasia but can be OCD in the stifle or hock joint. Chows average about 20% HD even now that Chow breeders have finally got on the xraying bandwagon. (After two generations of xray-based selection, you've got the best hips a breed can manage w/o losing definitive breed traits.) Typical Chow rear structure probably predisposes them toward OCD in the stifle and hock, tho I don't have any figures on that.

My advice would be to take xrays first and see what you've actually got there -- and more'n likely, just put Bel on anti-inflammatories (or plain aspirin for smallest risk) rather than doing surgery, which is liable to be full hip replacement (about $4000 per side here, probably a bit less there).

Be aware that the side effect risk factor for NSAID use in dogs is 5%-8% depending on the drug. There is a definite correlation between NSAIDs (non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs) and unpredictable/fatal liver/kidney collapse. My observation is that the real problem here is using NSAIDs immediately after the dog has been anaesthetized -- there may be some interaction with the newer gas anaesthesias.

[/hat]

Re: You won't believe this!

[not-hathor.livejournal.com]

I drastically simplified what the vet said, my Moffet, because most of it I didn't quite understand; but your mention of 'patella' does ring a tiny bell. But what the heck is OCD?

The vet told us that when she felt both of Bel's back 'knees' there was noticeable swelling on the left, possibly from torn ligament or patella injury; we need X-rays to be certain. She recommended this happen a.s.a.p. since Bel's been favoring the leg/limping (packing?) on and off for several months, and suggested we start giving her joint suplements in the meantime.

Bel's too young to have arthritis!

But otherwise she seems in good shape. It really seemes to make a difference in her coat that we're giving her distilled water instead of mineral-laded Milan tap water ( a tip from the 'Holistic Dog Care' book we picked up when Orion was diagnosed) -- it's soft and shiny. But I swear! We never had such a problem with matted fur clumps before....

(and I really wonder if there might not be a Keeshond in her family tree a couple of generations back - Bel barks at EVERYTHING!)

You won't believe this!

[reziac.livejournal.com]

OCD: Osteochondritis Dissecans, a specific form of arthritis. DJD: Degenerative Joint Disease, a more generalized form of arthritis. Read this: http://www.vet-vsc.com/surgery_odissecans.htm -- also read the other links at the top of the page.

OCD/DJD is 99% inherited, regardless of anything you may see to the contrary. The remaining 1% or so derive from injuries.

Bel is NOT too young to have OCD/DJD -- either can show up as young as four MONTHS, particularly when triggered by a structural abnormality [inherited] in a joint.

Okay, swelling in the stifle joint does peg something as gone-wrong there, tho unless she actually gopher-holed the foot and went down hard enough to draw screams, it probably didn't originate wholly as an injury, tho it could have been an injury to an already-substandard structure: Since chows have absolutely straight stifles and hocks (which is abnormal with respect to functional canine structure) their stifles and hocks are by nature weaker than average, and less able to flex and recover under stress.

If it's the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), you can expect the other side to go too, within a few months (most ACL cases are bilateral).

If it's OCD/DJD, it may remain confined to that joint, but typically when they have OCD/DJD in the stifle, they eventually get it in both stifles, both hocks, and the shoulder joints. -- Chows have an elbow dysplasia rate of 48% (worst of all breeds) and in my observation there is some correlation between *incidence* levels of OCD/DJD and ED, even tho the two inherit separately. (Arthritis in elbows and hips inherits separately from generalized OCD/DJD.)

Whether it's surgically fixable, and economically feasible to do it -- you'll have to see xrays first. (Do remember that soft-tissue problems generally are not visible on xrays.) It may be most practical to leave well enough alone and treat her with mild anti-inflammatories, or plain aspirin... particularly if it's the losing battle of generalized OCD/DJD.

Cutting this in half, cuz LJ complains that I wrote too much. (Max 4500 characters? WTF?! Talk about a takeover by the cellphone generation!)

Part Two...

[reziac.livejournal.com]

As to the distilled water -- you're imagining things. From what you say about her coat, previously she simply was blowing coat, or had an immature coat, and now has a full/mature coat, so it's sheer coincidence of timing. (Most dogs of ANY breed don't get a fully mature coat until they are 3-4 years old, and in some breeds not before age 6.) If anything, using distilled water DEPRIVES the dog of normal and necessary minerals that are found in tap water. In particular, you can wind up with deficiencies of iron, copper, magnesium, calcium, and various other trace metals too numerous to mention, some of which are naturally in ground/river water, and some that are picked up from metal pipes. Minerals in the water is a GOOD thing; it's where most people and animals get the trace elements they require!! (People who live in houses with all-plastic pipes often have iron deficiency; since I moved into a house with mostly plastic pipes, I sometimes have to take iron supplements! And in this area, we have so much calcium in the ground water that humpbacked senior citizens are almost never seen, because NO ONE who drinks the local water has a calcium deficiency.)

As to matted fur -- well, I think there is SOMETHING in Chows now that wasn't there before (witness the smashed-in faces that are new in the last couple decades, and matting coat is sure as hell new too!) If there are imports in her pedigree -- there's no telling *what* was really used, particularly in dogs from Britain and Scandinavia, and a Kees is quite likely. There was a LOT of undocumented crossbreeding during and after WW2, as during the war, Europeans were forced to put down breeding stock due to the lack of meat to feed them, and many people bred their remaining bitches to literally ANYTHING to keep their line going. (And sometimes it was deliberately done to quickly change type in a line. This happened several times in Labs that I *know* about, which is why the modern English show type is so different from the original type. It can take several *decades* for such a crossbreeding to come back and bite you with radical changes of type across the breed as a whole, but it usually does happen, eventually.)

As to 'holistic' anything -- when I see that word, I'm warned that the Tinfoil Hat Brigade is on the march. (Not quite as far out as homeopathy, but getting close.) It's essentially belief in magic, which people are prone to do when they have absolutely no background in a topic and therefore no way to even start understanding it. When something from the Tinfoil Troops "works" it's usually because of coincidence, or a partial change where ANY change would be progress, and not an actual improvement due to their recommended methods -- much as changing from any strict diet to any other strict diet may fix one deficiency, but can in turn generate new deficiencies (which usually takes a few months to manifest, and then it's back to the Holistic Doctor for another revenue stream review!)