Recovery from Cruciate Ligament Tear Going Great!

We originally posted this a few months back, and will leave the post intact, but want to update you!  This is one of the posts that didn't transfer very nicely when we used an application to transfer this blog from Wordpress to Blogger. 

Before you read the following, please know that it has been almost a year since Aspen tore the cruciate ligaments in her legs.  Though she is not allowed to jump up and down any longer, and can't do so, she has adjusted to her bed on the floor.  We hold her when we can, and she can walk around on her own.  If she were a LARGE dog, it may be a different story, but she is small and doesn't have has much weight to carry around.  Aspen will be 14 next month, and we treasure each day that she is with us. 

Now, below is the content of the original post:

We find ourselves writing on Aspen's behalf more as she gets to be an elder dog. Not that she doesn't still have lots of energy when she is in the mood, but she tends to sleep more now.

We told you about her cruciate ligament tear injury first here and then gave an update when she tore the ligament in the other leg.

Ten weeks have gone by at least since this all started, and she is walking around pretty normally. We downloaded the Recovery Guide, it's free, and signed up to get weekly emails to remind us what steps we should be taking to keep Aspen recovering well.

She definitely isn't the same dog she was, always jumping up on things and such, but she has this past week - against our better judgment sometimes, stood on her hind legs against the side of a chair, chased a squirrel a short distance, and is walking all the way around the back of the house and back, so very much better than she used to be.

We give her pain medicine prescribed by the Vet less frequently, but still about once a day, skipping an occasional day just to get a true picture of how much discomfort she is in. We also purchased a Glucosamine/Chondroitin product suggested by the same people that put together the Cruciate Guide. All of this seems to be helping.

We are never going to allow her to jump again, in fact she can't even if she wants to try. She can barely do a step still. But she is also a small, lightweight dog, so that should be taken into consideration when reading her progress.

Cruciate Ligament Tear in Two Legs

It's been about a month and a half since the Veterinarian diagnosed Aspen with a cruciate ligament tear in one of her hind legs.  In spite of all of our attentiveness and care, a little over a week ago, the other leg sustained the same injury.  She is watched over almost constantly, and this happened during a moment when she simply tried to go up a small step, it didn't take much.

Now that a week has passed, she is still limited, but moving about more than she did again due to some measure of healing, and again needs to be watched carefully so that she keeps on healing.

Thankfully, she is a dog with a good nature, and being older, tends to rest a lot anyway, but she misses the very thing she should never have been doing at her age, jumping up and down from the couch, and is learning to be content with her bed on the floor and occasional times up next to us on the couch or chair when we lift her and take her down.

We have a special harness for her now that supports her body from front to back with the hook that the leash attaches to toward the back rather than the neck are.  This helps to take some of the weight off of her back legs when walking...she it taking her time getting used to this.  Though she has hobbled about just a bit when she needs to go out and take care of business, this week we are trying to do just a little more controlled walking...nothing too active...to build and maintain her leg muscles and mobility.

She is on a anti-inflammatory pain medicine for dogs right now, but soon we hope to switch over to a Glucosamine/Chondroiton product in order to preserve what is left of the cartilage in the joints that will now rub together un-naturally due to her injury.

We will keep you updated on her progress and if you can learn anything from our experience, when your Yorkie reaches a certain age, don't allow them to jump up and down.

 

Yorkies and Torn Cruciate Ligament

If your dog is limping or not walking on one leg, he or she may have a torn cruciate ligament.  It may not be that, there are other injuries that cause this in the leg and on the feet, but it could be.

Aspen the Yorkie is an elder dog, 13 this month, but it is hard to keep her from jumping up on and off of the couch because she has done this all of her life. Two weeks ago she jumped down from the couch, not really a far jump, but far enough I guess, because she started limping and not walking on the back right leg. Thinking it may be something that would work it's way out, we waited a day and went to the vet on Friday.

When the vet examined her, an X-ray wasn't even necessary, they knew right away by how the joint in the "knee" slid back and forth that she had torn the cruciate ligament. The vet said this is very painful, though Aspen didn't act much like she was suffering. She was and for the most part still is her cheerful self.  The cruciate ligament is one of 2 opposing ligaments between the joints from what I saw when searching the internet...in her case her back "knee" I believe.  This site has a good picture that shows the joint and cruciate ligament...I am not promoting this service, just found the image when searching on Google.

The vet prescribed Rimadyl appropriate to her small size for pain and inflammation. She had been given a little baby aspirin the day before, but that had to be stopped right away as the two together are toxic for the dog.

Surgery is possible with this type of injury, but Aspen is an elder dog, and we decided it would be better to let nature take it's course. The recovery is just as long one way or the other, and the ligament will heal with rest (as much as we can get her to rest), but will be prone to arthritis.

So she isn't jumping anymore, in fact she "calls" for help when going up a step. She sleeps in her bed on the floor instead of on the couch. It is suggested that dogs be crated and rest most of the time with this injury. Since someone is always home, we just keep good watch over her, she rests all the time anyway, and we carry her outside where she takes care of business and walks about a bit, and then we carry her back in. The only time Aspen gets lively is during the evening, she walks around a little bit then, but we don't worry about it too much because it can't be healthy to be lying around all the time.

It's been two weeks now, we will update you in the weeks to come on how her recovery from her cruciate ligament tear is. Here's a picture of her resting on the couch...we were keeping close watch and put something in place so she won't jump off.