English pointer

O

ONEBALL

New member
Hello
i have a four year old Female English that has apparently torn her ACL she is not over weight but very stout curious if anyone else has had a similar issue and how the outcome turned out we meet with a specialist on Friday but am worried about her recovery and other issues this might cause later in life
 
My little chocolate lab bitch tore her left cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) which folks generally call an ACL tear. This happened when she was two. I had the suture surgery done that basically substitutes a suture for the ligament. It actually didn't work completely. It did stabilize her stifle (knee joint) but eventually her body rejected the suture material and I had to have it removed much later. It became a puffy area that oozed goo.

However, by that time her stifle had pretty much stabilized; the vet said this is due primarily to arthritis setting in. Anyway, she is and has been a tough dog all her life and this repair did not really inhibit her. She hunted from 2-10yrs as if she was normal, active and eager. In later years she would gimp a bit after a day's hunt but my vet directed meloxicam for that and it worked. It should be said that as I always bring multiple dogs, she was only hunting 2-4 hours per day at most.

Then when she was almost 11 she tore the other stifle CCL. My vet said at her age we'd best just leave it alone. Keep her on restricted activity and eventually the arthritis would somewhat stabilize that knee. That's exactly how it worked out. I quit working her on retrieving drills, stopped taking her on mile long walks, didn't let her run in the yard with the other dogs. The vet said she was done hunting and no more retrieving drills. Well...she hunted SD this year. Couldn't bear to leave her home, figured I'd use her as a blocking dog.

I hunt with my vet. When he saw her all fired up to hunt and how well she was getting along he said give her a short field and see how she does. Short story, she hunted about an hour a day with no significant ill effects. She is still eager to hunt the field but you can see when she gets tired. Still administering meloxicam after these short hunts.

At home there's no evidence of ill effects. She is slower than she used to be by quite a bit but she still plays with the other dogs in the yard and will not be denied a few retrieves when that's being done. She just walks off and lays down when she's done with other dog play or retrieves.

Your mileage may vary. This is how it went for me.
 
Your post got me cruising the 'net. Found this. It sounds like what happened with my chocolate. Interesting website by the by.

http://tiggerpoz.com/id3.html

When a ligament injury causes looseness in the stifle(the knee), if activity is carefully restricted the dog's body will slowly build tough fibrous scar tissue which will provide support for the stifle joint. This is a natural healing process. Before the injury, the ligament helped hold the bones in place at the joint while allowing proper movement. After the injury, with the ligament not performing this function any longer, a dog's body will respond to the looseness at the joint by building-up this tough fibrous new scar tissue to hold the bones of the leg at the stifle joint so that near-normal movement is possible while inappropriate movement is largely prevented.

This new supporting scar tissue is what permanently stabilizes the stifle in the future whether or not surgery is done. Conventional surgery can provide temporary stability enhancement by installing strands of orthosuture (similar to fishing line), but ultimately it is this tough fibrous scar tissue which provides permanent stability in recovered stifle joints.
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