Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Cranial Cruciate Ligament (CCL) Partial Tear Update

It's been two years since Zio was preliminarily diagnosed with a partial CCL tear by my (ex)vet.  A friend referred me to a forum group that discusses dogs with orthopedic issues.  I also did a lot of research online to consider available options.  Everyone seemed eager to jump to the conclusion that immediate surgery (knee reconstruction) was the best solution.  I did get a referral from my vet to the leading orthopedic surgeon here in Oklahoma City, but I never felt completely comfortable with the diagnosis.  Without exploratory surgery, I think it would be extremely difficult to diagnose a partial tear by manipulation alone.  He was never reactionary with manipulation or pressure.  The non-weight bearing limp can indicated that the bones are slipping and causing friction if the CCL is torn. With a partial tear, there probably wouldn't be any slipping though.

I mentioned the situation to my personal doctor during my annual physical and he thought it was crazy to consider reconstructive surgery on a partial tear.  He said they would never consider that a solution on a human patient. 

I decided to go with six weeks of rest and ordered some Joint Strong supplement powder.  We did very short walks around the block initially every other day (off leash, since he thinks he's a sled dog on leash).  We gradually built that up until he was going about a mile.  The limp disappeared after the first five days.  He began practicing again after two months and I've kept him on Joint Strong for the last two years.   He is now running his fastest times ever and I'm very glad we didn't just go with the majority opinion and do major knee reconstruction. 

My recommendation if you find yourself in the same boat?  Don't believe the "surgery is the solution" crowd on a suspected partial tear.  Do your own research and see what feels comfortable.  Ask about non-surgical options.  The vet that referred me to the orthopedic surgeon is not my vet any more, but for a different reason though.  I should have sought a second opinion, but it worked out well!

Monday, May 5, 2014

A Personal Best on the Clock

Zio was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself, at last weekend's Spring Fever tournament hosted by Hyperflight!  He ran more 3.9 second runs than I kept track of Saturday running into Lucy and I'm pretty sure one of them was a 3.91, which would top his previous personal best of 3.94.  Many of these 3.9 second runs with pass, were in the 3.8 range wire to wire.  I'll analyze the video at some point to annotate it officially here!  ;)

We switched the line up around on Sunday and he was passing into Teegan.  Lucy is very easy to pass into with her consistent turn and recall.  Teegan is green and fairly rough with his turn, including several return trips outside of the jumps when he turned wide and took the direct path back to "mom".  Needless to say I played it more cautious with Zio's passing.  Toward the end, I started trying to get the timing a little closer and dialed the passing in to a moderately comfortable pass, but far from tight.  

He now has 29,915 U-Fli points as he closes in on his next title of TFFC -III at 31,000 points.  Border Staffy sister Luna gave me my first perfect start! She was running for the first time this year after she broke her toe in January chasing a ball in the backyard!  She ran on the "B" team as start dog and ran pretty good considering it was her first time in the lanes in over six months.