# Kita - 6 months post Cruciate Injury



## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

I posted here when Kita first got injured, we are now 6 months into the recovery process. She's doing well, and I'm allowing her a lot more freedom. There is still a minor hitch in her step that I can see, some people see it, some people don't. It also varies a little from day to day. Once in awhile I'll see her skip a step or two, on uneven terrain, but I've been able to up what she's allowed to do, without loosing the progress we've made, and she's a MUCH happier dog. Still spending a lot of time crated because she's just not the type of dog I can trust loose without supervision, she'll do something stupid within the first 60 seconds. All it would take is her deciding to wrestle with the other dogs, or run the fence line with hard stops and turns and we'd be back to square one. Or squre two. So she's still not allowed to play with the other dogs. But I am allowing her to walk/trot/run in the yard, she plays with toys throwing them up in the air then pouncing on them, etc. The only thing I still don't allow is "doughnuts" in the yard, no spinning and shoving off on that back leg. We've had a few setbacks over the last 6 months but she's recovered from each of them and continued to improve. I'm hoping in a few more months she'll be restriction free, at least for individual play in the yard and time in the house with the other dogs where any play can be supervised. I don't envision allowing her to play with the other dogs in the backyard for quite a bit longer, considering the level of stress that will put on her leg. 

I put a video online, I'm not sure what she was searching for but she was sure interested in some scents in the yard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9getZEgX4hU


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## Lesya Zaichenko (Dec 10, 2011)

Best of luck for continued success in your post-operative period! I had a dog blow out one knee and repaired it with a "traditional" surgery. As corny as it may be, I wrote up a blog about it. It helped me to keep a record of the progress and is handy when people ask about CCL injuries. 

http://sophiescruciate.blogspot.com

Sophie unexpectedly passed away April 2010 from Lyme Nephritis at the tender age of 7.5.


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## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

I'll go check out your blog. I'm keeping an online diary of Kita's recovery for the same reason. 

http://www.dantero.com/kita_injury.php


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## Sara Waters (Oct 23, 2010)

That is good she is recovering well. Really the most important thing is what you are doing and allowing the healing process the time it needs. 

My cattle dog had bilateral cruciate surgery (TPLO) and she got back to competing in agility with no problems. She is now 11 and still sound as a bell on those hind legs. She had one done at age 2 and one at age 6. I took great care in the recovery process.


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## Martine Loots (Dec 28, 2009)

Good to hear she's making good progress!


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## Harry Keely (Aug 26, 2009)

Good luck with her I have had two coming up on 17 years and niether one ever fully made a full comeback, I hope your luck is better than mine Kadi.


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## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

Harry Keely said:


> Good luck with her I have had two coming up on 17 years and niether one ever fully made a full comeback, I hope your luck is better than mine Kadi.


I have no expectations that she'll return to Ring training/competition. Even if I think she has made a full recovery, it's just not worth the risk to me, I don't think either of us wants to go through this rehab again LOL. The esquives and the torque put on the back legs trying to catch the decoy, or when they do catch and get swung around, I'm not going to risk it. I'm not concerned about the jumps, since thats straight forward and controlled, it's the unexpected things that can happen in bitework. 

I just hope she gets to the point where I don't have to watch her every time she's loose, she can run and play like a normal dog, and we can go do some AKC obedience or something.


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## Harry Keely (Aug 26, 2009)

Kadi Thingvall said:


> I have no expectations that she'll return to Ring training/competition. Even if I think she has made a full recovery, it's just not worth the risk to me, I don't think either of us wants to go through this rehab again LOL. The esquives and the torque put on the back legs trying to catch the decoy, or when they do catch and get swung around, I'm not going to risk it. I'm not concerned about the jumps, since thats straight forward and controlled, it's the unexpected things that can happen in bitework.
> 
> I just hope she gets to the point where I don't have to watch her every time she's loose, she can run and play like a normal dog, and we can go do some AKC obedience or something.


I had one that I ended up placing after almost 2 years of it happening, that one was a long long time ago and hes passed on now, the other is still here and it probally I guess going to say safely has taken him a good part of two years as well about 5 or 6 years ago and I just placed him with my inlaws just shy of being a teenager, that one hit us hard beause we did him from a pup, but long story short like you said I never put niether one to work again, I do wish you the best, it sucks this last one was my wifes boy, since then I cant get her to commit 100% to another dog. She still loves the dogs but now she just wants to help, and play once in a blue blue moon.


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## Martine Loots (Dec 28, 2009)

Kadi Thingvall said:


> I just hope she gets to the point where I don't have to watch her every time she's loose, she can run and play like a normal dog, and we can go do some AKC obedience or something.


I don't know what you think about homeopatic treatment, but Kalmia Compositum (HEEL) is doing wonders for the reinforcement of ligaments (3 times 10 drops a day).


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## Anna Kasho (Jan 16, 2008)

My Cyko did in his cruciate about 2 years ago, with a very bad jump (stupid dogs). It wasn't a full tear, and there was no drawer sign. I stuck to an extreme rigid crate/rest routine, he was not allowed to do anything exept walk a little bit on a leash to go outside and back. The advice I got was to not let him show a limp. i.e. if he limps it's gone too far and started damaging the tendon again, and you build up exercise ever so slowly to keep him just under that threshold... It seems to have worked for him though. 9 months after injury he looked pretty much normal. Now I can't even tell anything was wrong. 

I am not doing french ring with him, so I can't say if his knee would hold up with the extreme stress and torque of those exercises... But he can run like an idiot, jump, and play fetch with my other dogs, and the way they race and skid and turn has to be pretty rough... But he's holding up well so far.


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## Lisa Brazeau (May 6, 2010)

Thanks for the reference, Martine!!! My little girl has the same issue as Anna's dog. No drawer-sign, but definitely injured. We've been doing water therapy, but I really wish she would heal up faster. 

I'm glad Kita is healing nicely, too. Although I'm sad to hear she won't return to competition. 

Martine, have you had dogs return to ring after an injury like this?

It makes my heart drop to think that Haiku may not recover to working ability! I'll just ball my eyes out right now......


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## Sara Waters (Oct 23, 2010)

Quite a few dogs get back to competing in agility or working livestock after cruciate injuries but it sounds like this is different to ring sports (I know nothing about what is involved in ringsports as we dont have them where I live).


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## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

Martine Loots said:


> I don't know what you think about homeopatic treatment, but Kalmia Compositum (HEEL) is doing wonders for the reinforcement of ligaments (3 times 10 drops a day).


I'm all about homeopathic stuff, in addition to traditional medicine. Kita's seen practitioners of both during her recovery. I'll look into that stuff, thanks.



Lisa Brazeau said:


> It makes my heart drop to think that Haiku may not recover to working ability! I'll just ball my eyes out right now......


It's really a personal decision, and I do know people who have returned to competition with dogs with similar injuries. Kita is 4 now, with what I estimate to be 6 months more of recovery. By the time I got her back into shape, we cleaned up and added more training, etc she'd be 5+. 6 by the time she got the FRIII, baring any injuries. Doesn't give her much time to compete, not to mention I do plan to breed her again which takes time out of training. She's already got the FRI and won the Regional and National championships, it's just not that important to me to put an FRII and FRIII on her. That was the decision I made last summer after she was injured. More recently I decided for other reasons that after 20 years I won't be renewing my NARA membership, I'm done with French Ring. So even if I wanted to get her back into protection sports, it would be something other than FR. And I enjoy the dog, a lot, we don't have to do Ring to have fun, we'll have fun elsewhere. She's just a very fun/cool dog to work with. 



Sara Waters said:


> Quite a few dogs get back to competing in agility or working livestock after cruciate injuries but it sounds like this is different to ring sports (I know nothing about what is involved in ringsports as we dont have them where I live).


My biggest concern with the bitework is the sudden torque on the leg that the dog isn't controlling. With agility, they know where they are going, they are controlling their bodies in the jumping, it's still putting stress on the body but there isn't an outside influence unless the dog crashes something. In bitework it's not just the dog, it's the decoy. Dog comes down the field, decoy tries to esquive, dog barely catches and slips off, dog goes head over heals. Or the dog does catch and hang on, and is swung throught he air when their back feet hit the ground there is a lot of sideways momentum they are stopping. Or even just a decoy driving into the dog while it's on the bite. It's all directional force the dog isn't controlling, and is usually pushing against, putting a lot of unexpected stress/torque on their joints. Maybe she could do it, and never be injured again, but after 9-12 months of rehab, serious crate time, supervised walking, etc it's just not worth risking, to me.


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## Sara Waters (Oct 23, 2010)

Kadi Thingvall said:


> My biggest concern with the bitework is the sudden torque on the leg that the dog isn't controlling. With agility, they know where they are going, they are controlling their bodies in the jumping, it's still putting stress on the body but there isn't an outside influence unless the dog crashes something. In bitework it's not just the dog, it's the decoy. Dog comes down the field, decoy tries to esquive, dog barely catches and slips off, dog goes head over heals. Or the dog does catch and hang on, and is swung throught he air when their back feet hit the ground there is a lot of sideways momentum they are stopping. Or even just a decoy driving into the dog while it's on the bite. It's all directional force the dog isn't controlling, and is usually pushing against, putting a lot of unexpected stress/torque on their joints. Maybe she could do it, and never be injured again, but after 9-12 months of rehab, serious crate time, supervised walking, etc it's just not worth risking, to me.


Yes that would be risky. I thought long and hard about returning to agility as my cattle dog is pretty kamikase and vigourous and not light weight like a BC or kelpie. I was lucky that her healing time was pretty quick, about 5 months and she didnt limp after the surgery which was a bonus.

I did a lot of swimming with her and physioball work

I agree though from what you are saying about ringsports, I wouldnt have gone back with my girl either. Big potential for things to go wrong. Not worth it at all.


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## Martine Loots (Dec 28, 2009)

Lisa Brazeau said:


> Martine, have you had dogs return to ring after an injury like this?



Yes, my competition dog Fils (retired now) tore his knee ligament when he was 3 yrs old.
Doing the recall from an attack, he made a quick turn to come back and his back leg got stuck in an object the decoy was holding. With he speed he had, he completely twisted the knee and tore the ligament.

Took him to the veterinary clinic, where they said the only option was surgery and then he would be lost for a sports career.
Decided to do no surgery and had him treated by my osteo, who also is a holistic vet. He gave him manual therapy, combined with the Kalmia Compositum drops, Zeel (Heel) and Traumeel (Heel) both 3 tablets a day.
After 2 weeks I already could start rehab. Slow trotting next to my bike and a lot of swimming. No quick turns. I gradually increased the training but the first 6 months no running (except bike & treadmill) and no playing. He took the homeopatic drugs for 6 months.
Kept him 1 yr out of competition for the rehab and he had a normal sports and competition career afterwards. The knee never bothered him anymore.

This pics were taken after the rehab


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## Sara Waters (Oct 23, 2010)

Martine Loots said:


> Yes, my competition dog Fils (retired now) tore his knee ligament when he was 3 yrs old.
> Doing the recall from an attack, he made a quick turn to come back and his back leg got stuck in an object the decoy was holding. With he speed he had, he completely twisted the knee and tore the ligament.
> 
> Kept him 1 yr out of competition for the rehab and he had a normal sports and competition career afterwards. The knee never bothered him anymore.


Those photos are pretty impressive. Did he have a partial tear of a complete tear? I have a friend whose dog had a partial tear and with a lot of hard workg got her back to competing without surgery. My dog had a complete tear, her leg just dangled, she couldnt even put it on the ground so I went for surgery.


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## Martine Loots (Dec 28, 2009)

He had a partial tear. With a complete tear there is no other option but surgery.


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## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

Martine Loots said:


> He gave him manual therapy, combined with the Kalmia Compositum drops, Zeel (Heel) and Traumeel (Heel) both 3 tablets a day.


We've been using the Traumeel, this is a list of the supplements I've had her on. She was on Rimadyl the first 2-3 weeks.

Arnica - 2x day
Trace Minerals
Alka Dog - Barley Grass microground, desiccated beef liver, carrot powder, trace mineral powder, multi-strain acidophilus, garlic powder.
Fish Oil - 4000mg per day
Traumeel - 1 tablet 2-3x day, increased to 2 tablets 2-3x day when taken off Rimadyl 
Dasuquin with MSM - 2x day as a loading dose for the first couple months, then down to 1 a day as a maintenance dose.


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## Lisa Brazeau (May 6, 2010)

Thanks for giving me hope!!!!!

Kadi, come on over to the dark side, girl - Mondioring is where it's at! No Esquives!


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