[Music]
here's
Dixie
Dixie's a Cocker lab cross and she's
limping the right leg when a dog limps
they don't step out on the right leg as
far and they step farther on the
left so here she comes she's walking
she's putting the she's not walking far
on the right leg see that and on the
left leg she is walking we'll keep doing
it on and on till you get it here we go
right leg she yeah there and one more
time Robin boy you're doing good we're
getting our workout today aren we yeah
there we go let's there she's limping
you might have noticed it as we turned
her again and again in the hall that she
wasn't putting full weight on her right
leg and she was stepping ahead with her
left leg so a lot of dogs come in with
arthritis in the hips arthritis in the
back and some of them will te strain or
tear their knee it's called an anterior
cruciate liament it holds the knee
together and I'll show you that on our
model so what is the acl ligament how
where is it and how do they tear it well
let's just show you on this little dog
our pet named bony uh this is the Skull
and the spine and the scapula and the
humorus and the front legs back here in
the stifle or knee is where the ACL is
it attaches it stabilizes this joint
from this bone to this bone so let's
show you on a Model if we take this
joint and we cut the bone there and
there we get
this and this is the patella the kneecap
that fits in the groove and it's
attached to muscles up here so let's
take the kneecap
out and then show you that the acl
ligament is goes from the back of the
femur to the front of the tibia so it's
designated or shown by this plastic
tinon that goes from there to there that
keeps the that keeps The Joint from
sliding too much that like this so what
happens when a dog tears it I can put my
hands like this and the and with that
ligament gone it really moves and if it
moves then it rubs and it can wear out
the cartilage and cause a lot of
arthritis and that's if there's a lot of
movement and we really and the dog's
really lame it's better to fix it but if
there isn't much movement and the dog
isn't too lame then sometimes we let it
go and it's funny if you don't have the
money to fix it the several thousand
dollars to fix it most dogs will get
over it to some degree how we test is we
take the knee the stifle or the knee and
we put our fingers on the end of the
bone the femur and the tibia and then
our thumbs behind each bone and we we
move it now it should shouldn't move
forward like that it's really moving
forward so I can push the tibia forward
ahead of the ahead of the femur I'm
pushing it pushing it so it's wiggling a
lot you might not be able to see that
very well but it it's easily
felt so another way to tell is there's a
lot of pain in the knee so if you look
down here again I is I push if I extend
the
knee Dixie's getting up she's such a
stoic dog so I push the knee extend it
and I can feel shaking and she's lifting
her head up which means she's sore that
could either be a strain a pulled muscle
arthritis or a torn cruciate liament but
whenever I do this draw sign then that
means it's a torn cruet like so Dixie's
just laying on our x-ray table isn't
that cute look at her Dixie how do you
feel you like it up here
we're going to take a look at your
x-rays your back is kind of hurting too
I thought I felt it so on this leg that
she tore that she now is injured we look
for any
fractures or any other
problems we make sure the hips are okay
and the hips aren't dis
plastic and if the everything looks good
we don't see any
fractures we don't see any other
problems then we can consider either
conservative therapy which is maybe a
brace working out strengthening up the
muscles in the leg and in the joint or
repairing it with a TPL of surgery or
another surgery so if your dog had a
sore back how would you
know well I'll show you I still had
delay
um I'll show you um sometimes dogs with
sore backs when you pick them up like
that they Yelp if you take your hands
along the spine and you can fill the
Bony spine in your dog's back like this
right here if you press in and see how
that see how the this the first moving
back she's really twitching when her
muscles are really twitching when I do
that so her back's a little sore in this
area and some dogs will really just sit
almost just sit down so you can fill
with your fingers that there's a lot of
shaking in the muscles now normal dogs
will do that too but dogs with a sore
back will really be painful so let's
look at the x-rays and see what that
looks
like so on the on the
x-rays you can see there's the vertebrae
which are these right here this is this
is Dixie
spine here's the vertebrae here's the
disc spaces in between the
vertebrae and the spines of the verteb
bra going up where the muscles are
attached we were pushing on the muscles
in these in these areas and we're
pushing down and it and it pushes on the
nerves that are in the dis area they
come out this little hole that's where
all the nerves come out to the rest of
the body and as you push it puts
pressure on these and causes pain that's
why they quiver so just to orient you to
the rest of the the body this is the
abdomen where the intestines
are here's the intestines
filled with
gas here's the colon with a big bunch of
poop in it and it's ready to go
out here's the
hips and the legs the
femurs and if you look at these
vertebrae all the vertebrae are fairly
smooth under here if you look at this
one it's got little little uh spikes
coming out that's because it's called
bridging spondy losis what happens is
when the disc collapses when that spacer
shrinks then the body tries to tries to
strengthen that so it doesn't move with
a
bridge and that's a sign that this area
is
weakened so Dixie not only has the spond
I'm sorry Dixie not only has the tear in
her knee
causing her to limp but she has also
back pain if we do surgery on that torn
AC then it's when she's healing it's
going to put a lot of it's going to put
a lot of torque on her back and on her
spine where she has arthritis and that
might make her hurt more so we'll have
to talk it over with the owner but so
that's the kind of things veterinarians
have to have to weigh we have to weigh
the the surgery the benefit and the harm
to other things so she has the torn acl
ligament in her leg and also she has the
arthritis in her back but sometimes some
dogs do okay with rehab with uh the ACL
tear if it's not tearing not torn too
badly if it's a partial
tear and the joint doesn't move too much
then sometimes rehab can help especially
on smaller dogs like Dixie a big dog is
usually better to do surgery because
then they have less arthritis in the
rest of their lives I've had several
friends that say Craig I can't afford 3
or $4,000 to to fix it so they just walk
the dog slowly over several months time
the dog might always have a little limp
but they're they do pretty well so
that's your decision if you want the
best fix go check with your veterinarian
and see what they recommend as far as
surgery or conservative
treatment well dogs are having problems
with their ACL ligaments real commonly
now think it's because a lot are
overweight out of
shape and they go out and play real hard
and they they rip it a lot of breeders
think they should be castrated and later
in life are neutered because they think
the
hormones uh help strengthen the
ligaments of the knee and you know in
larger dogs I've been thinking about
that and maybe they have a point maybe
it's not such a bad idea idea to wait
till six or seven months to or eight
months to neuter an animal maybe it does
make their ligament stronger so they
don't rip out their
ACLS another thing is uh keeping the
weight down in your dog and taking it
out for daily exercise really would help
prevent this if your dog
eats kibble and it's real overweight you
can use the tips and dog dish diet to
help it lose weight or you can even make
a weight loss formula using chicken and
green beans or chicken and other
vegetables kibble just has a high
calories and a lot of dogs can't really
um tolerate the kibble the carbohydrate
in the
kibble another thing is that they you if
your dog's overweight don't leave kibble
out all the
time um you need to feed it just at
twice a day once or twice a day
and you can do other things to help them
lose weight that's really
important um as far as the ACL tears
um if you take it to your
veterinarian myself and a lot of vets
are going to want to fix it because we
know that that's probably the best for
most dogs but some dogs if they wear
brace and you slowly bring them back on
it uh by walking and lots of
activity okay great gradually that their
acl's and their knees heal up pretty
good they might have more of a limp than
they would if they had the surgery but
because it's a costly surgery many
people just have to do that so that's a
decision that you'll have to make with
your
veterinarian and with your
pocketbook so if your dog does hurt
itself you can go to my 11 practical
home
remedies for minor illnesses and it
tells you at those of aspirin pain
relievers and then check out my website
dog dish diet I used to think it was
just good to keep dogs from having uh
problems like with allergies or bladder
problems or seizures but I just think
it's a good healthy way for dogs to eat
well have a great day thanks for
watching