ACL Surgery

I would like to hear from others that their dog has had ACL surgery. Kaci is in her 8th week of recovery. Would like to know how long your rehab was, how long your dog was in the crate and when your dog started dock jumping again. Thanks for any info you might have.

I havent had a dog with acl injury but iv heard the hydro treadmills are a very good low impact excercise for acl injuries.. I think barkabout hs a n underwater treadmill but im not for sure. But i would just call your vet too make sure she is ready to go before starting. Plus may wanna find someone too help teach you how to build core muscles thru balance ball training and stretches. Plus maybe a balance board but like i said talk to your vet to make sure kaci is ok to go. Cant wait to see her again.... Well you guys too.

yes, she goes back to the surgery vet next Monday. I'm excited to hear what they say. She is walking good on it. Only limps when she thinks about it.. but she has lost 3 inches around her leg. I know Kaci thinks she is fine.. but yes we have kept her down.. it has been a struggle... she had me up at 5:00 am barking this morning.. she is so bored... thanks for your ideas.

Carly just had ACL surgery this past Friday so it's too early to say for us. I will say that part of the recovery instructions are to do physical therapy every day, which includes flexing, stretching, and massaging. They had us doing it from day one.
Which surgery did Kaci have? Carly had the TPLO which should be a shorter recovery time from what I've heard.

Brandy had TPLO surgery several years ago and we too did the flexing, stretching and massaging daily from the beginning.

She had the TightRope procedure. Yes, we have been massageing her leg, exercises and leash walks. But it doesn't say what to do after 8 weeks. I guess we will find out on Monday... Now that Kaci is feeling better it is even harder to keep her down.. Someone had said something about a Ball exercise.. has anyone heard of that one.. is that a special dog exersise ball.. thanks for the info.. I'm so nervious to have her ever jump again...

The excersise ball is a special k9 version made specifixally for rehab and strengthening excersises. You can find them online and there are sum instructers/therapists that can show you how to use them to help with your specific injury. Plus you can use them to help strengthen core abdominal myscles

as a human sports med specialist...
I would get her in the pool. Around here there are 2 pools that are heated and indoor that the handler can get in the water with their dog.
Stay away from activities that would entail the knee joint twisting or rotating. The canine cruciate ligament limits the knee from rotation. Its main job is keep the tibia from translating forward on the femurm. So excessive or loaded knee extension should also be avoided.
Protecting the healing ligament is most important. As well as establishing blood flow. increased curculation will improve healing time and quality of healing.
Assistive stretches or "facilitated neuromuscular re-education" will help establish normal gait patterns. this can be done in water or on land but you have to have good control of your dog. Basically you assist the leg through a range of motion in a normal gait pattern. kind of like helping them through a step but you control the leg.
I would stay away from ball exercises or "loaded" activity until the limp is completely gone and muscle tone starts to return. Remeber that overloading the ligament is what tore it so don't be too fast to load it again.
A limp does not mean there is pain...It probably means that there is a neurological break down. this can be reestablished by doing the facilited walking in the water and progress to walking.
Activities like jumping over agility stunts and and balancing balls like BOSU balls are pretty advanced-I would avoid until there is good muscle tone and control of the leg with gait.
With getting the dog ready to weight shift-literally what it says-shifting weight from side to side. this can be done by lifting one of your dogs paws off the ground-they have to shift to the other side to keep its balance. this is an exercise. Practice with front paws first-like shaking paws then progress to the rear legs.
Keep in mind that your dog has a 15 minute attetnion span. and at 8 your dog is a little older and a little slower. It may not seem that way but a dog that is a few years older will not recover like a 2-3 year old dog. ANd finally, rehab can irritate an injury. So try icing the joint after a session. Keep them short and interesting-maybe make it a game. dont be a hurry to get kaci on the dock. The lead or jump really forces that joing to extend-more extension equals more forward tibial l translation-puts stress directly on that ligament. Better safe than sorry.

Thank you for all of your wonderful information. Kaci will be 2 years old in January. We have not jumped her since May 2012. She had her surgery on August 31.
We have been keeping her pretty much down since she is a high energy dog.
I never know when to use heat and when to use ice. So your message really helps. I have been trying to shift her weight. She only limps now mostly when she thinks about it. But we have started her on some adequan shots and we put her on Phycox to hopefully helped with the inflammed. How will I know if she is ready to jump again, next summer? We do not have any places around here for a heated pool, so it will not be until May or so. thanks again

I am not sure why I thought she was 8

well there are tests that we do with humans to determine their progression into the next phases of recovery.
but the walk before you can run theory works.

When the limp is completely gone from the walk then a controlled trot on leash is probably ok. with no rotation through the joint.
If there can be a trot without a limp either during or after the bout of exercise then use it. Continue to use the trot with no cornering-control the speed with leash so you actually have to slowly trot at her side. Short bouts are best. Dont work her to the point that she gets pain but enforce a asuccessful training session by shutting it down before there is pain. Kind of like if you get an inch then take the inch-dont go for the foot. Make sense. Use the trot to build uo her endurance and then instead of working on speed work on distance. If you have access to a park then maybe mark off 50-75 foot length and trot it-turn around and trot back, rest 1 minute and repeat 5-6 x and stop even if she looks good. You can always do more the next day. After the light trotting then you can do the assisted range of motion stuff descibed in my last post. followed by gentle stretching. and ice after

Ice Vs Heat.
Ice reduces pain and prevents inflammation-IT CANNOT REMOVE SWELLING ONCE SWELLING HAS OCCURRED. only prevents it. So most important to use right after a session of exercise.

You can use heat before hand but not really that necassary. I the physical therapy world I prefer to use the body as its source of warmth and use basic exercise to increase blood flow.

Just use the heat/ice principle like the saying "warm up and cool down" then youll remember when to use it.
Just to re-enforce. Use the rehab sessions as training sessions-keep it light and as fun as possible-lots of love and treats. not too many treats.

Pool will be better than running in the early going. Unloaded joint through exercise is great for a joint that was injured while loaded. I wish I had a portable pool to drive up there. But, if you want to drive down I'd be happy to get into the water with here. There'sa small iindoor therapy pool inn Garden City, MI. Bark about has a therapy pool too but I am not sure they rent it out.

With the weight shifting you can further challange the balance by having her stand on pillow, xperiement with different firmness of pillows. the pillow will make an unstable surface and it will make her work harder to stabilize the joint so she does not lose balance.

Ill shoot a video of Maddy with a few things and post it on my facebook page. All Star K9 Sports Photography, just so you get a better Idea of what I mean. Ill let you know when I put it up.

Kaci one high strung dog. I call her a hybred duck dog... We just love her but she is ready to go. We have not let her have the full use of the backyard and we are lucky enough to live in the country where we do have a large area to put her on a rope. I'm just really worried about doing too much. She would just "go" if I let her. And we do have a 8 month old lab also, so we have been keeping them away from each other. Kaci has a tendency to jump up with her front legs. Trying to see over the fence. That worries me too. The last time we went the vet said she was doing great, were not due to go back for another two weeks. They told us we could take her and walk her in the lake, but it is burr too cold. And if you know Kaci she would pull you into the lake with one "huge" leap. I'm on facebook is "Kaci thealligator".
of course.. let me know whn the video is up.. thank you so much.. my email address is smkeeler@yahoo.com.

check your email.

sara and B. Scott you might get something from the Vid as well. It is early to do this stuff with the TPLO since that is more like a joint replacement rather than ligament replacement you actually have to wait for some bone healing to occur. If you'd like I can research it a bit and come up with some appropriate things for them to do after they get up on their feet/paws

You should look into hydro-therapy. That was what we did with one of our non-jumpers last year. While she is older (9) and had the MRIT surgical option, she benefited greatly from the underwater treadmill and laser therapy we took her to. Probably the closest one to you would be Rogue Valley Vet, you would want to see Dr. Comrie. It is located at 131 and 14 Mile, Cedar Spring/Rockford area. She is amazing, they keep the dog all day so they can have multiple runs on the treadmill with increasing resistance when they can handle it. This is followed by laser therapy and massage. She also does a fantastic job of giving you a game plan for at home, including stretches and massage you can do at home. Let me know if you want the contact info.

Thanks John and Lori. I'll check it out. Brandy had TPLO surgery many years ago (before she started any dock diving) and continued to do UAD, disc dogs and agility for many years. She will be 14 years old on December 6 and no longer competes in any dog sports. She has never had any problem with arthritis, maybe because she had the TPLO surgery done very soon after she tore her ACL. Also, we've kept her weight down and kept her active.

Great video thank you for sharing... I will be buying a exercise ball for Kaci tomorrow for sure... we will see how she does...
Now if I could stop the little Alligator from chewing..... lol

Yep Patrick. thanks.. Dr. Comrie is where we took Kaci for her surgery. The vet that comes to her clinic did the surgery on Kaci. It is just a long way for us to travel , She is in Kent County and we live on the border of Montcalm and Gratiot. So we have taken Kaci there twice for follow-ups after her surgery. We go back in two more weeks. She recommended that Kaci do the agility course when she got better instead of the UAD but talking to people that do the agility courses it sounds like that is more twisting and turning on her body. But she did give us some exercises... thank you.. glad to know others have gone to her. : )