Dog won't use leg after patellar surgery

[lehughes]

Hi Laurie

Wondering if you might have any tips to get a dog to use their leg after patella luxation surgery. Owner reports he will put it down when outside for a walk if he is walking slowly but in the house he is on 3 legs all the time. He is 5 weeks out of surgery. The muscles of the limb are atrophied but he has normal range of motion. End feels - extension of the stifle has a slightly bouncy end feel which has me concerned about a nerve issue. He is a very stoic little pom that doesn't show any sign of pain when I do range of motion though.

I have tried laser therapy, having him walk on a slight unstable surface, cavalettis (he jumps them), a boot on the other 1-3 limbs (started with 1 and eventually progressed to all 3), have also tried clicker training - marking when he puts the leg down even slightly - now he is afraid of the clicker for some reason.

His owner and I are frustrated so I was wondering if you might have some advice

Thanks so much!

LR

[lehughes]

Hey L,

Okay… so I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir, but be sure to keep in the back of your mind, the complications that could be at the root of this issue:
* failed technique
* infection
* auto immune reaction
* nerve compromise
(All things I’ve seen with post op patellar surgeries.)


Now, onto the fun stuff. Sometimes these little guys are hard to get going. Here are some ideas to try:
1. Mess with the ‘good’ leg to get the dog to weight bear on the post-op one.
* Moderately tight wrapping of vet wrap on the good foot.
* Wrap a small ball of tinfoil under the good foot.
* Actually bandage the good foot into flexion to make walking on it undesirable.

2. Slow down the walking
* Use a land treadmill if you have one (forward, backwards, sideways).
* Gently push on the rump as the dog walks
* Spend some rehab time ‘dancing the dog’ - forward and backwards
* Add a moderately steep hill to the home exercise walking program
* Add booties to both front feet.[/list]

3. Get them off guard
* On some of the really tough cases, we have used the UWT in a very erratic fashion
* Warm up, and then go quite fast, then super slow, then fast again… and so on… Essentially making it difficult for the dog to anticipate what will happen next and as such will use all 4-legs.

I’m guessing that you likely just have to ‘kick it up’ a notch in the annoyance department to get the dog to use it!!

I hope this give you some ideas to move forwards! (And I’ll post it on the Forum for others to respond to as well.)

Cheers,

Laurie

[lehughes]

Thank You!

Yes we have looked for complications from surgery. He has normal range of motion other than slightly "twangy" endfeel with hip extension. He will put it down outside on slow walks and will put it down when he does circles but otherwise he moves fast and keeps it up.

I will try some of these things and see what happens.

LR

[lehughes]

The ‘twangy’ end feel is likely a tightness of the hamstrings if he’s been holding it up for the majority of 5 weeks.

Sometimes you just want to grab them up and shake some sense into these tough nuts!!!

Good luck!

Laurie