Buzzy Bear

..... Can’t remember whether I've mentioned him lately?


He’s been in the wars again!
...well, back in June he went lame on a hind leg, which sent me into a blind panic, …..weired I can cope with front legs but hind ones, means instantly cruciate, talk about panic. Well he had it x-rayed along with the other leg and nothing could be found, the cruciate was fine and he was well muscled in that area, so after week on lead and metacam...he was back free exercising and two weeks later he was back doing agility!


That was it until end of September, when he went lame for the whole of the weekend on the same leg, back to the Vets on the Monday, another lot of x-rays, she still couldn’t see anything and the cruciate was still fine, the x-rays included up towards his shoulders, just in case a disc was looking dodgy, x-rays where then sent of to Exeter to see Peter Attenburrow, in the mean time lead exercise and two weeks of metacam, the results, because of postal strikes didn’t arrive back to my vet until last Thursday, by which time he had had one week of no metacam and 3 weeks of lead walking and he was looking great, well I say great, it’s hard watching him walk whilst he’s on the lead, but he was loose around the garden and was still looking fine.
Anyway the results are copied from his (Peter Attenburrow letter)


“On the ventro dorsal view of the pelvis and coxo femeral joints there is evidence of a degree of subluxation of both coxo femeral joints. This appears to be more marked on the left side (funny that coz it’s his right that he was lame on!) There is also some remodelling of the femeral head on both sides with the rim of Osteophytes around the femeral head. The acetabulae are fairly shallow and I have seen coxo femeral joints sublaxation as a problem in this breed without there necessarily being evidence of gross osteroarthritis on radiographs. Usually these dogs will demonstrate some discomfort on forced extension and abduction of the hip.
Conservative management is probably appropriate initially; if there is poor response to conservative management and the pain persists then surgical intervention should be considered. Salvage surgery could take the form either of a femeral head and neck excision or total hip replacement”


So the long and the short of it. …He’s having a course of Cartrophen like “Red” had which helped her no end and hopeful this will help him too. We won’t go for an operation, until every other option is exhausted, but the vet has assured me that lots of dogs have this type of surgery and go on to live a pain free life.


In my heart of hearts I knew this is where he would struggle, as he got older being the “very large” active type of chap he is, nothing is done slowly or with any care of his own body (just like Red, his repeat mating older sister!) sad really as he not quite 8 yet, he too is the same as Red he needs to being doing something, I certainly wouldn’t be brave enough to run him in any size!
But hey lets not write him off yet!
So, he is to have weekly cartrophen injection for 4 weeks and then monthly for 4 months and we’ll see what happens. As long as he stays sound he can start coming off the lead.
We started yesterday on the beach at Porth, he had 10 mins off the lead, he was bonkers as expected, but he is still sound to day. Fingers crossed.