A Birthday Disaster

Friday was January 11- the day Luna entered this world (Praise Jesus!)

That morning I woke up with grand plans- we were going to play TWICE just for Luna's birthday. We marched down to our field, and I threw the ball. Off she went. After a couple throws, I thought her run looked funny, but I wasn't sure. So I threw the ball one more time- and she ran back on only three legs. I just knew something was wrong, so we headed back home.

Once back home, I kept an eye on her, and she started to limp even more after about 20 minutes. I called the vet and scheduled a 10:15 appointment. My handsome fiance took her because I was a mess. And by mess I mean I just cried and cried all morning.

Our vet thought that she might have partially torn her ACL and directed us to see a specialist. In the mean time, we were supposed to keep Luna fairly sedentary (HA) and make sure she didn't jump on or off anything.

Today, we had our appointment with the specialist who was AMAZING. I can't say enough good things about this guy. He checked out her joints, reviewed her x-rays, and told us that he didn't think she would need surgery. THANK GOODNESS. He said if she tore her ACL, it was probably a very small tear, and she had a good chance of healing just fine over the next few months.

However, he said that in all likelihood, she would eventually fully tear her ACL. The surgery they do to fix this is crazy. They basically cut out a chunk of Luna's bone and reposition it so that there is no need for an ACL to stabilize the joint. Apparently, dogs recover about 95% of their previous activity capacity after that. Impressive.

The solution to all this is that Lu has to be eased back into activity- aka- no fetch for about 3 months. She will be miserable. We have to take her on slow, short, easy walks for about 1 months before maybe adding in jogging. It will be rough around these parts with an active lab who will want to run and play, but I am so glad that she isn't badly injured.

Ultra love,

Elise