Riley Update

We finally had our appointment last sunday with the orthopaedic surgeon to evaluate Riley for hip replacement surgery.  Things didn't turn out quite the way I had expected.  The surgeon felt that although he might have some discomfort from his hip that his main problem was likely neurological or spinal.  She felt he might possibly have canine degenerative myelopathy (DM) which is a disease similar to MS in humans.  Another possibility is herniated discs or intervertebral disc problems which are preventing proper nerve language from his brain to his hind limbs.  Final possibilities include tumours or infections but that is not likely.

We saw the orthopaedic surgeon on sunday and I spent monday all snot and tears convinced of all sorts of horrible outcomes.  If he does have DM the majority of dogs have hind end paralysis within six months to a year.  There is no pain involved in DM as it is basically just all the nerves shutting down.  Monday was the day for me to wallow in my fears.  We had an appointment with the neurologist on tuesday morning so I sucked it up and moved on.  The neurologist did a good check over and we did a regular blood panel as well as the blood test for DM.   The DM test is sent to to the USA and will take 2-4 weeks for results.  The neurologist is leaning more towards disc problems than DM based on Riley's age and breed but it is hard to know.  Depending on the results of the DM test we may proceed with an MRI which should hopefully show the problem.  The MRI is very expensive (approx $2100).  Riley's regular blood tests did come back normal.

Riley's symptoms include intermittent dragging of his back feet.  The middle two toe nails are ground very short on those feet.  The dragging is generally worse at the end of our walk.  He has a very straight legged walk with his back end (minimal knee action) and when tired his stance gets wider.  His "bad" hip is the left one but he tends to swing and compensate more with his right leg.  I have thought that was strange but just assumed that it was his way of adjusting for the hip.   He sometimes shows general fatigue weakness in his back legs especially when more tired.   He also paces versus a regular trot gait quite a bit.  He is still my happy go lucky crazy boy always up for action and play and does not seem to be in any pain.  I discontinued his NSAID a few weeks ago when he had some tummy upset and it doesn't seemed to have made a difference to his comfort levels.  I believe that he did have some real soreness or injury back in June but it has mostly healed with his restricted activity levels.  We still walk for about an hour each day and this week I have given him more off leash freedom and he seems to be handling it well.

So it is a waiting game for now.  I have been mostly positive since my melt down day and just enjoying spending time with Riley.  He has so much joy for life that it is hard not to be happy around him.  He was so good when the doctors were poking and prodding him and even offered the neurologist his belly for rubs while we were talking.  Even when he was overwhelmed he just stuffs his head in my lap for comfort and let them do whatever was needed.  If it is DM there is nothing we can do and we will just enjoy the time together.  Some of his symptoms have been around for a long time (although much worse this last year) so now I'm probably inclined to believe it is a disc problem which could mean surgery and we will deal with that if it happens.

Keep us in your good thoughts please!

This summer in Oregon

Puppy Riley loving water already

   

Hip Displaysia

It's been a while since I said I would post about Riley's hip displaysia but it turns out my brain needed more time to start coming to terms with what this means for us.  We also snuck away for a lovely week of camping in an area where there is minimal internet access.

Riley's xrays show his left hip is dysplasic and has significant degenerative changes (aka arthritis). His right hip is in fairly good shape. His knees are pretty strong but he has some degenerative changes in his hocks (bone spurs and arthritis) which are likely due to compensating for the hip and not considered a significant factor at this point.  When I received this news I was quite overwhelmed.  I have known for a long time that his structure is not very good but had wrongly assumed that any recurring problems he had were from his back not his hips.  If he was ten years old and I received this news then I would be willing to manage this with supplements, medications and therapies but he just turned six years old.  I have never expected him to be a super long-lived lab due to his size but I did expect him to have a good 3-4 more active years.  He is a very healthy and active dog but I do worry about the long term effects of using NSAIDs.

Our options are to restrict his activities and manage the pain or to do surgery.  Neither option is clearly defined at this stage.  He is currently on a NSAID and we have done a four week course of cartophen injections.  I have been supplementing him with good quality glucosamine products for years and using homeopathic remedies like Arnica or Traumeel when he had soreness in the past.  We usually walk 1-1.5 hours every day with a lot of that off leash hiking on local trails so he is actually in very good shape other than this problem.  He has been on leash more the past few months in an effort to treat his soreness and prior to our holiday we were starting to get back to more regular activity levels with some modifications. 

While on holidays I experimented with letting him have more off leash freedoms and unfortunately he paid the price.  We didn't do any major hiking but still a longer (1.5 hour) walk was just to much for him and he was sore later.  Darn dog has absolutely no filter on how to retrict himself and just go, go, goes while he is in the "moment".   He does recover with a few days rest and does well if kept mostly on leash.  It sucks for him because he loves to run and explore but for now I will closely monitor his activity and reactions.

The other option is surgery.  There are two types of hip surgery.  One involves cutting off the head of the hip bone so it no longer rubs against the joint causing pain.  The muscles can stabalize the joint and recovery is fairly easy.  Unfortunately that surgery is mainly successful for dogs under 50-60 pounds.  The option I am looking at is a total hip replacement just like they do in humans.  It will cost a small fortune (around 5 or 6 thousand) and involves a pretty major three month recovery.  The first month has the largest risk of dislocation so is basically no activity other than potty breaks and then gradually over months two and three we build up from very short walks to regular activity.  It appears there is a very good (90+%) success rate for the surgery but of course there are always risks and if things go wrong then he will be really screwed.   Despite that I am still leaning towards that option.  His soreness levels last week have convinced me that it will not be easy to treat this without surgery.  It is very expensive but I also know from experience with Lucy that supplements, meds and therapies add up a lot and there is a lot of time and travel involved for chiro visits, swim visits etc.   

I have asked my vet for a referral to the surgeon so we can assess if Riley is a good candidate for the surgery.  If it turns out that he isn't then I will look further at regular therapy like swimming, accupuncture etc as well as some other alternative therapies.  I have a friend who had good success with gold bead accupuncture implants for her dog and have also heard good things about stem cell therapies.  I don't know much about either option currently but I will research. 

Lots of information for me to digest and assess over the coming months.  If we proceed with surgery then I am hoping to do it early september which allows for our summer holiday. 

Here are a few pics of last weeks lovely camping trip.  It was good to get away and just enjoy time with hubby and the dogs.

A trial and bad news

Last weekend the dogs and I headed over to Victoria for a dog trial.  This was Stella's very first trial.  I had originally planned to just take her along to introduce her to the environment and see how comfortable she was with the crating, noises and other dogs.  Last minute as I was submitting the entries I decided what the heck I would enter Stella in one round of rally novice each day.  Once I entered her there was a few mild moments of panic when I checked the exercises and realized I had a few things I had to teach quickly.

Riley has been injured the past month or so and had aggravated that injury the weekend before so he also had basically no training or work in the time leading up to the trial.  Needless to say I didn't hold high hopes for our success. We headed over on friday night in time for the "correction" matches and to set up all of our gear.  During the practice with Riley he slipped on the floor and again seemed quite sore.  I was all set to scratch him for the weekend but after a nights rest he seemed more comfortable.  He wasn't quite his normal self and his sits were slow but we did manage to finish off his pre-novice title and his final two rounds of Rally Excellent title so I was very proud of my handsome dog.  We moved up for a round of novice obedience which didn't go so well but considering he wasn't feeling great and there was a lot of distractions I wasn't that disappointed.  That same weekend there was a confirmation show and a horse show on the same grounds as our trial.  The trial was indoors but it was hot so all the doors were open and we shared some areas with the outdoor confirmation show.

Stella was wonderful in her two classes.  Her first round was a 96 and won her first place in the class.  She would have had a 99 but I screwed up and mishandled a turn.  I even managed to screw it up again on the redo!  Riley reads my body language better so I didn't provide the extra information she needed for the about turn.    Her second class also went very well and we scored a 95 and second place.  I was very proud of my happy, bouncy bean because even though she was a little distracted she was happy, comfortable and worked well in the ring with me.  I am even starting to see a few moments of lovely attention heeling with her which I have only just begun to start working.  She also seems quite at ease in all the chaos and other dogs which makes me very happy!

Here is the video of our first rally round.


It was a nice weekend away and on our return home we were all exhausted.  This week I took Riley in for his xrays and received the horrible news that his left hip is quite dysplasic.  I am still trying to digest that information and process all that means for the future.  I'm generally a pretty accepting person but when my furries are hurt I get all knotted up. I've had quite a few crying moments while this has been happening but will post later this week with more information.  Please keep my wonderful big dog in your thoughts.

Sidelined

We finally got finished handling Stella's heat cycle and now Riley is injured.  Arghhh!  The training gods are not being very accomodating to training for a trial I have scheduled for the end of month.

My poor giant dog was not blessed with good structure (long back and straight hind end) and has been "off" for a little while although I didn't think it was anything serious until last week when he got up and was barely putting any weight on his left hind leg.  I'm not sure what triggered this but I'm sure all that air-humping motion didn't help!  We have had a few problems like this over the yearx but this is one of his more severe episodes.  Past issues has seemed to flow more from back issues but this was diffferent.  I was pretty confident it wasn't a knee problem and luckily managed to squeeze into a chiropractic visit the next day.  The chiropractor identified it as a hip issue and said he was seriously "wacked" and of course that had put his whole body all out.  The normal recommendations would be short on-leash walks for a few days and moving up to gradual regular freedoms but this time the doctor wanted no walks and limited activity for at least three days and then only short on leash before seeing him again this week.

Riley is not a dog that appreciates that kind of restriction!

Stella had only just finished her heat and the two dogs wanted to play and romp together.  No such luck :o(.   We did manage to keep him mostly quiet for 3-4 days and then he had a short walk tuesday, 30 min wednesday and thursday.  Thursday I think we did to much because he seemed quite weak later that morning.  He also had a canine massage on tuesday which I think helped a lot.  When we saw the chiro on thursday afternoon he was pleasantly surprised at his condition when compared to last week.   He still wasn't normal but there was much less heat in the area and the adjustment was much easier.  He is still on restricted leash walks for now but hopefully by next week should be back to regular walks.

I am a big fan of holistic type treatments for our animals.  I did give Riley a NSAID (previcox) for the first two days but also gave arnica or traumeel.  I discontinued the NSAID after that but have continued to use the traumeel orally a few times per day.  Traumeel is a homeopathic product that I have had very good results with for my dogs.  It is also available as a cream or gel.  The chiropractor is wonderful with Riley and those sessions really make a difference.  I need to start scheduling a regular monthly maintenance visit instead of only seeing him when he has soreness.  I only wish that he was much closer as currently it is at least a two hour turn around to have a treatment and in traffic can be much longer.  In the past I have also done IMS (InterMuscular Stimulation) which is similar to accupuncture.  We did a lot of that with Lucy but Riley is a little less cooperative and a lot harder to handle so I haven't been doing that as much with him.  We also did therapy swimming with Lucy and that is something I am considering for this winter for Riley.  The massage this week was a first for us but is something I might consider in future.  Unfortunately all this stuff costs money! 

Hindsight would have me taking him for treatment a few weeks earlier which probably would have fixed things before they got worse.  Lesson learned yet again :o) but it feels like he is now on the road to recovery.  Riley is only six years old and he is in wonderful condition other than the occasional situation like this.  I keep him lean and fit and that will be the most important thing for maintaining his quality of life in future years.  I also avoid activities for him that are harder on a dog's body like throwing a ball or doing agility.  He doesn't have a whole lot of self preservation smarts and dives for the ball and goes skidding across the ground head over heels.  I do let him chase the ball when I throw it into water for swimming and on land I tend to chuck it into bushes to have him do an area search.   I definately can't just stand there with a chuck-it but one of the reasons I have dogs is to get my own exercise anyway!

This is more his regular speed!