Injuries

[SheltieAgility]

Hi, new to the forum and posted in the General Health section about my dog who had Tarsal Fusion surgery yesterday. He is an agility dog who had been taking time off, so technically this is not a sport injury, probably jumped off something and landed badly. There's not a ton of reading out there, but all in all, prognosis for a properly rehabbed dog after a successful surgery sound good.

Looking for similar experiences and what rehab plans were followed, and what prognosis has been for an agility dog. Thank you!

[corbinam]

I don't have any experience with this specific injury, and I'm sorry to hear about your pup. I do know how scary it is facing surgery and wondering about the prognosis.

My girl was diagnosed with luxating patellas about 7 months ago. I saw several vets and one bluntly asked me "how much do you like doing agility with this dog?" when she came back in the room. I was devastated.

However, after seeing a specialist we were lucky enough to learn that the issue is fairly minor. We do have a series of exercises that we do daily for strengthening and rehab that will hopefully help us to avoid surgery.

The best thing for us was when we went to a well-known rehab vet who created a specific program just for us. Not sure if you are near anything like that, but I highly recommend it.

Sending you good thoughts.

[SheltieAgility]

Thank you! I went to a highly respected ortho surgeon that the agility crews around me swear by. The consulting ortho at my vet practice did not make me feel very optimistic about full recovery, pretty much said 50-50 chance with or without surgery. The other vet, while he didn't give an exact prognosis was much more optimistic, and was clear he had to have surgery in order to maximize his chances. I have a PT on call who is considered "Gold Standard" around here as well, and is quite far (2 hour drive and very $$ I'm sure!) but I will do whatever necessary to try to get my boy as healthy as possible. I pick him up today so hopefully I will have a better idea what we are facing.

[Hurtseverywhere]

Well I havent had to deal with that sever of an injury with my dogs, I did have my dog storm as a 8 month old pup in rehab for a severe grion pull doing ultrasonic & laser therapy along with dog phisio her recovery was 100% took about 5 months total with 2 months of the seeing the specialist once a week, Cosmo had a small fracture in his shoulder as well recovery was around 95% it still bothers him on occasion I have to make sure that he is sufficiantly warmed up before a run. I do know of a couple of dogs that had been hit by cars and very pretty severly injured multiple broken bones and such that were treated by the same Vet that were able to return to agility fully as well.

She uses a underwater treadmill a lot for this kind of rehab and its not cheap
but the results I have seen are excellent. As a Triathlete myself have used the same type of rehab for multiple injurys over my career including a broken femer and numerous stress fractures, I figure if it works for me it should work for them.

The hardest part is finding the right correctly trained vet, at least it was for me, I got lucky and a new dog phisio trained vet had just moved back to our city to get married and set up shop, she actually was doing house calls at the time as she hadn't got her practice setup yet other then that the next closest one was 100 miles away from us round trip at the vet collage.

Good luck

[Justicemom]

My Bi blue girl Ember displaced her superical digital tendon in her hock about 2 yrs ago last August. She had surgery to repair it which went very well but she developed major bursitis over the point of the hock. It took lots of range of motion exercises, loading exercises to strengthen the joint and general conditioning because she gained almost 6 lbs because she couldn't walk for 6 weeks.

It took about 6 months to get to the point of being able to walk and running and she completed in obedience the following May and I believe agility in late June. Ember not ever the speedest of dogs in agility actually is faster now then she was before the injury(training issues) but really any worse for wear. She has gotten her UDX, OA, OAJ, AXJ AX, UKC AGI and II, 3 MXJ legs, 1 MX leg, 1 QQ, and just last week I moved her to prefered(she is almost 8yrs) and she picked up her first Prefered QQ and MJP and MXP legs. Not the same surgery as your dogs but the same area.

I do have a friend whos Collie have the same injury and surgery and she was able to return to enough function to earn her UD and be a normal companion. She doesn't do agility but I understand the surgery causes loss of flexion in the foot and hock and push off for jumping tricky. No personal experience myself.

[SheltieAgility]

The only good news I to go on is because this was lower limb and not upper, he'd have a better chance of recovery. But we will see in a few months!

[*Caro]

Originally Posted by SheltieAgility

The only good news I to go on is because this was lower limb and not upper, he'd have a better chance of recovery. But we will see in a few months!

Have to agree with you on that. And it's better to be a back leg and not a front. A friend just had a titanium implant in her lab's cruciate and her dog is expected to be back competing at flyball in 6mths, whereas my small sheltie has medial shoulder instability and I was told (by the same specialist) she could never compete in flyball or agility again I asked her what the difference was and she said different type of joint and back leg vs front leg (ie front takes more impact in dog sports).

[SheltieAgility]

Very sorry to hear about your Sheltie. I'm also a horse person and from experience, I know front end injuries can be trickier.