Canine Luxating Patella: Simon Scheduled For Surgery 7-12-2010

Sir Simon The Sad will undergo corrective surgery for canine luxating patella tomorrow (7-12-2010). His hospital stay - 3 days.

Thanks to the advice of chazhound.com/forums (http://www.chazhound.com/forums/t118211/) forum members and his breeder, I have been taking his temp for the past several days so I have a benchmark to figure out if he has a fever post surgery. I've also been trying to catch him limping so I can video his current condition (The Flip UltraHD camcorder comes in handy A LOT).

Finally caught a short video of the limp Simon develops when his knee dislocates. Watch the first few steps in this video . . .



We prepared his food and treats for the animal hospital stay. If he wants to eat, at least he'll have familiar food instead of "hospital food." He can't eat after 12:00 midnight (Sunday) but can drink water.

To all those dog owners out there, please wish Simon a pain-free smooth recovery!

The video shown in this post was taken with one of the FLIP HD camcorders, the UltraHD.

The Ultimate SECRET To Puppy Obedience Training - It's Up To You, The Trainer

What's the ultimate SECRET to Puppy Obedience Training?

Without a doubt, it's the

Trainer's ability to GET and MAINTAIN the puppy's attention.

If you do NOT have the dog's attention, he will not learn and you will not teach anything . . . ever.

If you really want a well-trained, obedient dog, learn Puppy Obedience Training commands from an expert Certified Professional Dog Trainer - Beth Ostrowski-Parks. She has a puppy obedience training DVD called It's PAWSIBLE! Dog and Puppy Training DVD.

Here's the review of this DVD that can help you train your dog step by step in a few weeks: http://www.squidoo.com/Dog-Training-DVD-Review

The following video demonstrates how It's PAWSIBLE! works:

Canine Luxating Patella - The Surgeon Explains Simon's Surgery

We had a discussion (June 25) with Simon's surgeon about his trick knee (canine luxating patella). His symptoms are getting worse, so we opted for surgery as soon as possible for two reasons:

1. Over time, he will develop arthritis. It's not a concern this moment, but without surgery, he will have problems with an arthritic knee.

2. Dogs with a luxating patella often injure their cruxiate ligaments because of the stress of a dislocating kneecap.

Simon's Symptoms

In case you're wondering - he's showing (or we are better at noticing), these symptoms:

• Occaisonally he will limp because the kneecap has dislocated. The limp lasts as long as it takes for him to pop it back into place.
• When he lies down, he groans as if in pain.
• It takes him a while to get into pooping position (the knees are flexed).
• He falls up stairs (and has since he was a pup).

Frankly, he's had this issue since he was born, but it's getting worse now that he's more mature. His condition is complicated by the fact he's grown from 9 to 29 pounds since we got him in August of 2009. That's a big growth spurt for a Cockapoo originally estimated to be 20 pounds tops at maturity. He's really not the clumsy puppy we thought he was, just a pup with a trick knee.

More Facts About Luxating Patella From The Surgeon
We asked a lot of questions of the surgeon - this is a family member who's having knee surgery and we wanted to be sure we were doing the right thing for Simon.

So here's a few facts about the surgery -

In Simon's case, the kneecap dislocates medially - to the inside of his right knee. It dislocates (moves out of its groove) because the ligament holding the kneecap in place attaches to protrubing bone in his lower leg bone slightly off center. This condition (off center attachment) was probably present at birth.

During the surgery, the protruding bone (and ligament) will be cut and re-attached in the correct position with a pin. Then the ligaments on the side of his knee will be tightened.

Total surgery time - 30 minutes.

Total time under anesthesia - about an hour.

More about Simon's condition (canine luxating patella) in future posts . . .