Frisbee girl, beach dog, hunter of sticks extraordinaire
And singer. Let's not forget singer
In our nine years together we've shared many adventures and gone on many journeys together. Now, we are about to embark on a new journey, in all probability, the biggest journey of Terra's life
Her journey actually started several months ago. Collette and I noticed that she was showing some lameness in her back legs, a certain weakness that would occasionally devolve into a limp. Terra is a very active dog and it's not unusual for her come with mild injuries, usually they heal within a day or two. This time, the limp lingered
It had gotten to the point that we decided to take her to the vet. After an exam and some x rays it was discovered that somewhere down the line Terra had partially torn her cranial cruciate ligament or CCL, essentially the canine equivalent of our ACL.
At first it was thought that, due to her conditioning and her level of muscularity, that she may be able to recover by letting the injury "rest". That meant no jumping, no running, no chasing. She could not come to work with me in the dog park. Leash walking was the suggested exercise
Yeh, that thrilled Terra
Things seemed to be going well. After a couple of weeks the limp had disappeared and she was moving well. I notice that while standing she was still favouring the bad leg but it was better. I was considering, after another week, of perhaps letting her chase a ball on the ground.
That all changed when we slipped on a patch of ice. I broke my pinkie finger, and Terra's injury came back. I tried letting her rest with even more restricted exercise but this time, after about 3 weeks, she was not recovering
Terra has always bounced back from her injuries in the past. But she is a working dog and she will disguise when she is hurt; she wants to "work" (and her work is play, yeh, I need to get into that union). But I knew this was not good.
Back to the vet we went. The CCL was was not going to repair itself. Probably this was actually caused by a degenerating bone issue that she may have born with. Certainly it's been going on for a long time but it was something that would not show on an X-ray. Unfortunately they don't usually catch this situation until it cause a ligament to tear
So that brings us to today, and what our vets think is Terra's best road to recovery: Surgery. A surgery called Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy or TPLO. It's a pretty invasive procedure. They will basically shave off the surfaces of the bone to level it then insert a metal plate to stabilize it
Like father like daughter I guess
There are other less invasive surgeries but for a dog like Terra, her size and her age and her activity level, this is thought the best bet. It will take her out of pain but how close to her normal active self she will get, well that depends on her and me and Collette.
So this is Terra's new journey. It's going to be a tough one, it's going to be long, but we love to travel together. And wherever we go, we go together.
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