She's done for the season, and

Jon Yenulonis

Jon Yenulonis

Well-known member
unfortunately, up until now, we were by having a good season. She retrieved all of my birds, plus birds for 3 of my friends, without any guidance from me. My one friend even quipped something to the effect of "after hunting with Annie, I have a whole new outlook on duck dogs. She's welcome in my boat anytime"

ACL repair today. Here's to about six months of arduous and mandatory rehab.


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Best wishes to her. If it makes you feel better, my dad's dog had ACL surgery done when she was about 11 years old. After the resting period and rehab, she was as good as she ever was before it. She lived another 4 years or so.....so if an old dog can do it, Annie should have no problems. It sucks for sure and lots of good juju being sent y'alls way.

Dani
 
Sad news, Jon, particularly given your background issue.

I asked Karen about the rehab. sequence. She said to be VERY careful in the early interval phase of rehabilitation after the 90 day rest period. She also recommended physically confining the dog to keep her from trying to jump up. In some dogs ACL blow-out has a genetic component; working the dog initially can sometimes overload the good leg anterior cruciate ligament, since the dog is still overworking that side for propulsion. A lot of on-leash walking and NO jumping energetic retrieves where the dog bursts out-of-the-gate. A good opportunity to work on denials to steady the dog for the future. Karen said the worst ACL blowout they have repaired was on a black lab that was doing aerial launches off an elevated bank. She blew her ACL and also landed on a submerged stump, breaking a rib, with a massive hematoma in her chest wall from collision.

I bought a Wildrose kennel fox red as our first full-English lab. He was not sound-hip displaysia. After settling the "Wildrose puppy guarantee" language versus actuality with the kennel owner. We elected to have his hip replaced at Fox Valley Animal Referral Center in Appleton, Wi. Dugan remained in an octagonal folding enclosure we use for our puppies as a retention pen when we are outside and not providing near-constant supervision. He had some room to move around, but was still restricted and we could reach in or climb in at our leisure to spend time with him. Don't freak-out at the degree of muscle atrophy that occurs post surgery, and always lean to the conservative exercise intensity regimen side. Fox Valley vets said ten years on the hip replacement. He lived nearly fourteen years and was active well into his 13th year. I stopped hunting him at eleven YOA.
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OH that sucks! Poor Annie :(

My old girl, blew her cruciate ligament as well, during some winter training. She was already 10, so we opted not to do the surgery.

She spent 6 months kenneled or very supervised time outside of the kennel. I carried her outside for 3 months, all the time outside was on leash.
After this it was summer and we swam her every chance we got walking her to the waters edge and I did a lot of casting left and right with her to build her muscles back.

I was shocked at how fast they loose those muscles!

She healed far better than I could have expected, she was doing puppy burn outs, swimming and playing like normal the following year!! Even got a few more
easy hunts in together, before she passed on.

Never got full strength back, but she was 11 by the time this was all done!

I hated to retire her, she was an HRCH and finished a bunch of field trials, finally winning one! Which qualified us for the national, then the following winter her knee let her down :(

Anyways, I'm sure you know this but rehab is most important!!! Stick to it and your girl should be good!
 
Jon

Sorry to here that, but as others have said, she will recover as long as you follow the doctors orders. One of the K9s in our agency underwent the same surgery last year. She?s back to working and doing well.



Rick
Interesting to hear about your experience with Wildwood. I know a guy locally who had the same experience. I would have expected more from a big name kennel. My first Golden failed hip X-rays at two. After confirming by a second set of X-rays taken by her vet the breeder gave me a full refund of purchase price and let me keep the dog. I realize that is unusual too.

Don?t want to hijack the thread, but I?ve learned if your basing bad hips on X-rays, get them done by a specialist. I had my current female?s done by a local Vet and they came back as inconclusive. Had them redone at a specialist that does hundreds of them a year and they came back as good.
 
Ugh...that's no fun (for either of you). Just take your time with the rehab, follow the protocol, and she should have a good recovery. My boy had that done twice (right leg at 18 mos and left at age 6). Full recovery from both and was jumping up into my truck within 6 months like nothing had happened.

One humble suggestion: you may consider using a glucosamin/condroitin supplement to help stave off the inevitable arthritis. We put Bryant on that after the first surgery, and he was fine up until the larpar/neurological failure got him at age 12.

good luck!
Frank
 
Good luck with the rehab, Jon. At least Annie got a chance for some retrieves before it happened. She can dream of those as she recovers. So can you.
 
Darin Clark said:
Jon

Sorry to here that, but as others have said, she will recover as long as you follow the doctors orders. One of the K9s in our agency underwent the same surgery last year. She?s back to working and doing well.



Rick
Interesting to hear about your experience with Wildwood. I know a guy locally who had the same experience. I would have expected more from a big name kennel. My first Golden failed hip X-rays at two. After confirming by a second set of X-rays taken by her vet the breeder gave me a full refund of purchase price and let me keep the dog. I realize that is unusual too.

Don?t want to hijack the thread, but I?ve learned if your basing bad hips on X-rays, get them done by a specialist. I had my current female?s done by a local Vet and they came back as inconclusive. Had them redone at a specialist that does hundreds of them a year and they came back as good.
Click to expand...

We bought Dugan in the interval when he was "building" his business model. I received enough double-speak when I questioned the absence of hip scoring in his breeding stock that I should have seen it as a sign to walk away. Vic Barlow does a far more thorough job of funneling breeding stock to Willdrose, but he also has larger stipends to work from. Now that he has a significant cash cushion, they have an onsite vet. clinic with a fulltime vet. tech. and ALL dogs have either OFA or British standard hips scores in their papers.

There is a standardized protocol for the x-ray set for OFA hip scoring with radiograph examples of the various scoring categories for reference...

What moved me to true anger when we were informed that we would have to take a replacement dog from a breeding of his choosing. That was when we parted ways. As I mentioned our second Wildrose Kennel puppy had malformed kidneys and died at age three. He was one when the dam he came from was removed from their breeding rotation. GRRRRRRRRRRRR!

If Mike Stuart's father is still alive, tell your friend to look him up and have a informative background conversation- VERY enlightening.

Water therapy, if you have access to sizeable stretches of shallow, clean water is an excellent rehab. tool to build muscle and strengthen tendons concomitantly. We have a two mile stretch of State owned beach five miles from our home. I took Dugan out there every three days and walked him or swam him, slowly increasing the duration of the workouts. I burned through a pair of hip boots in the process, but he came back quite well. English labs. (actually all our fox reds have been from Irish stock origins) are jumpers and think nothing of going over a fence at full tilt. I was once teasing Kane as a puppy circling back and forth around a ratty futon in the family room that is our dog couch playing keep-away. I could see the "switch flip" in his eyes before he launched himself over the thirty-eight inch height and nearly seven foot distance to my side. I made a mental note to myself to never bait him again.
 
Jon,
Sorry to hear the bad news about your pup. We went through the same thing with our AWS, Daisy. She tore her ASL and a year later she tore the other one. After the second tear we decided to retire her. Fortunately our CBR, Barley has taken up the workload with gusto. All the best to your pup. I hope she makes a full and speedy recovery.

Zane
 
Jon

Hate to hear this. I went through a similar thing years ago and lost my golden for the season because of a tendon rupture. She came back but it sucked losing a whole season. I hope Annie a smooth recovery.

Eric
 
Jon -

As we all know waterfowling takes a toll on all, and everything involved. Sorry to see it was Annie's turn.

I am sure that she will get the best of care, and God Willing will be ready for next season.

I wish her and you all the best.


VP
 
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