Our featured pet this month is a very special Rottweiler named Conan owned by Mike Mansfield of Faribault.  Conan is a young and very active 3 year old.  Conan is your typical teenage boy in the body of a sport car!  Conan enjoys running swimming and in general, any athletic activity.

Last summer Conan was playing in his usual carefree way when he jumped off a retaining wall and let out a yelp.  After that Conan slowed down quite a bit and was limping most of the time.  His left rear leg seemed to be the problem and Mr. Mansfield brought Conan to see us.

Upon examination, we discovered a thickening in Conan's left knee joint and evidence of a cruciate ligament rupture.  This is exactly the same thing that happens to us people when we "blow out an ACL".  Many athletes experience this painful injury during heavy impact sports such as football, basketball, volleyball, running etc.

We took pictures of Conan's knee to confirm our suspicions and sent the films to the radiologist for a final diagnosis.  A cranial cruciate rupture was confirmed, and we talked about options for Conan.  Surgery was the only answer to the problem to repair the unstable joint.  There are currently many different surgery options available for Conan's problem.

One type of surgery is aimed at using structures around the joint and sutures to stabilize the joint.  This is called extra-capsular repair and is likely one of the more common techniques used in veterinary medicine today.  Another type of surgery is called tibial plateau leveling osteotomy or TPLO.  In this procedure, the angle of the joint is changed using bone saws and plates.  This puts the weight of the body more directly on a portion of the leg that will provide very stable support.  This procedure is very new and our clinic is just learning about this challenging surgery.

TPLO is now recommended as the surgical treatment of choice for partial and complete tears of the cranial cruciate ligament in dogs weighing more than 20 kilograms or 44 pounds.  The advantage of this procedure lies in the fact that dogs so far have not developed arthritis in the knee joint following this surgery as compared to most other joint stabilization procedures where arthritis is almost always a complication down the road.  With Conan being so young the Mansfields decided to pursue the TPLO surgery at the University of Minnesota.

Conan recently underwent surgery and is doing wonderful!  He is fully weight bearing only a few weeks after surgery and should be back to his normal summertime activities as soon as the snow thaws!