Viruz knee surgery !
All photos on this site are © Callencos or any other photographer who is named.

Summer 2009, July 16th, Viruz started limping after his agility training together with Madde. I kept him on leach for a week and we did some slow training again after that week. Unfortunately he started limping again... We tried to let him rest for 2 week but with no happy results.
I took him to the vet and we started to check him up. The vet couldn't find anything really, except the limping. In late August we did some x-rays on both knees and his back, the only thing they found was a smaaaaaall small arthritis, most likely from an injury not long ago. With some agility competitions fresh in mind we remembered where he must have had his injury, just weeks before the first limping, with the training July 16th as the first after competition.
During the fall and early winter we have tried to get his swollen right knee to heal, but without really knowing what causes the problems. We have tried massages, laser treatment, sound treatment, electric treatment, we took some samples of the tissue to check it for cancer etc etc etc. Last chance was to do a keyhole surgery February 9 to check inside the knee, what are we missing????

The answer was what I have feared, but most hoped for, the front ligament was damaged but not cut off. It was swollen and only attached by 70%. That's why he didn't show the "right" symptoms. When the vet found this damaged ligament they opened up his knee to do a TPLO surgery. It's a BIG procedure but his chances to come back to normal is really good. I sure miss the wild and vivid Viruz, jumping all over just to show how happy he is!!!
I have decided not to ever let Viruz compete in agility again, or to train IPO. The risk is to big for this problem to attack us again... all because of Viruz "normal behaviour", easy to get hurt being a Viruz =). But of course I will let my next dog (in the future) train and compete. Maybe Viruz' and my future is set to involve obedience and some tracking instead. Who knows???

The scene of the injury, at a competition end of June on Gotland. He scrapes his knee on the inside and the ligament get damaged. Photo by Lisa Bång.

 

Laser treatment by Anna Holmgren, Hundkuranten

 

Day 2, first day home after surgery. He is kind of groggy and has a compress/patches called Durogesic with heavy pain killing chemicals.

 

Day 3. Now really swollen and the bruising is at its worst. The wound won't stop bleeding.

 

Day 4, so tired and starts to feel pain. The patches starts to loose effect. He will get a new compress/patches to stop the pain.

 

Day 6. He loves his own bed =). The swelling is at its worst. The bruising starts to disappear but the wound won't stop bleeding. I stop using the cream for bruises, Hirudoid, my intuition says the cream is the reason it won't stop bleeding. I was right !!! I got the cream from the vet assistant just for this purpose, not my idea...

 

Day 12. Pascha is a true hero / uncle / big brother. He doesn't care about Viruz hitting him with the plastic screen. He just moves away if needed. The wounds starts to heal nicely and the swelling start to fade away =). I can see some coat coming back too.

 

Day 16. The stitches are out and it looks really really good. His coat is on coming, finally not looking like a skinhead anymore =). He is now allowed to take short walks for 5-10 minutes, but without any kind of jumping or sudden movement. Not easy, we are talking about.... Viruz =)

 

3 weeks after surgery. The swelling is no longer visible and the wound looks really really nice. He uses the leg more and more and wants to do looong and action filled walks... but of course he is not allowed to. Short leash and just walking straight forward. He likes his own area, the hallway, with his own bed. Well, it's a bit boring but he doesn't complain =)

 

Photos taken 2010.03.14 - almost 5 weeks after surgery. Looks really nice huh? =)