Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Luxating patella

Aro has two luxating patellas (one on each back leg) :(

They get graded on a 1-4 scale (1 minor, 4 nearly incapacitated), and Aro is currently at a 3 in one leg and 3.5 in the other. This means that in each back leg his patella (kneecap) is never in the proper place, but can be manipulated into place (sometimes with difficulty). Poor puppy, no wonder he limps and has such an odd stance. He will certainly need surgery to fix this because it will only get worse as time goes on.

I felt so bad taking him on his evening walk today, knowing now how much pain he must be in with these old-man knees. And he's still just a puppy!

The good news is that, with surgery, he can live a long, happy, productive doggy life, with the use of both of his scrawny doggie back legs.

It's a genetic disorder, and apparently very common here in PA with all the puppy mills. I forgot to mention earlier that Aro came from an Amish puppy mill. They don't care whether their puppies have genetic disorders, and probably don't even have any puppy long enough to realize it has this specific disorder. It makes me so angry to think about that they keep breeding a dog that will give its offspring such a high probability of inheriting this awful condition.

And a little bit of good news: No accidents in the house today! Nothing chewed up! Yay!! And Aro and Chip love each other:


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