Conservative Management For Dogs With CCL Knee Injuries
A torn cruciate ligament in a Dog knee is a very serious and painful orthopedic injury. Here are a few basic conservative Management "CM" tips that will help your Dog to recover; to use in conjunction with a Posh Dog Knee Brace, as a treatment protocol for a Dog stifle injury. Having a plan on how and where you are going to restrict or confine your Dogs' movement to prevent further injury, or inhibit recovery, is important. Quality rest is as important as having a good therapy plan.
Although it may take some moderate lifestyle changes, here are a few recommendations:
Although it may take some moderate lifestyle changes, here are a few recommendations:
Jumping
Jumping exerts severe stress on your Dogs knee, and should, by all means, be suppressed during your Dogs recovery from a torn ACL ligament. If your Dog is allowed to overextend of its' stifle (knee), jumping could compromise the formation of scar tissue and slow recovery time time. Remember:
- NO JUMPING - in/out of vehicles
- NO JUMPING - on/off bed - If your Dog is used to sleeping with you, like ours is, consider laying your mattress on the floor (no box springs or frame) until the injury has time to heal. Yes it may look strange, but it will help your reduce acute stress on your Dog injured knee when it gets on your bed.
- NO JUMPING - on/off couch - If you have bare floors, keep a runner beside the sofa, in case your Dog does jump us and down, so it will give it traction.
- NO JUMPING - up on you - When your Dog is rambunctious, get down on the ground to play.
- NO JUMPING - at door. If your Dogs gets excited when someone rings your doorbell, consider placing a note on the door asking visitors to not knock or ring your doorbell, and to call you if they are at your door. Just type up a short note saying something like: "My Dog is recovering from a leg injury and should not get excited and jump. Please do not knock or ring my doorbell. Please call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Thank you." Put the note into a clear plastic 8 X 11 paper sleeve, and tape it on the door so the plastic open end is at the bottom (makes it waterproof)
Navigating Stairs
Allowing your Dog to go up and down stairs when suffering from a Dog knee injury, just like jumping, will overstress the joint and inhibit recovery. You must take measures to block access to your Dogs and stairs. You should also buy an inexpensive Dog support harness that quickly attaches under your Dogs belly, and allows you to take the Dog up and down the stairs with a lot of support, without stressing the injured leg.
Here are a few tips for dealing with stairs with a Dog who has a torn CCL injury:
Here are a few tips for dealing with stairs with a Dog who has a torn CCL injury:
- Block off the stairs with expandable pet gate.
- When you arrive home with our Dog and you must go up stairs, keep your Dog leashed and use the harness.
- For navigating 3-4 steps to go outside etc. you can always use a towel wrapped under your Dogs belly, in front of the hips, to support the injured leg.
- For a great tip on making your own support sling from a fabric shopping bag, see our blog.
Confinement
Many people whose Dog has a CCL injury are advised to "keep your Dog in a crate for up to 8 weeks and severely restrict activity" so that the joint and canine ccl injury can heal. We agree that restrictions and modifications on activity, such as those aforementioned in this blog, are recommended and very important to help the dog with an ACL tear recovery from a dog knee injury. But we do not agree with crating.
There is a well-established myth regarding crating a Dog; that Dogs actually like being confined in a restricted space, and that a crate gives the Dog "a feeling of being in a safe haven, as if the Dog were in a den." Much of this baseless nonsense is perpetrated by crate manufacturers themselves, who are selling what? Crates.
If Dogs liked crating so much and if any of this were true, why are there books written on how to "crate train a Dog." Why do they all use food baiting as a means to get the Dog to go into the crate? The "experts" DID say your Dog would think it was a den, correct? Why does it require such repetitive training to get any Dog to acclimate to solitary confinement in a crate?
Maybe Dogs really don't like being put into a crate alone and confined after all...
Dogs in the wild do go to dens -- with other Dogs, not alone. There is a massive difference between curling up with other pack members, v. being unwillingly put into a crate by yourself. For the record, there is nothing den-like, or appealing to a Dog, about a small crate. Like people, Dogs are also very social. Being put into a crate is far from social. (Try it sometimes yourself with a refrigerator box for a few hours to verify this. Maybe your spouse can help - lol).
Just like people, many Dogs can experience the trauma of claustrophobia, or fear of cramped and confined spaces. So we do not recommend crating. We offer more humane alternatives. One of these is an 8 panel pen from THIS site.
There is a well-established myth regarding crating a Dog; that Dogs actually like being confined in a restricted space, and that a crate gives the Dog "a feeling of being in a safe haven, as if the Dog were in a den." Much of this baseless nonsense is perpetrated by crate manufacturers themselves, who are selling what? Crates.
If Dogs liked crating so much and if any of this were true, why are there books written on how to "crate train a Dog." Why do they all use food baiting as a means to get the Dog to go into the crate? The "experts" DID say your Dog would think it was a den, correct? Why does it require such repetitive training to get any Dog to acclimate to solitary confinement in a crate?
Maybe Dogs really don't like being put into a crate alone and confined after all...
Dogs in the wild do go to dens -- with other Dogs, not alone. There is a massive difference between curling up with other pack members, v. being unwillingly put into a crate by yourself. For the record, there is nothing den-like, or appealing to a Dog, about a small crate. Like people, Dogs are also very social. Being put into a crate is far from social. (Try it sometimes yourself with a refrigerator box for a few hours to verify this. Maybe your spouse can help - lol).
Just like people, many Dogs can experience the trauma of claustrophobia, or fear of cramped and confined spaces. So we do not recommend crating. We offer more humane alternatives. One of these is an 8 panel pen from THIS site.
As one may see, an 8 panel pen offers as much as 21 SF of space, and allows the Dog to stretch out, stand up, walk around, and have a big bed in it, as well as a water bowl and litter box (which Pasha missed half the time as a puppy lol). When we first got Pasha, our Golden, we bought a large plastic crate and a long 125 page book about "crate training your Dog." We started reading and quickly concluded that Dogs really do not crating. Pasha did NOT like being coerced into a crate. But we needed something for potty training.
So we bought an 8 panel pen, 2 of them, and created a very large, comfortable space for her and moved a little furniture out of the way. Almost every night, I would climb into her big pen and she would select her best bone and we would lay there together (like two Doggies) until she fell asleep. We never has any problem getting Pasha to go into her big pen. Sometimes, one of our Cats would even hijack the space (just for the fun of annoying the "dumb" Dog - every Cat knows Dogs are "morons", just ask one lol)
So we bought an 8 panel pen, 2 of them, and created a very large, comfortable space for her and moved a little furniture out of the way. Almost every night, I would climb into her big pen and she would select her best bone and we would lay there together (like two Doggies) until she fell asleep. We never has any problem getting Pasha to go into her big pen. Sometimes, one of our Cats would even hijack the space (just for the fun of annoying the "dumb" Dog - every Cat knows Dogs are "morons", just ask one lol)
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Of course, after Pasha was puppy trained, We did not use the big panel enclosure again. We did not use a pen to confine Pasha during her holistic recovery from a Dog CCL Injury. So Dogs can and do recover with restrictions on activity, and without any confinement whatsoever! Now, one year later, Pasha no longer wears her Posh Dog Knee Brace and she plays for 2 hours a day, gets up and down dozens of times a day, and shows no symptoms of having a torn CCl in her stifle. She has not worn her brace at all for almost a month, a year after we first put in it her!
If you feel that your Dog needs to be kept in a confined area and rested for several weeks, please consider using an 8 panel pen, and not a crate. Give Your Dog a BIG hug from us!
If you feel that your Dog needs to be kept in a confined area and rested for several weeks, please consider using an 8 panel pen, and not a crate. Give Your Dog a BIG hug from us!
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