Poor Dorothy injured her other back knee on Friday, and we are all feeling rather glum about it. When Susan informed us that Dorothy was limping again, I figured she had re-injured her back right knee, but when I tried to help her over to her dinner dish that night, I realized it was the back left that she was holding up.
Luckily, our vet has late hours on Friday and we were able to get an appointment with the doctor who had treated Dorothy’s right knee. It seems that she tore her left knee, after over-using it while the right one was healing. She was more or less on bedrest all weekend and we are taking her leashed into the front yard to do her business, instead of letting her out by herself in the back.
It is all rather discouraging: first, I feel sorry for Dorothy, a dog who loves to run and jump and wrestle. But I also worry about the cyclical nature of the injuries – it seems to me that she could easily keep damaging the knee which is hurt the less at the time, and where does it end? At the moment she is on an anti-inflammatory medicine and we are taking her for laser treatments, which are not cheap. There’s a surgery that could be done, but outrageous cost aside ($5,000), she could have the surgery, recover, and then tear the knee again while barking at the mailman, so it doesn’t seem like the way to go, even if we could afford it.
Dorothy is thin and fit for a bulldogge, and is only 3 ½, so these ailments are surprising. Ah well! At the moment we are taking it one day at a time and seeing how the recovery goes. I plan to perhaps call and ask the doctor a few more questions too, like can a dog wear a knee brace? Should she not go up and down the stairs or onto her sleeping couch?
Poor Dorothy!
Feeling sorry for herself in her new bed:
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