Hello and welcome to Ella. This darling little dog has ruptured her cruciate ligament.

This is such a common problem, but it tends to have slightly more prevalence in bigger dogs.

Ella’s mum has opted to manage her cruciate rupture conservativly. This means no surgery.

We always have a full discussion of the pro’s and cons of this.  It’s not an easy choice to make. As a rule of thumb, a dog under 15kg in weight, can do well with physio as rehabilitation, and not need surgery. Dogs over 15kg don’t really have a choice.

We have started Ella on her gentle muscle building program. This is important as we need the muscle to take over supporting the knee, as the ligament can’t do that now. The body will be trying to stabilise the joint by laying down lots of fibrous tissue. We also want to encourage that in a good structured fashion, otherwise it can become very tight and restrict the joint range of movement in the knee.

Ella is very comfy right now and doing very well. Keep up the good work mum and Ella!