It's looking very possible that Riddle has torn the ACL in her left knee, since obviously she can't have a mismatched set.
She started limping 2 weeks ago. I don't know why- I was with her all day, and nothing weird happened. But she got up off the couch and was suddenly non-weight bearing on the left hind. We saw her physical therapist the next day, who wasn't sure, she said it could be a partially torn ACL or just a sprain. We decided to put her on bed rest for 10 days and see how it went. She stopped limping over the course of a week, and I decided to wait an extra few days after the 10 to reintroduce exercise, since hydrotherapy would be a gentle way to do that.
Well, hydrotherapy tonight, it's been 14 days, and damn if she isn't lame on the left hind again.
Limping, barely weight bearing, after hydrotherapy is just blowing me away. So I'll be calling to schedule x-rays as soon as possible with the ortho specialist.
On the up side, I was discussing my despair with the PT tonight about possible surgery. We talked about a fairly new therapy for torn ligaments called "platelet rich plasma". It's apparently been working great with people, and the ortho specialist has used it with great success on some dogs here in town. So if it is an ACL tear, it's possible that we can avoid surgery. It still won't be cheap, but as far as I'm concerned the less invasive the better.
Keep your fingers crossed for us.
