Poor Daisy

Daisy turned 1-year old on July 10th. She is such an awesome dog...she is loving with Grace, gets so excited when she meets new people that she wags her whole body (and tinkles, oops!), and loves to run and play. Unfortunately, though, some of that wild running, jumping, and playing may have caused the ailment we identified at the vet today. For a couple of weeks now we have noticed that Daisy has been hesitating to put weight on one of her back legs. It is not all the time, but enough for me to take her to see the vet. And, poor Daisy, the vet diagnosed medially luxating patellas. What that means is that both of her knee caps (who knew dogs had knee caps?) are moving out of alignment causing knee instability. In fact, when they did her X-rays, her left knee cap was completely out of its socket. Clever Daisy, has found a way to "pop" it back in, though, by stretching her back legs. It is amazing how she has learned to cope with this disability. She also has a little bit of arthritis which is hard to believe because she is so young. I fear what it will be like when she is an old dog!

Anyway, for now, we are trying anti-inflammatory medication and glucosamine with rest and moderate exercise for a couple of weeks. Our hope is that she will be able to strengthen the muscles and ligaments around the knee and we won't have to consider surgical options.

It sounds like running is not going to be an option for Daisy now or in the future. That really stinks because she is FAST and loves to run. And, I was hoping that someday I would be able to have her as a running companion like Summer was a few years ago. But running puts too much stress on her joints so it is going to be walks and swimming for our Daisy from now on.

It could be a lot worse...so I am grateful that we can manage this issue and keep her comfortable.

This is Daisy in her bed when we first brought her home. She was only about 15 pounds. Today she weighed in at 51.2 pounds!

Note: (Friday at 2:00 PM) - Grace went for a nap so I decided to let Daisy swim in our lake. She was so excited but it really didn't work. She had too much trouble entering and exiting the lake and I could see her knees lock as she was trying to swim. At one point she sat down in the water at a shallow spot in the lake and just looked at me with these said eyes. I really thought I was going to have to go get her. There is a dog park nearby with a sandy bottom to the lake, so I might try to take her there. The problem is she will probably push herself too much playing with the other dogs. I think for now, it is going to be just walks for Daisy.