The following story comes from Jan in the United Kingdom. Though most of our readers are from the United States, I thought that it’d be great to offer information for those readers who are overseas and Jan agreed to share her story about her Doberman named Fiel. I hope that all of you all find Jan’s story helpful (this will be released in 3 parts).
Jan’s Doberman Pinscher CCL Story (Part 1)
My 6 and half year old Doberman called Fiel (means Loyal/faithful in Spanish) was just recovering from a hematoma …

As with ACL tears in humans, CCL tears in dogs can be sudden and very noticeable, or they can develop slowly over time. When a person injures their knee and suffers a torn ACL, it is normally going to be very painful and the joint will feel very unstable and in most cases, will not be able to be used. The same will hold true for dogs when they injure their CCL. When our dog tore her CCL, she immediately stopped bearing weight on the leg.
Our dogs CCL was torn …

When your dog tears its cranial cruciate ligament, that is bad news in itself, but what do you do when your dog ruptures both CCLs at the same time? How do you care for the dog? How do you decide what type of surgery to treat it? How do you afford it? Do you have the surgical procedure on both legs at the same time, or do you do one knee, let it recover, then do the other knee? These are all tough questions, and I’ll be the first to …

TPLO, or tibial plateau leveling osteotomy, is a common surgery performed on dogs to stabilize the stifle (knee) joint after a tear or rupture in the cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) (can be compared to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in humans). Normally, the cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) prevents backward-forward movement of the stifle joint. When it tears/ruptures, the stifle joint becomes unstable and the dog suffers lack of mobility, lameness or loss of use and is subject to chronic and progressive arthritis in the stifle if untreated.
In a TPLO procedure, …