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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>My Gracie is a big girl, about 65 pounds, and she is about 14 years old now we think (a rescue dog so it’s a best guess). She tore her ACL on her left back leg about 3 years ago, when she was 11, and I want to share some of our experiences. Of course what happened with us is not necessarily what will happen with your dog, but you never know what info might help.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>First, we have never known for sure what happened, but my best guess is she somehow twisted her leg going in or out of the pet door, at the time there were a couple of low steps the girls used on the outside, and then a 3 or 4 inch step down on the inside. Gracie has never been a counter surfer or jumper, so it was nothing like that. All of a sudden one early afternoon we were outside and she started trembling some, and over the next 20 or 30 minutes it got a lot worse, so I put the other two girls in the house and off to the vet we went. They diagnosed torn ACL, and the vet suggested putting her on pain meds while I put her on a diet to lose about 8 pounds, he said she would have to have a specialist do surgery and put in a metal plate and some pins, and she would do better if she lost weight. Condensed version here, I said I don’t want to do the surgery on her, she’s too old, could we put her on pain meds permanently? Vet said yes, he had several other patients who were doing that and it would be fine. So we went home with Tramadol and instructions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>I won’t go into all the details, but by the next morning it was very obvious that Gracie was allergic to Tramadol, so we switched her to Deramax. That is, until I researched and found out that Deramax is the animal version of Celebrex, and in dogs could have some extremely severe (as in bleeding to death internally) side effects. Droolers had been talking about using SOD & Boswellia for pain, so I contacted a few people for info, and we changed her to the SOD & Boswellia, which she still takes today, 3 years later. Two tablets in the morning, two in the evening, and she does great.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>The day she injured herself she was able to put weight on her leg and walk, but you could tell it was extremely painful. Next day, no weight on that leg at all and she couldn’t get up or walk, so I had to do the towel under the belly carry to get her in and out, and it nearly killed both of us, I kept losing my balance and we would fall. We did this for several days, then Angelika Hastings sent me a dog sling made to fit over the back legs that had a handle for lifting, and wow did this help. We also built a ramp at the front stoop for her to go up and down, and we replaced the doggie door steps with another ramp. Both are still there and get used by all the dogs. Another huge improvement.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Rehab took a very long time. One thing I did right was, the second morning when we had to change her from Tramadol, I asked the vet to give me some tranquilizers for Gracie, which he did. What I did was, for the first week or so, I kept her on the tranquilizers and basically she slept most of the time, and healed. After about a week I weaned her off of daytime tranquilizers, but gave them to her at night, so she could sleep. I really think this helped a lot, making sure she slept well at night. I broke the pills into quarters and as she improved gave her less and less, but she was on the night time tranquilizers for a couple of months.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>We are big walkers, the girls all love to walk, so this was a major problem we had to work through. Gracie could walk around the yard and get in and out the pet door after about 2 weeks, and she wanted to go walk with us, but at first she could barely get from the front door to the driveway. We had a red wagon with wooden sides in the garage, so I put a couple of old blankets in the wagon to soften it up, and we took it with us. At first Gracie would walk to the driveway, then I’d pick her up and put her in the wagon and off we would go. Once or twice each walk we’d stop and I’d get her out and let her walk a very short distance, then into the wagon again. And each week I would let her walk a little further, I’d watch her bad leg and when I’d start to see it quiver a little, into the wagon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>This is what we did to rehab, let her walk a little further each week. It probably took 4 to 5 months, maybe a bit longer, before she was able to walk an entire walk (we go between 1 and 2 miles, depending on the weather), but she did it. The main thing was we took our time and I did not let her stress her leg too much before putting her in the wagon, so we never had any setbacks. She would want to keep walking, she wanted to keep up with the other two girls, and I would say nope, into the wagon, you’re done. Once she was finally able to do our normal distance, she’s done it ever since. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Now that she’s older we have started taking the wagon again in hot weather because she poops out, but it’s the heat, not her leg. As long as she takes the SOD & Boswellia, she is fine. Sorry this was so long, I hope it’s helpful to those of you coping with torn ACLs. It takes a long time to fully rehab.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>Anita Woodrum<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><a href="mailto:awoodrum@clear.net">awoodrum@clear.net</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>