
The Girl is recovering from knee surgery. She ruptured her CCL (ACL in humans) on Thanksgiving Day in an encounter with a coyote. Although I did not see the animal, that is the only likely possibility given the nature of her wounds and that I saw no humans or heard no ruckus that would have accompanied a domestic canine encounter.
The vet at the emergency clinic in Reno indicated that she either had a broken leg or a ruptured CCL. Based on my observation from a couple of days earlier, I believed her to have soft tissue damage.
A subsequent visit and workup with her regular vet confirmed the diagnosis. The treatment is a surgical repair. The complication came from which procedure to use.
The traditional approach is to tie the joint together with grafted tissue and suture material and then allow scar tissue to reinforce the repair. The alternative is to cut the bone and reset the tibia plateau angle. That seems awful to me, so I elected for the simpler, less invasive approach.
So now we wait. She is moving around the house and starting to put her toe down and sometimes a little weight on the affected foot. She is recovering.
Now I am taking care of her and praying for a full recovery. I will have to manage her differently, I think. She has now had two rattlesnake and one coyote encounter. None went well. She is just one of those individuals who finds trouble. So, she will not be permitted to range out like she has. I also will not want her stressing that knee for months. I want it it have plenty of time for recovery.
She will need exercise and plenty of it. But her days or running out more far from me and getting into trouble are over, so I hope.
I am grateful for her. Life is good.