Background

On Friday morning, September 25, I was on a ladder painting the house and Bocán, our 6 year old Border Collie, was roaming around the backyard. As he often does, he was running along the fence after a squirrel that was running along the top. He's usually very quiet, hardly ever barks, but he yipped once at the far corner. It was a louder and higher-pitched sound than anything I've ever heard him make; I knew he’d hurt himself. By the time I got off the ladder to investigate, he was limping toward me from the far end of the yard. At first, his limp was horribly awkward and he practically dragged his back end. I got him into the house and lying down, so I could examine his left rear leg. He didn't react to anything I did – nothing I touched seemed to bother him, but he would not put weight on it.

Within a half-hour, he had adapted to a rather efficient hop on his right-rear leg, keeping his left foot just off the floor. The first vet exam was inconclusive - maybe a sore foot, a pulled muscle or a torn ligament... He got an Rx for an anti-inflammatory, and we were told to give it a week to see if it heals on its own.

By the time we got him back from the vet on Friday afternoon, he was holding his left leg tucked up tight against his abdomen and kept it there whenever hopping around. When lying down, he rolled onto the "bad" leg as often as the good one, so it doesn't seem to hurt him, but he refused to put the foot on the floor when standing.

Unfortunately, by then I had a strong suspicion that it was a torn cranial cruciate ligament (or CCL, analogous to the human ACL). My friend John’s dog went through something that seemed eerily similar, which turned out to be a torn CCL, requiring surgery and a long recovery period.

The vet said to give it a week, but Monday morning (after 3 days) there was zero improvement. So, I called the surgeon that my friend used, and he examined Bocán late Monday afternoon. The surgeon instantly determined that the poor guy had indeed ruptured his cranial cruciate ligament, (similar to the ACL in humans). It will not heal on its own and it cannot be repaired in larger dogs with any reasonable success rate. Without this ligament, the knee can move in the wrong direction, causing pain when he tries to put weight on it. Apparently (according to the vet and Bo’s behavior) there is virtually no pain when he keeps the weight off it.

Some sort of surgery is the typical treatment, and the most common type of surgery is called TPLO. The ligament cannot be repaired, but they can modify the leg to work better without it. If we proceed, he will need to be strictly confined for 8 - 12 weeks afterward, walking only to poop and pee, and then go through very slow recovery therapy for what could be another 4-12 weeks. Bo LIVES to run 35 MPH and take flying leaps for the frisbee. He may never do that again, but we want him to be able to walk again and hope he can run again.

It all sounds awful, but at least we know what’s wrong and that there is a treatment for this, otherwise Bo would spend the rest of his life hopping around on one back leg. Not acceptable for such a young, athletic dog. We believe that he would want to go through this so he can be a Border Collie again, and have a higher quality of life for the many active years ahead.


After doing a lot of research, we decided to proceed with the TPLO surgery, and do our best to help him through a successful recovery with a lot of physical therapy.

We’ll keep you posted on our progress here.