Bilateral CCL Tears – not something that any pet parent wants to hear. Yet, here we were going through it with our sweet Wiley.
He has two major things going against him. 1) He’s a very active dog. 2) He’s a bigger dog. These two things make recovery much more difficult whether going the surgery route or the conservative management route. After talking to the people at Posh Dog Knee Braces, I felt like we could do this without surgery. Both required rehab. Both required movement restriction. One was invasive while the other was non-invasive. We definitely felt it was best to try the least invasive method first. It’s how we handle our own injuries, so why would we treat him any differently.
The Process
Step one involved fitting Wiley for the braces. What should have been an easy process ended up being a little difficult for us due to our location. We don’t have great cell coverage and satellite internet doesn’t always cooperate. We needed to do a video call, but it didn’t happen. No matter what method we tried, it just wasn’t working.
I offered to just take pictures of each step of the process. Since M was still home on break from college, I would have her there to help. Poor Wiley couldn’t stand on his own at this point in time, so it wasn’t easy to get the proper measurements. It’s a little easier if you have a healthy leg to work with during the process. Unfortunately, they weren’t comfortable with just the pictures. They offered to have a vet tech work with us to get the measurements.
Sadly, this ended up seriously delaying the process, and ultimately, it didn’t work out as they had planned. I will say that Posh customer service was really good during the process, but in the end, I was very frustrated as what took place made the process much more difficult than it should have been.
After the measurements were taken by the vet tech, the pictures were sent in and Posh custom made the braces for Wiley. Once again, we ran into a few frustrations as the delivery of the braces were delayed even though the braces were overnighted to us. The braces were sent on a Thursday, and we didn’t get them until Tuesday. By then, I was, once again, on my own to try to get the initial fitting done with Wiley.
Wearing Braces
After receiving the braces, I did the initial fitting to the best of my ability and sent pictures. Based on the pictures, I received feedback and made the recommended adjustments on the braces. The next step was getting Wiley used to wearing the braces. Not an easy process.
I started off with only one brace. Since his left knee was the most recent injury, I chose to put it on that knee. He’s supposed to wear it up to 2 hours a day whenever he goes outside or is moving. Of course, with an active dog – even on limited activities – he is constantly moving. It’s been an interesting process for us.
Eventually, I got him into both braces, but he hated it. He didn’t want to move with both braces on which made life a bit difficult. Trying to get him into both braces was extremely difficult, so I ended up only having him wear one brace since he wasn’t doing too much. I decided that both braces would be used once we started up with walks after the initial 6 weeks. It was one of those situations where you do the best you can in the situation in which you find yourself.
The best part of the brace at this point was that it was stabilizing the knee, and Wiley was starting to act more like himself. He was coming out of his depression. Of course, that meant that he also wanted to move around more. It’s been a crazy journey filled with ups and downs thus far.
Up next… additional treatments and rehab
Part 1: Dog Knee Injury Recovery without Knee Surgery Begins
