The Odds Caught Up With Us

"You mean despite our adorable domed foreheads, giant ears, cunning smarts and conveniently portable size chihuahuas are not perfect?"

According to the Orthapedic Foundation for Animals (commonly known as OFA) 5.7% of chihuahuas in their database have luxating patellas.  Lets consider for a moment that people who spend the time and money to send in their dogs info to OFA tend to be responsible people, trying to better their breed and get rid of these defects.  These people are also probably more likely than the general population to provide proper nutrition and exercise for puppies.  They also (being that a lot of shown dogs are in here) are less likely to have overweight dogs.  I am not saying that all people who participate in the OFA database or responsible but being realistic I think a greater number of them are than the whole rest of the chihuahua breeding population.  Then think about the irresponsible people participating in OFA who don't send in bad results and I think it is fair to say that 5.7% is probably low when it concerns the chi population as a whole. 

Why do I tell you all that?  Well I knew rescuing chihuahuas from the pound (or the street) it was more likely than not that eventually we would end up getting a dog effected by LP.  I am f***ing pissed off that this dog ended up being Nova.  Has not the poor thing been through enough????????????????

Here is the deal.  Nova started skipping when walking and we noticed she was only weight bearing on three legs.  I could see when she was standing on the carpet that three legs were down and her back right one was just pretending to be down.  Of course we called the vet and one thing leads to another and Nova is diagnosed with luxating patellas.  Her weight bearing improved over the week, so maybe it was just aggravated by her knee luxating- that's what we are hoping for.  Her case is hopefully mild enough that on a variety of supplements as directed by our vet (glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM and a special supplement that helps tendons) she will improve and not have any symptoms.  If that does not work then I guess I muzzle her, throw her in the travel carrier and drag her screaming and kicking to the orthopedic surgeon.  But no one wants that now do we?

A lot of dogs seem to live with grade 1/2 LP and never need surgery.  As long as they stay fit, active, a healthy weight and on joint supplements it seems like things can go pretty easy from here on out.  That's what we are hoping for around here.

Want to learn more about LP?  You can read about it here- http://www.offa.org/pl_overview.html