{"id":2671,"date":"2016-06-16T20:46:52","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T08:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/?p=2671"},"modified":"2021-09-25T16:21:16","modified_gmt":"2021-09-25T04:21:16","slug":"the-5-reasons-so-many-dogs-tear-their-cruciate-ligament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/the-5-reasons-so-many-dogs-tear-their-cruciate-ligament\/","title":{"rendered":"The 5 reasons so many dogs tear their cruciate ligament"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 5 Reasons So Many Dogs Tear Their Cruciate Ligament<\/h3>\n

This article is reproduced from this website\u00a0http:\/\/topdoghealth.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

by Dr. James St. Clair. Posted in Food for Thought<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

Why is it that an ACL injury in dogs is the most common orthopedic injury of all veterinary medicine?\u00a0 Did nature not make this ligament strong enough in dogs? Is it due to bad breeding or are there other factors in play here with relation to this injury?<\/p>\n

This question comes up a lot in discussions with my clients.\u00a0 At the end of the day they want to know why their dog got this injury. Here are the 5 Most Common predisposing factors to ACL injuries in dogs.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Bad Breeding:<\/strong> We are all familiar with the term hip dyplasia<\/em>. It has been well documented that the two most common causes of this disease condition in dogs are bad breeding and over nutrition at a young age. We will dig into this more in a future post. But how do hip problems lead to ACL injury?\u00a0 It is simple. Compensation.<\/li>\n
  2. Over the years we have made the direct correlation that if a dog blows their right ACL then you must X-ray the hips and many times you will see that the left hip is not good.
    \nThis all makes sense right? If your left hip hurts an you are going to compensate and place more weight and stress on your right leg. Over time this added stress weakens the Cranial Cruciate Ligament in that right knee.\u00a0 All it takes is the right movement or hyperextension in the right and POW you blow the right.<\/li>\n
  3. Natural Load<\/strong>: Dogs walk with their knees bent at all times. This means that the ACL ligament always is \u201cloaded\u201d ie. carrying weight. Whereas in humans we walk with force on our knees straight up and down. This is why in people we mostly see injury to the ACL in athletes who hyperextend the knee, for example, football or basketball players.<\/li>\n
  4. Weight<\/strong>: It is well documented that approximately 50% of dogs today are clinically overweight and in most cases obese. Obviously, the more weight on the ligament the more strain over time.<\/li>\n
  5. Weekend Warrior Syndrome<\/strong>: This is what I call the plague of the domestic dog. Most dogs are natural athletes but in western society due to our lifestyle and work schedules we don\u2019t give our dogs enough exercise on a regular basis. And then when we do allow them to be dogs and exercise more often than not, we overdo it. Clearly,\u00a0lack of exercise means weaker muscle and weaker soft tissue ligament, therefore, making them more prone to injury.
    \nThe most common description of this injury goes something like this: the dog was chasing a ball, squirrel, other dog and then the owner heard a yelp and when the dog came back into the house it was holding its leg up.<\/li>\n
  6. Lack of Recognizing Early Warning Signs<\/strong>: Many times dogs have joint health issues which are underlying and go undiagnosed by both pet owners and veterinarians due to lack of people\u2019s understanding of what I call the 12 subtle signs of arthritis. Check out the video discussing these 12 signs at www.dogarthritischallenge.com.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So the sum and substance is this:<\/h2>\n

    In order to give your dog the best opportunity of avoiding an injury to their ACL, make sure that they are of ideal body weight, exercise them on a regular basis and don\u2019t allow them to overdo it without proper conditioning, get a prophaltix X-ray taken of their hips and lumbar spine to ensure good body structure and, lastly, be informed about the early warning signs of arthritis<\/q><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The 5 Reasons So Many Dogs Tear Their Cruciate Ligament This article is reproduced from this website\u00a0http:\/\/topdoghealth.com\/ by Dr. James St. Clair. Posted in Food for Thought Why is it that an ACL injury in dogs is the most common orthopedic injury of all veterinary medicine?\u00a0 Did nature not make this ligament strong enough in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-opinion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3IyCW-H5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2671"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19138,"href":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2671\/revisions\/19138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k9essentials.co.nz\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}