Diary of a Cruciate Ligament Tear
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5


Mini series on Jack’s recovery


Jack is a 9-year-old 13” Beagle, weighs 28 lbs., and is walked at least 1/2 hour everyday. He is in shape and healthy. He is very straight in the rear especially in the right rear where he tore his cruciate ligament.

When you tap on his hock when he is standing on all fours, his knee would tip forward. I always knew that he was a very good candidate for tearing a cruciate ligament.

Jack was walking for about 15 minutes in the park, ran about 5 feet, and came up three legged lame. Five days later he had ACL surgery on 1/12/06, where they cut the tendon and tied the two bones together for support. Before the surgery I used ice, heat on his back, lots of compression on the back legs, digital circles on the back and around the hips because it is important to keep the muscles toned up on both the good and bad legs.

It is also important to keep his back soft so the muscles won’t be affected by the compensation that will be going on within.

He was also started on a natural anti-inflammatory and a natural supplement for ligament repair. He has had no swelling in the knee, no heat and seems to have had virtually no pain. We continued the massage after the surgery as well as the heat and ice and now two weeks later there is still no swelling in the knee and he is walking at a slow pace.

There will be more updates about Jack’s progress and what we are doing to treat him.
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Diary of a Cruciate Ligament Tear – Part 2 – 2/13/06


The massage techniques used on Jack’s back are thumb gliding, zipper and a heating pad. On his hind legs, compression, V-spread and raking. On his shoulders, compression and thumb gliding. On his knee, ice 10 minutes twice a day.

Exercise – Walking (slow leash walking) has increased steadily every three days by five minutes. Now he is up to about 25 minutes per day. If he starts hopping, we stop him and make him put his leg down. Now he is beginning to take a few running steps and he is still using his leg.

He is doing hills, walking sideways both up and down, slow walking with his bad leg on the bottom of the hill.

Supplements – Natural anti-inflammatory and now two ligament supplements.
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Diary of a Cruciate Ligament Tear – Part 3 – 2/15/06

Jack is walking more on cushion to make him use all four of his legs – still no swelling and full range of motion. Jack had his surgery 1/12/06.  He is up to walking about 30 minutes; no restrictions in the house.  We are still icing twice a day.  He is walking up and down hills, and the hills are getting steeper and steeper.  There is virtually no limping and he is not using his tail to balance anymore so there is no difference between the two legs.  The muscle tone is still even.

The walking speed has increased to a normal pace now but we still have to keep some resistance on the lead so he is using all four legs equally.  If he goes too fast, he will use the leg a little bit and then he will start holding it up so with the walking on the cushion and the mud and in the snow and with regular flat walking, we keep some resistance on the lead so he is using all four legs.

 Jack is still on all of the same supplements.  The massage has advanced to V-spread and raking on the hind legs, zipper on the back, heating pad on the back, passive range of motion, stretches and moving the toes on his foot.
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Diary of a Cruciate Ligament Tear – Part 4 – 2/21/06

About four days ago Jack had a little bit of swelling and a little bit of looseness in the knee so we will be starting hydrotherapy which will consist of range of motion and slow walking for short periods in the water.

He will also be receiving Adequan injections, 4mg, 1 injection every four days, six doses total.
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Diary of a Cruciate Ligament Tear – Part 5 – 3/16/06


We have finished using hydrotherapy on Jack. He is due to get one more Adequan injection. We have decreased his anti-inflammatory supplement by half.

He is still getting compression on his hind leg, working on his pectinus muscle abductor on the inside of his back leg.

We are using thumb gliding and zipper on his back and compression on his gluteal.

Jack is also getting heat and red light therapy everyday.

He is up to walking 45 minutes to one hour everyday, and he is using his leg completely normally now.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at 440-669-6023 or maria@annisage.com.
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