No Surgery for Maggie

So the diet is going well. I'm drinking more water which I started to drink more of when I left college. For those of you who knew me in college knew that I used to drink a 2L of Diet Coke a day. I will have you all know that I'm down to 1-3 12oz. of Diet Coke a day. There was a point where I wasn't drinking it at all. Its kinda weird how your body says to stop drinking soda and start drinking water or at least my body tells me that. I notice that I use less chap stick now that I drink more water. I mean I know why but just a random thought I guess.

Tim and I have decided not to do surgery on Maggie. Maggie is a 1 year old basset hound who we bought about 6 weeks ago. I have been wanting one for a while (a basset hound) but I didn't want to do another puppy. I also wanted a girl that was already fixed so we didn't have to worry with Dakoda. Anyways, we got her and a few weeks ago she woke up limping. We figured that she had just slept on it wrong. So we both left for work not thinking to much about it. Well I came home early that day and she was still limping. I called Tim at work and told him and he told me to call the vet on base. I did and the first question that they asked me was if my dog was registered with them on base. I said that she had been but it wasn't in my name and then explained that we just got her. Well she didn't even ask what was wrong with my dog she said that we couldn't bring the dog there because she wasn't registered. It really pissed me off. I mean my dog could be dying but all they seem to care about is a piece of paper. Anyways, I go and do the paper work I bring it out there with me along with Maggie and I asked is that it. She said yes. I asked if they would see her I have her in the car. She said no, we close in 5 minutes. I asked about Friday (the next day) and she said no as well, we are closed on Fridays. I said fine and left. The ex-owner of Maggie was still there and I told him what had happened and he said that this had happened before and it should go away within a day or so. This information did not ease my mind at all. I called and told Tim what happened and he was really upset. We decided that we would take her off base to see a local vet. We made an appointment and got in within about an hour of calling. The vet saw Maggie and said that she wanted to do some x-rays and could we bring her back tomorrow. We of course said yes and in the mean time the vet gave her a shot for pain and some anti-inflammatory medication. The next day I brought her in and left her as they had to sedate her to do the x-rays. Tim came home early and we went and picked her up and to hear the results of the x-rays together. Maggie has elbow dysplasia. I'll try and explain it the best way possible or at least this is what I got from the vet. Think of a ball and socket joint, like your shoulder. The ball sits every so comfortably in the joint, normally. Maggie's bone with the ball on the end is slightly longer than the bone with the socket. So the bone that is to long is sticking into her lower portion of her leg, thus, causing her pain. In order to fix the problem they have to cut the shorter bone, pin it so it enlongates into the other bone forming a solid joint. I hope that makes sense. The funny part, if you could consider this funny, is that we went in for her left leg and the vet showed us that both of her front legs had this problem. To fix this obviously she has to have surgery but they can't do both legs at the same time. They can do them about 4 weeks apart from one another and it is a 6 month recovery for the whole surgery. Maggie is a happy playful dog and I just can't see putting her on restriction from playing for 6 months. I just don't think it is possible.

Anyways, Tim did research on the internet and found a few cases similar to Maggie's with some exceptions of course. Most of the cases that he found concerning basset hounds the dogs were between 6-9 months old so they were still growing. The cases that he did find with older dogs the surgery didn't really help them. So knowing that, what would you do? The vet of course is going to recommend the surgery but he kinda gave us a few tips if we weren't going to do the surgery.
1. Keep her weight down. Right now she is about 14 kg (35lbs) and she can get up to 18-27 kg. So if we keep keep her weight between 18-21 kg we should be okay
2. Keep her on the leash when we walk to control how much she runs and how hard she plays.
3. No stairs. We try and carry her when we catch her but it gets hard sometimes. We put a gate up so she doesn't go upstairs while we are gone.
4. Moderate how much she plays.

So this is what we have decided. I'm not sure that I mentioned the price. It was 800-1000 English pounds per leg. This equals about $3500-$4000. Whether we do it or not, she is guaranteedto have arthritis and there is only a 50/50 shot that this would work. My only worry is that we are making the right choice. I just don't want this to come back and bite us later. I guess only time will tell us that though.