We saw it the other night in the NBA for a few teams.
Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls and Iman Shumpert of the New York Knicks both
went down hard to the ground grabbing their knee. It turns out that they both
tore their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and will need several months of
rehabilitation to get back to where they want to be.
The same goes for your pets, as ACL tears and cranial cruciate
ligament (CCL) tears, can occur almost as often in animals as they do in
humans.
“Cats and dogs have the same ligaments that we have in our
knees,” said Dr. Sharon Kerwin, professor at the Texas A&M College of
Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “The cruciate ligament stabilizes
your femur and your tibia so you don’t get too much motion between those two
bones.”
Cats can tear their CCL’s simply by jumping from high
places, playing or getting the animal’s leg caught in something. This seems to
happen and be seen more in overweight cats. Dogs suffer this injury as a result
of chronic degeneration of the ligament and it happens more frequently that it
does with cats.
A ruptured ligament is usually characterized by limping or
inactivity. In cats, they will not want to play the way they used to, and dogs
will often appear lame and sit awkwardly with their leg sticking out, signaling
a possible knee problem (http://goo.gl/YGBLg).
Cats can be put on strict diets in order to have the
ligament heal, but dogs will need surgery and about 8-12 weeks of strict rest
and rehabilitation.
If you see that your pet has any of the signs of a ligament
tear, please contact us at your nearest Bregman Vet Hospital immediately so we
can look into it for you.
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