Rare hip condition in Simon’s puppy

Simon our vet’s 9 month old border terrier puppy Finlay started being lame on one of his back legs in April. After some rest and painkillers he was still lame so xrays were performed.

Very sadly these showed that Finlay had a rare condition called Legg Calve Perthes disease. This is where the blood supply to the hip ‘ball’ (which sits in the hip socket) becomes compromised and the bone within the hip ball starts to die, creating inflammation and pain.

At first, we tried to treat this ‘conservatively’ – in medical terms, this means without an operation. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, his lameness was worsening and so Simon operated.

Due to our new and improved operating spaces we are now offering referral surgeries here at Kelperland. For more info see www.kelperlandsurgicalreferrals.co.uk. we didn’t expect one of our first patients to be a staff dog!

There are a few different options for treatment but given that Finlay is small and light Simon decided to perform an operation where the diseased ball of hip bone is actually cut off and removed. It sounds pretty mad, because it is. What is then left is a straight thigh bone, the femur, sitting next to the pelvis but with no actual bone-on-bone hip joint. The muscles around his hip will now create what’s called a pseudo-joint – holding his hip together without any bone touching at all.