Adelaide

This is a story about my own pup. I met Adelaide in January 2016 when she was 8 months old. I had known her breeder from my previous job and we have a good working relationship. Addie is a Landseer Newfoundland, and was from lines that are used for showing, working, and breeding. It is great to see these big dogs do their job, and they are wonderful pets to boot.

The concern was Adelaide wasn’t developing well, and seemed to walk funny.  I found some discomfort in her shoulder and hip joints, and suggested sedated radiographs. Those showed some mild hip dysplasia and osteochondrosis dessicans (OCD) lesions in both shoulders. OCD is a developmental orthopedic disease where the cartilage and bone don’t form correctly in a joint. This can lead to pain, arthritis, and the inability to work. It can happen in any dog, and there is some link genetically and environmentally. The key is to identify it early, remove that animal from breeding, and deal with the problem.

I sent Addie home that day with her breeder knowing that she could not be a show or breeding dog. However, she could make an excellent pet. About two weeks later, I called to check up on her and asked if she had been placed in a home yet. She hadn’t, and I took her in in February as a trial. If she would fit in with my pets, I would keep her as my own.

Addie fit right in with Penny and Milo, and soon I had a happy pup in the house. Great, now what do I do? Surgery was needed to minimize the arthritic damage in her shoulder joints. Then keeping her in good physical condition, protecting her joints and getting her moving would be my job. And since this is what I do for my patients, this is an easy fit for me.

Through some colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Addie had her shoulder joints cleaned out in April. The goal was doing them arthroscopically to minimize her healing time. The left shoulder went well, but the cartilage flap in her right shoulder was too large to remove. We successfully opened the joint and removed the flap. Then, we placed hyaluronic acid in both shoulders. This is essentially a synthetic joint fluid to help lubricate her joints and minimize further cartilage damage.

Addie recovered very well, and a month later, I spayed her and prophylactically did a gastropexy on her. This is tacking the stomach wall to the body cavity to prevent rotation or volvulus of the stomach during a bloat or GDV (Gastric Dilatation Volvulus) episode. Giant breed dogs are prone to bloat, and by doing this surgery I minimized her risk of gastric torsion. At the same time, I injected her shoulder and hip joints with hyaluronic acid and objectively measured her hips by taking radiographs in the PennHip method.

PennHip allows us to measure the distraction index between the hip joint of dogs, and correlates to how loose the joint is. Since hip dysplasia is based on laxity, the laxer a joint is, the higher the risk of arthritic change. Addie was dysplastic, but her score was mild. This allowed me to not consider a total hip replacement for her. If her scores had been worse, further surgery would be indicated.

After her recovery, I got Addie moving. She had continued to grow as well, and was now a lean 125 pounds. We began to work on walking and hiking. Last summer we hiked every weekend, and walked 2-4 miles each day during the week.

Penny, Addie, and I hiked to the top of Buck Mountain to overlook Lake George in July. By the fall, Addie could hike 10 miles a day nonstop.

Last fall, I had her groomed to a buzz cut. I weighed her the morning before, 125 pounds. Her weight right after the haircut was 113 pounds. 12 pounds of hair, and a reduction in 10% of her body weight. Not only is it easier to keep her clean in this cut, but reducing her body weight minimizes stress on her arthritic joints.

How do I keep her going? It is a multimodal approach. She eats Hill’s Science Diet J/D which is specifically formulated for dogs with arthritis. She also takes Dasuquin Advanced every day. This spring, I will inject her hips and shoulders with platelet rich plasma and bone marrow stem cells to further protect her cartilage.

I also keep her active, we walk 3-5 miles every day, and she plays regularly with Penny and her friend Dexter the Golden Retriever. We work on core strength through exercises on TotoFit equipment, and she gets out and swims when the weather cooperates.

At some point, she may need other medications, but currently she doesn’t have to take them. She is a wonderful girl and I am very thankful to have her as part of my family.

If you have questions about managing arthritis in your pet, please contact me.