This past week when I took our 7 month old Llewellin setter (Whiskey) in for a rabies shot I mentioned to the vet that I was concerned that her hind legs were very thin with no muscle mass and that she seemed to walk strange and would whine at times when she would get up. He scheduled me to bring her in yesterday and put her under anesthesia and took x-rays. I then received a call from him telling me that her hips were the worst he had seen and said that I need to have her seen by an orthopedic surgeon and that I need to consider either a bilateral FHO or as he said even better a bilateral Total Hip Replacement. All I could do was breakdown and cry. We are devastated to say the least. I started making phone calls immediately and doing research on the web, reading everything and everything I could possibly find to learn about both procedures. Right now it seems we are leaning towards the THR at Ohio State University Veterinary Hospital. From what I have seen and heard, they are the best of the best and are the ones that pioneered THR and they do more of them then any other veterinary hospital in the world. Being our dog was purchased as a bird hunting dog we want her to be able to run and hunt for many years to come. I do still need to do more research and am terrified at making such a huge decision that will impact her for the rest of her life. I hope I make the right decision, and would like to hear the pros and cons of FHO and THR. Please post anything that you may think could help me make the right decision.
Hi Kim, sorry to hear that Whiskey is having problems at such a young age. Do you know if her parents were hip-scored? If not, do you think you might have some legal recourse against the breeders? I honestly do not know what I would do in your situation, hopefully someone with more experience about hip problems will be able to offer their thoughts.
Sorry your girl is having problems and I really feel for you, Make sure your vet has experience with the required positioning for hip X-rays it is critical for an accurate reading poor positioning can make good hips look bad, having past experience I certainly wouldn’t take a vets word on hip x-rays. This link may help http://leerburg.com/hipart.htm did your vet send the x-rays to an orthopaedic specialist? I once had a male x-rayed for scoring and the vet said don't bother sending them for evaluation as they would fail, took him to another vet who did better x-rays and he passed with a total score of 7. Swimming is a great way to help build muscle without extra stress on the hip joints also mental exercise to supplement for less off lead mad dashes for the time being and try her on Glucosamine, Chondroitin and MSM .
