Cute, little 8 week old Molly, a female Jack Russel terrier, had the unfortunate experience of accidentally being backed over by an extremely large car. Incredibly she was not squashed! The only injury that she did sustain was to her right hind leg.
Her concerned owner brought her to the hospital. She could not use her right hind leg and was holding it at an unusual angle. On examination by the vet she was painful in her right hip region. Significantly, her right leg was shorter than her left leg. This is a common finding with hip dislocations. Under general anaesthesia radiographs were taken. These confirmed the suspicion that Molly has dislocated her right hip. Because she was only a young puppy, the radiographs are not as clear. Her bones are still growing and are less dense than with an adult.
The vet was successful in replacing the hip back in joint by gentle manipulation. This was confirmed on xray. No obvious fractures had occurred and the joint felt stable after replacement. Strapping was then applied to keep the joint in and her owner was advised to keep her confined. It was planned that the bandage should stay in place for 1-2 weeks. Molly however had different ideas and chewed the bandage off 4 days later.
She has just revisited us for her second puppy vaccination at 12 weeks of age. She is suffering no ill effects from her car wrangling and is using her leg well.
Addendum to Molly's story...
Little Molly seems to be a bit accident prone. Despite having no problems with her hip, we saw her again at 18 weeks of age being lame in the same back leg! It was unknown what she had gotten up to during the day when she was home alone. She was known to get a bit grumpy around her food with the other dog so it was possible that she had been bitten.
This time the vet found that she was painful down lower on her leg on examination. Repeat radiographs of her leg showed that she had fractured her tibia. Because of her young age and the type of fracture, strict confinement and splinting of the leg were adequate for it to heal. Yet again Molly had her leg strapped.
Radiographs 2 weeks later showed adequate bone healing. We are hoping that she can stay out of harms way....
