I adopted Mae June 1st 2008, when she was about 1 year old. We went through our ups and downs and as a shelter dog of course she had some issues. She was my buddy though, and she improved alot. I never knew anything was wrong with her health, I thought I was adopting a perfectly healthy, happy young dog.
I always sort of noticed a decrease in her mobility when it came to things like jumping on the couch, climbing in the car, etc. Mae seemed to be unable to physically lift her left hind leg as high as her right. She never had any other obvious signs so I just always attributed it to mild hip dysplasia.
Fast forward to March 2011. Mae was playing with the cat and slipped on the tile floor in my apartment, to which she landed frog-legged with a huge yelp. She seemed pretty sore afterwards and began limping. I monitored her for a week or so before finally taking her to the vet, where they took x-rays, and that is where I got the hugest shock.
Mae's left femoral head had completely degenerated, there was nothing there but boney growth and a ton of scar tissue. Who knew?? Also, there seemed to be an old fracture on her right ischium. We were all shocked and confused, how could she possibly have gone this long without us noticing sooner?
There were a few speculations to the cause; prior femoral head excision, old injury, deformitity from puppyhood? Who knew. Regardless, there were two options - medical management or an expensive surgery.
I'm a poor college student and I also believe surgical intervention should not be the go to choice, so medical management it was. Mae was perscribed a 30kg of Metacam once daily and began to eat a special food called Medi-Cal Mobility formula. She seemed to fair well for quite a while like this, up until recently. So, the week of July 17th-20th, after alot of discussion with pretty much anyone who would listen, Mae's surgery was booked for Wednesday July 27th at 9:30am.
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