Sweet Laya needs surgery to walk, run and play again

Laya met with a consultant Veterinarian at Massey University Teaching Hospital on 8 February. This re-confirmed her Welllington SPCA vet's preliminary diagnosis that Laya had a partially ruptured left cruciate ligament.

Surgery was recommended to give certainty to the diagnosis for Laya, and with a view to immediately performing a procedure to improve her left knee’s stability if the suspected diagnosis was confirmed.

Surgery did indeed confirm that Laya had a partial rupture of the left cranial (or anterior) cruciate ligament. (The anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments cross over and keep the knee stable.) Laya's ligament damage meant her left leg was unstable, and this was causing her pain and intermittent lameness in the leg.

To fix the problem with Laya’s left knee, Laya’s surgical team completed a Tibial Tuberosity Advancement (TTA). This involved cutting into her shin bone (Tibia) and realigning the forces around the Tibia by attaching a bridge implant between the two sides of the cut bone. (For more info' on TTA, click on the following link: https://www.willows.uk.net/specialist-services/pet-health-information/orthopaedics/tta-surgery-for-cruciate-ligament-rupture.) Laya has a 90-95% chance of an excellent outcome following her surgery, but this will depend on her post-operative recovery.

Laya is now 9 days into her post surgery recovery (which is expected to take a total of 10 weeks). She has to be contained either in a dog crate or a small room, while she recovers to enable her body to heal around the site of her surgery. As Laya can’t climb any stairs in case this damages the knee before it’s healed, we have installed a baby gate to restrict her to the upstairs section of our (small) 2-storey home.

Laya was pretty bewildered when she woke up in a dog crate to ensure she barely moved while her leg started to heal, and with a weird blue Elizabethan collar on her head (to stop her licking or chewing her leg stitches). She has been on ‘house arrest’ since the surgery and only allowed outside briefly on a lead (generally only when she needs to toilet).

Laya still has some challenges ahead of her...And from what we’ve been told, we have a hard few weeks and months ahead of us too - She will want to do what dogs do (run, jump, sniff and play), and we will have to keep her calm and contained. She will in time build up to being able to go for a short walk, but for now she has physio (a few leg exercises 3 times a day) and her walking is restricted to the toilet, or around the lounge where we are keeping her.

Laya will go back to Massey for a 6-week post-operative consultation and x-rays in late March. At that stage we will have a better idea of how well she has healed and what the future holds for her.

Once again, thank you all for your interest and help with Laya. You’ve generously helped her, and made a financially stressful time a little easier for Laya’s human mum.

We are still raising funds to help with Laya's medical costs (her initial consult and recent procedure at Massey was $3,767,71 including GST - the majority of this paid for on a credit card). So, if you think there are others in your network who might be interested in hearing Laya's story and making a contribution, please forward on the link.