Molly's arthritic MCP Joint!

Yesterday was a big day for Molly as we loaded up into the car for the 120+ mile one way trip to VOSM. I was not sure who to go to in my area for a maybe-toe-but-maybe-who-knows-what injury and so I decided that mine and Molly's journey together wouldn't be complete without her one and only injury being diagnosed at the famous and incredible VOSM (Veterinary Orthopedic Sports Medicine.)

In the waiting room chair, as it should be.

I was very anxious about finding out the reality and truth behind Molly's limp because it meant facing the music and making decisions. I knew the toe was an issue, but I was also very concerned about her wrist - I was specifically worried it was a hyperflexion injury. I am really good at worrying! I didn't stop there! There is always medial shoulder instability, elbow injuries and bone cancer! Lots of things to be fretting about for no good reason!

We started by reviewing Molly's old foot x-rays from June of last year. Then we went into a large room and let Molly move around freely so that the doctor could observe her (Molly had been, to my eye, moving quite evenly as of four days prior to the appointment.) There was a very thorough clinical exam. Toes, wrists, elbows, shoulders, spine. Molly was cranked into full extension and flexion, I noticed the abduction angle of her shoulders was also tested. She tolerated it all with a "where the f**** is my f**** breakfast" stink eye and as soon as it was done she visited everybody and tried to kiss them. My heart burst with pride. Molly is so tolerant and accepting of handling. I had no food to pay her with since she had to have an empty stomach in case of any test or procedure requiring sedation. She is a Good Dog. Clinical exam revealed soundness in all joints except for a grudging pain response when the doctor pressed firmly on the toe that has been troubling Molly.

Next there were diagnostic tests. Molly's had the Gait4Dog gait analysis test, "It's a pressure sensitive walkway measurement system designed to capture and objectively analyze data in minutes." I have a super nerdy fascination with this test! What exciting technology! I was shocked to hear that Molly's gait is totally normal, no off loading. My eyes were not tricking me, Molly really was moving soundly again and not favoring her left front. There were also all new x-rays. Feet, wrists, elbows and shoulders. Frontal and Lateral (side views.) The shoulders looked great, no arthritis or other issues. The elbows also looked great with some mild arthritic changes on the left side. The wrists also looked great. The foot x-rays revealed some intense arthritic changes to the left medial toe in comparison with the opposite side. There was an ultrasound of these two areas of concern (the left toe and the left elbow) and it revealed a small bone chip in the joint, remnant of an old fracture (they said at least a year old - I cannot remember a time when Molly acted as though an injury of this sort occurred but that means nothing.) The joint has been trying to heal itself. Blessedly the tendon near this joint is quite intact. They also scanned Molly's elbow and it showed some mild thickening of the biceps tendon, which they feel is secondary to altering her gait to compensate for pain in the toe.

Molly was sedated and given steroid injections in both her elbow and toe. The doctor actually was able to drain fluid build up from the painful toe joint. That alone should give her relief, doubly so from the steroid injection. She was released a few hours later! Two weeks of leash walks only. After that I am to take her hiking and start reintroducing some  uneven footing. He wants her back in a month for a follow up visit and would like me to do some very heavy activity with her before the visit. I think Molly and Mr ChuckIt Ball could make that happen. He asked what my plan is for this year's agility season. I told him I am prepared to retire Molly but I said that we both love playing the game together so it sure would be nice if we could keep doing that. He is optimistic that Molly can continue playing agility! He said at this point he is happy to do injections as Molly needs them - time will tell how much relief they give her and how often she might need them.

One thing I am keeping an eye on is Molly's anxiety levels. She is not normally an anxious dog aside from her thunder/gunshot phobia. She is always anxious and whiney post sedation, and she definitely was last night. I remember after Molly was taking oral prednisone a few years ago she was anxious with her hair standing on end, pacing and whining and chattering her teeth. Now we have injected a steroid into her joint. I did notice a few times since last night, her hair was on end, although all of the times I saw that I could blame cold weather for it. (It happened when bringing her inside from a potty trip outside on two different occaions.) This evening on one occasion she was whining but it turned out she needed to go outside badly to have a poop. At this point the low level anxiety behaviors I have seen are easily explained, and we are also less than 24 hours out from a very long yesterday without food, a "stressful" day of testing and manipulation and needles and nearly 6 hours on the road. If I continue to see these anxious behaviors throughout the rest of this week, and at times when they don't make sense, I will sadly have to make the decision that the steroid shots are not a good quality of life decision for Molly. Time will tell!

I feel so much relief at what we have discovered! Arthritis and old fractures suck but you cannot do much about them and there are much worse things in the orthopedic realm of possibilities. I believe that the warm weather will be easier on the arthritis in Molly's toe. I have made the decision to no longer participate in coursing activities with Molly. While I know that Molly's toe was arthritic before this past year's coursing aggravated it into lameness (browsing old photos I can see the foot deformity as far back as at least 2016 and perhaps 2015.), I think it is smart to avoid the things that triggered acute lameness. And that includes the blue mat footing for agility. If we get to return to agility, which I really feel we will!, we have to stick to turf, grass or dirt.

One foot in front of the other

It has been real...wintery around here! Winter is my least favorite season and unlike least year, we seem to be having a real winter. Steady cold, precipitation regularly coating the ground up. At least we have not had any blizzards!

I made a big decision this year to commit to weekly training with my agility club for the duration of 2018. It was a large financial and time commitment for me but I am very excited about it. Molly and I will have regular access to consistent training. I was terrified of any number of health issues coming up, between the lymphoma, GI issues and lameness...anything could happen. But still, I wanted to enjoy what training I could with my girl! Here is a clip of us enjoying a tunnel-tastic course.

We had a lovely two weeks. And with Molly in a regular training class, it gave me access to an agility ring to work with Perri. We worked on ring entrances when I could, with a lot of success. I am giving a whole lot of thought once again to the impact that the equipment has on Perri. Last year I noticed a marked difference in her attitude when we moved away from the martingale collar-over-the-head-situation. We are working hard on the slip lead removal being no big deal. We are working on her feelings about the slip lead being dropped on the ground. These are things that matter to Perri and I cannot take them lightly.

I have also incorporated a "snuffle mat" into our routine, Perri is a complete addict! We do a ring entrance and ring exit and straight to the snuffle mat. I also let her use her snuffle mat before we go into the ring. The snuffle mat keeps her from bugging out about the environment and it relaxes her to enjoy rooting and sniffing while we are waiting for our turn in the ring. I think the snuffle mat is going to be extremely valuable, as instead of me asking for tricks and giving Perri food and doing "busy work", she is able to sniff her snuffle mat and engage in an instinctually relaxing activity. We will see how it goes! (I ordered our snuffle mat from Rooting Co on Etsy.com.)

Since my bad luck has decided to not stay confined to 2017, Molly went lame after one powerhouse run in our UKI agility trial last Sunday. We scratched the rest of the day and went home early. We ran at the same place we did when she went lame on New Year's Eve, so we are definitely not going to be running there again. The plan at this time is strict rest for two weeks. When I look back to February of last year, we got to enjoy our "one last hurrah!" trial at Dream Park and the very next day Molly went in for her lymph node removal/biopsy surgery. At that time I did not know if it would be her last trial. And it is the same this year. Molly is entered in a trial at Dream Park on the 18th. I have scheduled a consult at VOSM for Molly on February 19th. Once again, nearly one year later, Molly will enjoy what could very well be her last agility trial ever and we will go for this orthopedic consult and find out what the true issue is with her foot. She was very tender in her medial wrist and not at all in her toe, which is something I just noticed this time. All of the times she has gone lame I have never felt she had any pain response in her wrist. It is time to confront exactly what is going on, and make hard decisions. This sucks.

I took this video when we returned home from the agility trial. It is sad for me to watch but I wanted to have a video, since Molly is not likely to be acutely lame when we see the ortho for her appointment. I notice not just the limping but Molly is pulling her left foot medially instead of having any forward reach (as she does with her right foot.) 

I get a chance, in this new year, to not resent Perri for being my only sound agility dog. I get a second chance. We had this exact chance last year and I failed miserably. This past Monday we went to our agility class piled high with liverwurst, the snuffle mat, tiny tiny toys I knew she would like and three bags of other treats. I am a poodle slave. But most of all, I let myself feel excited about the opportunity rather than resentful of "Plan B". Rather than "You're all I've got so let's try to do this." 

We had a first run where Perri was fast and full of drive which made me happy enough! but where I got scolded for losing connection multiple times. It was an honest assessment. A lightbulb went off in my head. Perhaps my way of running and losing connection with Perri is also causing a stress increase for her. I focus so much on keeping her motivated and happy it is hard to devote my mind to anything else. I foolishly asked my instructor to help me handle Perri in a way that would maintain a tighter connection. I got my ass beat, I was required to walk the course again and again, I was told I could not use my hands so that I would pay attention to what the rest of my body was doing - it helped a lot. I felt like a circus poodle. And it worked. I could tell Perri felt flatter for that second run but something about what I was doing appealed to her and that girl dug in there and ran with me and responded to what our slave drivin' instructor was making me do. I drove home giddy with joy. Me and my poodle worked on a thing and made progress with that thing. Learning and doing together.

And that is about all for this catch up post, but I have one more thing. This morning Perri went out into the yard and stood on the porch and started her hypervigilance scanning. It did not last long. She flutter wagged her tail and snapped out of it, and she went out in the yard and peed. Like a Normal Poodle. It was adorable and it made my heart feel big. One day at at time.

Molly Paw X-rays

I took Molly to our regular vet tonight to have her foot examined again and to have x-rays done.   For my own peace of mind, I really wanted x-rays done so that I could stop worrying about bone cancer or a (stress) fracture.

The story has not changed.   Molly has arthritic changes from her hard driving, rockstar lifestyle and there really isn't much to be done except rest her for a while, manage the pain, and hope for the best.

I feel sad.  

A Visit to Freehold! Molly CA!

Today we check off another item from Molly's "bucket list": finish CA title.   Does Molly care about a CA title when there are bags to be chased?   NO!   But it means something to me to have her efforts (ha.) honored, and Molly isn't going to turn down a chance to chase her bag!   Without a doubt, Molly  passed her third "Coursing Ability Test" and gets to add the CA (Coursing Ability) title to her name.  She even bit a big hole in the snow fencing while being rudely asked to wait her turn.    Yikes!

We also signed up for AKC's new game, the "Fast CAT.", a 100 yard straight dash that is timed.   They use electronic sensors, the same as we use on agility courses, to start and stop the time.   Molly predictably earned a qualifying round with a speed of 29.22MPH.   Yeah!    And since they were accepting Day of Show entries, and Perri has a new found love for the bag - I let Perri have a Fast CAT run as well.   Perri did not beat her older sister, but she did qualify as well with a respectable 25.6 MPH!   She was barking at the bag, and when the gate steward told her to stop barking, she stared at him for a half second and started barking at him.   Ha!   You tell him, Perri!   You can earn a title if you get a certain amount of points (based on your dog's MPH), but mostly I wanted to see what the girls' speeds would be.   Future Fast CATs remain to be seen.

And now, the lure coursing song....

Perri also got to play some agility, since there was an AKC agility trial being held on site.   This is Perri's first trial at Perferred 20" and she seemed happy about the change.   Open FAST was first and she was the only Open dog to qualify.   She did get a little silly with some short zoomies but settled down quickly and did the jump-tunnel-jump send with ease.   Thankfully, Perri does not usually take obstacles when she zooms (unlike a certain Molly I know!)   Standard was very decent, unfortunately no weaves and a bobble after that but otherwise really nice.    This is only Perri's second outdoor trial so I'm just gonna go ahead and blame it on that.    JWW Perri completely shut down after the third obstacle so we left the ring early.   I asked her to do the last two jumps and that made her tail wag so I feel like we reconnected on my terms.   When Perri gets like this, it makes me sad but it just seems to happen with AKC Agility and my mental state right now is to just stop doing AKC Agility for now.   Though I think a lot of today was that it was a new experience: outdoors.   Perri has done exactly one outdoor trial and our first (and last!) outdoor agility trial was the one before I pulled her for her injury.

Still, "Q and Blue", baby!   I see everybody on Facebook bragging about the "Q and Blue" so we get to do that today even if it is only on FAST.

 

But now for the sad news....

Molly is broken!   The lure coursing was not the cause, but it was the "straw that broke the camel's back."   I confess, over the last two weeks I have witnessed about three episodes of Molly holding her left paw up.   Each time I checked her foot, found a thorn or torn up skin and thought that was the cause.   She did it in agility class two nights ago and I started to Feel Worried, but when I got home her one toe had skin chewed up and I thought, "Well, maybe that's it." especially since she recovered quickly to a normal gait.   Weak.   Wishful thinking.

Today's lure coursing was fine, and I cooled her down very thoroughly afterwards, but when I got her out of her crate to potty, Molly was extremely lame on her left front.   I think I hoped against hope this wasn't coming, but here it was.   By some stroke of luck, there was a rehab vet at the trial working on dogs.   Molly got massaged and manipulated and evaluated.   And he pointed out the bump on Molly's left forepaw, "This is not normal."

On Molly's paws, she has arthritic deformities that the vet says he often sees in hard hitting, older agility dogs.   The tendons and ligaments suffer micro-injuries over time, the body floods the area with calcium and tries to heal and stabilize itself....and then you have this deformity on your dog's poor abused paws.   Molly is hard on her body and it is showing big time.   Molly is also very tender in her shoulder, whatever tendon is in front of the humerus/scapula, Molly was reacting big time to manipulation and massage on that area.  The vet feels it is secondary and a result of compensation because of the pain from her foot.    We have stretches to be done and I hope that helps her.   I want to set myself on fire and run screaming from shoulder issues!

My poor girl.   More health issues she does not deserve.   The vet said "a few days off", we will give it a few weeks off.    Rest, no fun, leashes - low activity to give everything a break.  I am hoping that will be the end of it, but I am not optimistic.