What happened to Gingko?

So, many people have asked and I feel it might be good to make a recording anyway.

I was going out of town to Louisiana for a wedding. Since we had time, we decided to drive since it would be cheaper than flying, we wouldn't have to rent a car there and could split gas with the friends we would be ferrying around. Since we would be gone for about a week I started looking for kennels near the house to leave our puppy at. I went and saw Petsmart, but I felt they were a little expensive and had no grass for the dogs to play on. I found another place called Kennel Kare in Westlake and went to check them out. With expanses of grass and play time with other dogs. Climate controlled dog runs with indoor and outdoor parts and a seemingly nice staff, and cheaper prices to boot, I decided to let them watch her. My mistake, I guess. I dropped her off Tuesday night. Friday I get a call while I'm out of town. They said that she is limping and putting no weight on one of her legs. They tell me they looked at her foot and massaged the area to see if she cried or anything. No reaction to tell what it might be. I told them to call my vet. The vet said that if she isn't in pain or crying, then it is probably OK to just watch and rest her and bring her in once I got back. That is what I did. I got back late Monday night and picked her up Tuesday morning. The guy who brought her out from the back mentioned that you could still see she was putting no weight on it and I told him I was getting a vet appointment asap.

I got her in to the vet the same day. Our vet looked at her foot and leg and tried to fully extend her leg... that's when she cried. Only way to see what was up was x-rays. Three x-rays later we saw the problem... see the image above. That piece of bone off to the top left should be attached to the bone beneath it. The oblong disk at the top is her kneecap which is now about an inch out of place too high. Those bones are all connected with muscles, but they are no longer attached to her lower leg. Therefore she can only contract her leg but not extend it at all and cannot move her toes. The only fix is surgery he told me. He also said that since this is not a very common break that he could not perform the surgery and sent us to a specialist in Grapevine. The surgeon there took our story and explained the solution. Gingko would be given an epidural and an iv. She would be given pain meds and put to sleep for the surgery. They would have to make an incision on the inner side of her knee, find that bone and pin in back in place. Pulling it back down would help the knee cap to move back in place. She will have a bandage and stitches. I now have three different meds to give her for two weeks, she cannot jump or run or put weight on it for the next 10 days at least so she doesn't pop out the pins. She will be subjected to the cone of shame for 10 days as well. And of course recovery can take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks at least. We are lucky she is a puppy and still has a little growing to do, which can help this to heal faster.

She also needs her incision iced 3x daily for two days and then with a warm pack 3x daily for 3 more days. Her rehab plan starts in two weeks with a short 5 minute walk once a day... slowly increasing the length of the walk as she starts to feel more comfortable using the leg. I have to cancel her intermediate puppy class now as well. Sucks that my puppy cannot be her happy playful puppy self.

Here are images from today of her incision. Not 10 minutes after I got her home and she is asleep... I hope she can at least dream of running.

Update: After 10 days, we went back for an xray of the pin... Bad news. She managed to work it back out of her knee a bit and to the point where the bone shard is back where it was when she broke it. Only fix... more surgery. How to prevent this from happening again? Have no one over until she is healed. :( Have no reasons for her to move or try to jump (which might be why pulled it out). More surgery means more money and more healing... Suck.

Secondary Update:
After her second round of surgery, It worried me that Gingko was no longer walking properly on her injured leg. Instead she would walk on the knuckles of that leg rather than put it on her toes and footpad like normal. Only thing to do was wait for the x-rays on monday accoring to the surgeon.

Tertiary Update:
Gingko's x-rays showed that she is healing nicely this time. The surgeon was very happy with the rate at which her incision has healed and it looks like the pin is holding this time. The knuckling-walk on that leg is happening less frequently which suggests that she is slowly getting used to her leg again. She doesn't have to wear the collar anymore. We're done with the throat slurry medicine. We are also done with some of her antibiotics. Still have quite a few pain pills, but those should be plenty to last us the next 4 weeks. She is to continue to have mostly rest but in a week or so I can start talking her on short 5 minute walks, provided she can last that long. We have follow up x-rays at the end of the 4 week period to see if she is able to start having more exercise once again.