A condition seen frequently in certain breeds of dog is a luxating patella. This occurs when the knee cap slips sideways out of the groove that it is supposed to slide up and down in. This could be due to the leg being out of alignment in the vertical plane, the groove not being deep enough to hold the knee cap in place or the ligament on one side or the other being too loose to maintain tension on the knee cap. One or more of these factors may play a role in each individual dog with the problem.

Today we corrected a luxating patella in a tiny Japanese Chin dog. In this case, the alignment was still fairly good but the groove was very shallow and one of the ligaments to the side had stretched. The surgical correction involved moving the knee cap out of the groove and then cutting a section of bone and cartilage out of the groove to deepen it. The knee cap was then replaced in the groove and the side ligament tightened to hold everything in place more securely.

Despite being a very sensitive little dog, he was quite happy on the leg post surgically and we look forward to a complete recovery and a massive reduction in the chance of arthritis in the knee when the dog gets older. Unfortunately the other back leg has the same problem and will have to be operated on in a few months once this leg is fully recovered.