Riverview Animal Hospital provides a wide range of services for bone injuries. Should your pet have an orthopedic condition, Dr. Francis Arsenault is available to ensure your pet’s orthopedic needs are taken care of. Dr. Arsenault has been committed to Riverview Animal Hospital for over 40 years. The majority of his operating room time is dedicated to orthopedic surgeries on our patients, as well as on referrals from all corners of Atlantic Canada.
From screening, diagnosing, repairing and post-operative care of your pet, our team is trained and ready to help if your pet presents with an orthopedic injury. Our services include advanced surgical techniques for cruciate ruptures, Limb deformation corrections, fracture repairs, luxating patella surgery, hip and elbow evaluations through OFA, elbow and shoulder surgery, back surgery including myelograms, and extracapsular cruciate repair.
What is a TPLO?
Tibial Plateau levelling osteotomy (TPLO) TPLO surgery is performed in dogs that have torn their ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament). Although this can occur with any breed, ACL tears are most common in young, athletic, large breed dogs, and older overweight large breed dogs. Dogs can have an acute tear which usually occurs while running or roughhousing, which causes sudden lameness. Older, usually overweight, dogs can have ligaments that stretch that then tear partially or fully tear after as little as a small jump.
How is an ACL rupture diagnosed?
Dogs most commonly present to the clinic with the non-weight bearing lameness of the affected hind leg. Your veterinarian will examine the leg and can diagnose a torn ACL by feeling the leg and performing two separate tests. Tibial drawer – where the doctor will stabilize the femur (top bone in leg) with one hand and moves the tibia (lower bone). If the ligament is ruptured the bones will move like a drawer. The doctor will also do a tibial compression which includes stabilizing the femur and flexing the hock. The tibia will move abnormally if the ligament is ruptured.
What is involved in the surgery?
Your dog’s usual stay at our hospital for this surgery will be two days. This way we can closely monitor and provide pain medications every four hours as your dog needs it. We have trained registered veterinary technicians that monitor your pet closely. The surgery consists of making a cut in the tibia bone of your dogs lower leg, a plate and screws are placed to adjust the angle of the knee, so that the ruptured ligament is no longer needed.
What is patella luxation surgery? (Unilateral and Bilateral)
Patella luxation is when your pets kneecap moves out of the grove it usually sits in. and can cause a lot of discomfort to your pet. Patella Luxation is graded on a scale from 1 to 5. If your pet’s condition is considered two or higher, surgery is needed to correct the condition, before the condition can cause more injury to the leg, such as cruciate ligament injuries. Patella luxation is one of the most common orthopedic conditions in dogs, where small breeds such as Yorkie’s are most commonly affected, although we are starting to see a higher number of large breed dogs like labs with this condition.
What are the symptoms?
Often times, owners come to our veterinarians noting intermittent lameness. Occasionally, they will note that their dog stops and yelps in discomfort for no reason. Some dogs won’t jump, they will not go on beds or couches, and they will not climb stairs. These can all be signs of patella luxation.
List of orthopedic surgeries we perform
- Extracapsular CCL Repair
- Osteochondritis Dissecans-OCD
- Ulnar Ostectomy (unilateral and Bilateral)
- Femoral Head Ostectomy (canine and Feline)
- Fracture repairs-Simple and Complicated with hardware
- Madiular fractures
- Fracture Coronoid Process-FCP
- Meninsectomy
- Spinal Surgery
