The Undercover Vet: Hip luxation

I'm off work today but I thought I'd recollect a story about a dog I saw a few years ago. This dog was a miniature schnauzer and had a condition known as hip dysplasia. Hip dysplasia is a condition where the top of your thigh bone (femur) doesn't fit properly into the hip joint (acetabulum) and can result in damage to the normally smooth cartilage, leading to new bone formation and arthritis. Also occasionally the thigh bone can "pop" out of the joint (luxation).

Anyway, this dog had the problem in both hips. On the right leg it was causing the dog to limp (but the left leg wasn't causing a problem). I did a surgery called a femoral head and neck excision arthroplasty, where the top of the thigh bone is cut off and the remaining space is left to fill with fibrous tissue. This leads to a non-painful joint, although the range of movement of the leg is not as good as before (still very good though) and the leg is very slightly shorter. Anyway, the surgery went very well.

As the dog came back after a week or two for a recheck, the right leg was bearing weight and moving well. I examined the dog on the consulting table and stretched both back legs behind the tail to test the movement and see if there was any noticeable comparative shortening of the leg. As I released the legs, the dog now wasn't weight bearing on the left leg (that didn't have surgery). This was incredibly embarassing. The owner was querying why and the nurse present started making some lame excuse about the dog being nervous!?! I told the owner that I suspected the left hip had now luxated (popped out) as it was also dysplastic.

The owner proceeded to blame me for being heavy handed etc and to reach a satisfactory solution, I had to operate for free on the left leg. Now when dogs come back in for similar rechecks, I've decided not to touch the other leg and warn the owner that the "good leg" may develop problems later.