If you have any TPLO experience, I would be grateful for advice you have to offer in nutrition, in-house confinement, post-surgery exercises, or anything else.

Question

Cindy,

    I placed an order for some Leerburg training videos and other equipment this past Friday and intend to order some more items in the future. When I ordered, I mentioned to the friendly, knowledgeable lady who took my order that my 75-pound, 6-year-old Malamute, Samson needs TPLO to fix his left rear cruciate ligament. (Sam had TPLO on his right leg about three years ago).

    We feed Sam a raw food, organic diet from a local organic farm, Trippett Green Tripe, and Nordic Fish Oil. We supplement with Standard Process Ligaplex II, Standard Process Musculoskeletal Support, Standard Process Immune Support, Standard Process Whole Body Support, Glycoflex III, probiotics, COQ10, Alphalipoic Acid/AcetylL-Carnitine and Milk Thistle. Since he started to limp, I've added DGP and Xyflamend. I also occasionally give him an organic multivitamin and had been giving him DogCross Joint Formula T24 until my vet advised against using any products from China (people too). After his first TPLO surgery and when he was recovering from erlychiosis, I added two StandardProcess kidney-support products and intend to do so after his upcoming surgery as well.

    Normally, between my wife and myself, Sam gets about four hours per day of exercise, consisting of village walks with my wife and running/hiking mostly off-leash in the local woods with me. Since the vet said he'd need surgery, I've limited him to leash walks, with only a little jogging on flat surfaces and no off-leash play with his dog buddies or contact of any kind with dogs we don't know.

    Unfortunately, Sam's T-storm phobic, so I'm not sure exactly when it would be safe to schedule the surgery. Wait too long and he risks additional damage to the ligament; schedule it during T-storm season, and he risks losing his leg if the post-op meds prove ineffective. (We had a T-storm on Nov. 3, two days after his first surgery, and although he was heavily dosed on acepromazine, he started to panic. It took huge efforts on my part to get him to stay in a Down despite the thunder. Thank God he came through it fine, but I don't want to repeat this experience.)

    This Spring, on our vet's advice, I began giving him Xanax an hour or so prior to T-storms. It's effective and has had no apparent side effects, but it's short-lasting. To be able to safely schedule the surgery asap, the vet advised starting Sam on Clomicalm now and using it in confunction with Xanax to keep Sam calm if there's a post-op T-storm. From what I've read, Clomicalm has more potential side-effects than Xanax does. And these two meds would be in addition to the acepromazine, pain killers, and antibiotics. I'm not happy about one more drug (i.e., Clomicalm) sloshing through his system and am inclined to wait 'til mid-November and just continue to limit his activity 'til then.

    If you have had any TPLO experience, I would be very grateful for any advice you may have to offer re Nutrition/Supplementation, the best kind of in-house confinement device (kennel?), post-surgery exercises, or anything else that's relevant to this issue.

    Three joint-support products, in particular, attracted my attention: Joint Oats for Dogs (#58); GrandFlex (#s 30-32); and Synflex (#49). Calm and Relax (#39) and Herbal Calm (#48) also attracted my attention, although the herbal anti-anxiety/T-storm remedies I've tried (Bach Flower Remedy and Essence of Peppermint) haven't worked. (I think that)

    Dog Appeasing Pheremone does have some effect, but it's limited. If you think any of these, or any other items on sale at Leerburg would be good, please let me know.

    Sorry to have run on like this, but I would be truly grateful for any information/advice that you have time to offer.

    Regards,
Art

Accepted Answer

Hi Arthur,

You have asked for my opinion, so I’ll give it and keep in mind that I am not a fan of drugs or lots of extra stuff (supplements, medications or chemicals) in my dogs diet or environment

One thing that jumps out at me is that you are giving an awful lot of supplements. I don’t know if they were prescribed by your vet but I think in some cases less is more. I’m all for fish oil and Vitamin e and a joint supplement if needed but I don’t know that I would be giving any dog of mine so many different things. A balanced and fresh raw diet, Salmon Oil and vitamin E are good medicine and I know that over supplementation isn’t always effective and can be detrimental to health.

I understand that pre and post op your dog may need some additional supplementation but I would only give what’s necessary and effective.

We have a lot of different supplements for sale and while I like to fill our customers orders, I don’t believe in giving dogs things that they don’t need. With all that said, maybe your vet prescribed all those things and that’s fine.

As for drugs during thunderstorms, I’m not a fan of Xanax or Clomicalm. All I have to do is read the contraindications on the internet to know that I would not give those drugs to my dogs. I would try melatonin and see how that works. You can purchase it at just about any health food store. I would most certainly consult with a holistic or homeopathic vet for your dog (if he was mine) Here is a list of vets we have compiled to date, with the help of our customers. If you do not find a vet close by on our list, I would suggest doing a google search on holistic or homeopathic vets in your area. You may also get good advice on supplementation as well.

We use syn flex for our arthritic and senior dogs here with good results. Ed and I have even been known to take it ourselves :-) I haven’t had any experience with TPLO on my own dogs so I can’t give advice on that but a friend of mine had a dog with a spinal injury that made great strides towards recovery with an underwater treadmill made especially for dogs. She had to take her dog to a vet teaching hospital but I guess the recovery was greatly accelerated with the UW Treadmill therapy. I would ask the surgeon about that.

I hope this helps.

Cindy