What Is Dog Cruciate Ligament Disease in dogs. How can it be Treated

A dog`s knee is very similar to that of a human, so just like a human knee, dog` s can suffer from a cruciate tear. There is no doubt about it, dog cruciate tear is the most common joint disease that vet surgeons see.

Though the incidence of the disease has not decreased, the costs of repair have increased. Inside the knee, there are two ligaments that form a cross or x shape, which are the cruciate ligaments. The cranial cruciate ligament, which is the anterior ligament in a human, is the one that the dog ruptures.

These ligaments are named from where they start on the tibia. Cranial( or Anterior) cruciate ligament starts in the front of the tibia and the caudal (or Posterior) cruciate ligament starts at the back of the tibia.

The reason this is such a problem is because once these ligaments are torn, they cannot heal, which is more than likely due to extremely poor blood supply to the middle segment of the ligament where  normally the tears are. In a human, this tear usually happens to a football player or skier, who falls wrong and twists the knee, therefore rupturing the ligament.

In dogs, it can happen from falling or running abnormally, but most of the time, the dog just starts to develop a lameness without any apparent reason or injury to the leg. These dogs normally will rupture this ligament over time. The guess is that dogs degenerate their cruciate ligament and it weakens, permitting it to rupture as time goes on. 

Normally, these dogs will develop a mild limp that gets worse with time, to the point of a continuous limp and almost all of these partial injuries will progress to full tears as time goes on. This is because of the way the dog stands, when the dog bears weight on the leg, the knee is tightened, but because of a slant or downward angle, the tibia tries to slide forward in relation to the femur. This is called cranial tibial translation and it is a force that the cranial caudal ligament is responsible for not allowing.

Two tests help determine a tear, the cranial drawn test and the tibial compression test, as well as Radiographs. Because it won`t heal on its own, most dogs require surgery to fix this problem.