Bentley is only eight months old, but he's a veteran of surgery. He had to have both of his front shoulders operated on because of osteochondrosis (OCD).
Osteochondrosis is a painful condition in which there's an abnormality in the cartilage at a joint space. It occurs fairly commonly in the shoulders of large and giant-breed dogs. In a puppy, the first clinical sign would be lameness — oftentimes, lameness that worsens after exericse.
Joint cartilage is the tissue at the ends of long bones that allows pain-free motion. When there's an OCD defect in the cartilage, it leads to formation of a loose piece, called a flap of cartilage. The flap can fragment or break off in the joint. Ouch!
Bentley developed painful cartilage flaps in his front shoulders. Orthopedic surgeon Russ Gurevitch, DVM, fixed Bentley's problem. Different surgical techniques are used to fix OCD, but the goal is always to remove loose pieces of cartilage from the affected joint and scrape the area clean.
Bentley's raring to go these days. His guardian/owner, Lila, got him to stay still for a second.
Somebuddy commented that Bentley and Lila look like they're made fur each other. They do go together well, don't they?
Another happy dog is Duke the Labrador puppy. He was with his grand-dog-mom. Duke's only 11 weeks old, and he was at the clinic fur a checkup. He's a healthy little guy.
I got so excited talking to Duke that I forgot to ask his grand-dog-mom's name. Doggoneit. I apawlogize fur that.
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