Featured Pet! Rodney!

Rodney’s Story

Rodney has been a patient from 9 weeks of age when he had his first set of vaccinations in 2023.

When Rodney was about a year and a half his owners noticed that his legs seemed to have gotten more “bent”.   X-rays of both of his front legs confirmed that his “bent” legs were caused by an early closure of an important growth plate preventing his radius from growing at a normal rate. As the other bones kept growing, the radius couldn’t and the pressure caused the leg to bend outwards.  This is known as “Valgus”, and is a type of angular limb deformity.

In some dogs, this deformity can be tolerated, in Rodney’s case he was getting painful, and stumbling a lot. This led us to discuss correction and the huge commitment this has entailed.

To fix the leg, Rodney needed to have his leg broken and reset with a strong plate inside. This plate needed to be designed specifically for him, and this required a CT image to allow for a 3D print of his leg to be made. Quite a process!!

In the meantime, Rodney’s owners were preparing for the aftercare of the procedure. The correction is only half of the challenge, building and strengthening the other muscles and joints are essential to success. Meg Bliss, our Physio arrived at the perfect time to help.

Under Megan, Rodney got familiar with the hydrotherapy and physiotherapy prior to his surgery, which allowed him to get comfortable with everything before his life changing procedure.

The procedure was a huge success, the specialist team who came to our site to operate were very pleased with the outcome.

Since then he has been a model patient. The wound healed well and under the care of Megan and great efforts of his owners, Rodney has recovered faster than even the specialist expected!

Rodney began intensive post-op physiotherapy immediately, attending twice weekly sessions that included laser therapy, pulsed electromagnetic therapy, and massage techniques to relieve compensations and focus on his operated limb.  We used a stance analyser during each session to measure and track his weight distribution, which showed consistent improvement. With home exercises to do at home and dedication from his owners, Rodney has increased his movement and built up muscle mass. About a month after surgery, Rodney started hydrotherapy, attending once a week since. He’s been doing great on the water treadmill, and his confidence has steadily increased.

All of this has been a huge achievement and Rodney has been a star!

We asked Rodney’s owners some questions about him:

Does Rodney have any nick names?
Rodders

What is Rodney’s favourite thing to do at home?
Before his operation he loved playing in the garden with his sister Nellie, now he just wants cuddles all the time. And wait for the next piece of steak that’s on offer!

What do you enjoy the most about Rufus?
His affection and his funny personality. He is such character

When did you first notice that Rodney was unwell?
We noticed his legs looked different to his sisters when we got him at 8 weeks old, James then confirmed this would be a problem at around 6 months old, we then monitored until he was 18 months then put the plan in place to operate.

Did you research into his diagnosis/condition further?
Yes we did a lot of research, and we also had serval options on what kind of operation and results would best suit Rodney.  (It wasn’t an easy choice, but glad we went with the option we did).

What advice would you give to others?
Don’t rush into anything (unless it’s an emergency operation) and the biggest thing is to consider the impact and recovery process.
We knew his operation was a very big operation, but truly had no idea that months later we would still be so restricted with not only Rodney‘s day to day life but also ours.

How has the Healthcare Subscription helped you?
The Gold Healthcare subscription has been a weight off our mind knowing that if he needs to see a vet regularly, we haven’t got to pay that out each time, I have animals on all the different plans. And they’re all good in their own way, depending on each individual animals needs.