RSPCA
Bristol & District Branch, Registered Charity no. 205858
Meet Alfie!
September 2005 - Alfie and His Bendy Leg
This is Alfie, a young labrador who has been a regular visitor to the Clinic recently. Alfie’s problem was a very deformed front leg and a painful elbow joint. His condition presented the Clinic vets with an interesting and challenging orthopaedic case.
The problem had started with an injury to Alfie’s left fore-leg, several months earlier when Alfie was a young growing puppy. To explain what happened, we need to understand how bones grow in young animals (and people!). Bones grow in special areas at the ends of the bones – these are called growth plates and are quite soft and easily injured. If the cells of the growth plates are damaged, the bone can stop growing, leading to all sorts of problems.
How the deformity happened
The fore-leg has 2 bones – the radius and the ulna. Alfie’s injury as a puppy had caused damage to one of the growth plates of his ulna bone, causing the ulna to stop growing. The radius, however, was not damaged and continued to grow. (The red line in the illustration is the damaged ulna growth plate, the blue lines are growth plates that are still functioning).
Alfie’s bent leg was causing him problems
The uneven growth rate of the two bones causes a bow-string effect, with the radius being bent like a bow due to its continued growth and the ulna staying the same length like the string of a bow. The wrist twists and the elbow joint gets pulled out of alignment.
You can see how bent poor Alfie’s leg was. The deformity had developed over 4 months and he had already had one unsuccessful operation to try and correct the problem. His elbow was partially dislocated and painful, causing him to be very lame.
Xray showing how we fixed Alfie
The treatment for Alfie’s condition was some rather major surgery. We had to cut right through both the radius and the ulna and realign the bones. The bones were then held in position with a framework of metal pins – called an “external fixator”. The surgery took several hours. This xray was taken immediately after surgery to make sure everything had gone to plan.
Checking Alfie’s external fixator frame
Alfie had to live with his metal frame for 6 weeks. During this time his exercise was restricted and his owner had to take great care that Alfie kept his frame clean and didn’t catch it on anything – not an easy task with a very bouncy young Labrador!
Alfie came back to the clinic for several post-op checks with his surgeon. Things were going fine – the bones were healing and Alfie was apparently being as well-behaved as could be expected! He then had to go through one final operation under general anaesthetic for the frame to be removed.
All straight now!
Here is Alfie at his final check up – with 2 straight front legs! Alfie’s owner told us that he was running well on the leg and only showed very occasional signs of lameness. The operation had been a great success and, thanks to the expert attention of the RSPCA vets and nurses, Alfie’s deformity was a thing of the past.
Swallowed fishing line
Wildlife Tales
This pigeon arrived at the Clinic recently – yet another victim of discarded fishing line. It’s most often swans we see with this problem, but sadly it can affect all types of wildlife.
The hook was caught in the bird’s tongue
The poor bird had eaten a fish-hook, presumably because it had the remnants of some bait on it. The hook had ended up going through the bird’s tongue. Obviously it was extremely sore and swollen, and it was clear that the pigeon hadn’t been able to eat with the hook there.
Nasty barbs on the hook made removal difficult
The hook had a nasty barb on it, so we weren’t able to just pull it out without doing more damage. We had to cut the hook in half to safely remove it. We then started the pigeon on a course of pain-killers and antibiotics to treat the swelling and infection.
Recuperating at the Clinic before release
The nurses cared for the pigeon on the wards for 3 days, and he soon started to perk up and eat some corn. On day 4 we re-examined his mouth and everything had settled down and healed very well. There followed a successful release back into his city environment, so another happy ending, but we do wish anglers would be more careful about discarding tackle so this didn’t happen so often.
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