About Eowyn
Eowyn is a mutt that, from a distance, looks much like a purebred Rhodesian Ridgeback. She was rescued on May 24th, 2006 after she and two of her littermates were thrown from a pickup truck in rural Texas. She was about 4 weeks old at that time and was wormy, covered in fleas and ant bites, and in general a mess when my ex-girlfriend brought her home.
At one year of age, Eowyn began to show signs of advanced juvenile-onset hip dysplasia. Her condition has deteriorated rapidly. You can see in this picture, taken when she was about six months old, how badly she’s favoring one leg over another.
In May of 2006, Dr. Glade at Boonville Animal Hospital performed a Femoral Head Ostectomy (FHO), which is a surgical procedure that removes the head of the femur
For all intents and purposes, she was born without a socket for her femur. This is a post-operative X-ray that Dr. Glade showed me at the clinic. Where he’s pointing is where he corrected this by removing the head of the left femur, which had fractured into a ‘mushroom’ shape. Click on the picture for a higher resolution version.
The surgery was tough on her. She stayed at Boonville for three days in their recovery ward so that the docs could monitor her progress and take corrective action as necessary.
She pulled through just fine and has regained full use of that leg. Recently, as the weather has turned colder here in south Texas, she’s actually started to favor the (fixed) left leg. This, along with her continued misbehavior/aggression and lack of ability to accept positive correction, has led to our decision to perform the second FHO, this time on her right hip, over Christmas of 2008. The blog, of course, will be updated frequently with reports on her progress.
