Ink.. all bad

Mike took Ink into work last Thursday, as I was working at another clinic. I was concerned she might have partially ruptured her cruciate, as her knee seemed sore on palpation (especially when flexed). Jon, our ortho surgeon at Whitfords, was nice enough to look at her for me. He wasn't convinced about her knee, but was concerned that she repeatedly yelped on extension of her left hip. He radiographed her hips, and also her knee. Not good news. Ink's hip dysplasia has now progressed so I would classify it as moderate. It is much worse on her L side, with  remodelling causing her femoral neck to disappear into a big ugly block of arthritic/degenerative changes.
Whoa. That I was NOT expecting. Unlike Shimmer, she has never looked particularly abnormal in her gait, nor has she shown the stiffness when getting up etc. To top matters off, he cannot be *sure* she hasn't injured her knee, as he felt there might be a very mild effusion on the radiograph.
I can't help wondering if this is one of the reasons she hasn't ever run very fast in agility.. she has always appeared like she wants to do it, just never run very fast. Mostly, though, I am just moping that fate has been unkind enough to give me TWO dogs with hip dysplasia, that will be very limited in their agility careers. They are a very special part of our family though, so we will have to find some other lower impact way of spending time together, just not what I envisaged :(

Hips at 1.5 years old

Hips at 2.5 years old