dislocated hip in a young cat

Looks like my Courtney has dislocated her hip. She's five months
old; small for her age. It happened a week ago (probably a fall,
she was an enthusiastic climber) but the vet said the swelling was
too bad for her to make a diagnosis. She has all the signs I can
see described on the web - doesn't put her weight on that leg,
tends to hold it bent up, and it turns inwards in an odd way when
she sits on her haunches.

It seems that it's been left too long for external reduction to
have much chance of working. She has an appointment tomorrow
morning. Ideas? Anybody else out there dealt with this?

The difficult bit is that we have seven cats and they all go out
(though two are so old they can't be bothered much). It would
be chaos trying to keep them all in and insanely complicated to
let them in and out individually. So trying to keep Courtney
indoors, as everybody seems to suggest in the recovery phase after
whatever manipulation or surgery, is pretty much a non-starter.

And, is it acceptable for a vet to miss this on a first visit?

============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557

"Jack Campin - bogus address" wrote in message
...
Looks like my Courtney has dislocated her hip. She's five months
old; small for her age. It happened a week ago (probably a fall,
she was an enthusiastic climber) but the vet said the swelling was
too bad for her to make a diagnosis. She has all the signs I can
see described on the web - doesn't put her weight on that leg,
tends to hold it bent up, and it turns inwards in an odd way when
she sits on her haunches.

It seems that it's been left too long for external reduction to
have much chance of working. She has an appointment tomorrow
morning. Ideas? Anybody else out there dealt with this?

The difficult bit is that we have seven cats and they all go out
(though two are so old they can't be bothered much). It would
be chaos trying to keep them all in and insanely complicated to
let them in and out individually. So trying to keep Courtney
indoors, as everybody seems to suggest in the recovery phase after
whatever manipulation or surgery, is pretty much a non-starter.

And, is it acceptable for a vet to miss this on a first visit?

First, Phil will have to get back to you about the medical side, but I would
think that a vet should have caught that - did they take an x-ray to
ascertain that the leg wasn't broken?

Regarding the keeping her quiet while she heals - we had to dael with that
when Archer broke his leg. What we did was buy the largest dog kennel we
could find at PetsMart and a small litterbox, food and water, his bed and a
few "non-active" toys. We took him out regularly to pet him, but the rest
of the time he stayed in the kennel until the cast came off - 6 weeks.

Here's what I'm talking about:
http://www.possibleplaces.com/catnipped/broken/

Hugs,

CatNipped


============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk
==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660
4760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554
975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739
557