AS A runner myself I am always acutely aware of the risk of injury - with us runners it is knees and hips that tend to take the brunt of the impact – as well as ankle and foot injuries.

The story is not altogether different in dogs - but with elbows added into the mix. Certain breeds of dog are predisposed to developmental abnormalities of elbow and hip joints, and we recommend that these breeds have x-rays before ever having puppies so that these traits are not passed on to the next generation.

Once dogs have reached adulthood, even with the most sensible exercise regimes, injuries do occur. Most lameness is caused by what we call “soft tissue injury” which means sprains and strains which will often respond to rest, anti-inflammatory pain killers and a slow return to exercise. But every now and then a dog limps into one’s consulting room and you know that this is not an injury that rest alone will cure; the classic is a ruptured cruciate ligament.

Cruciate ligaments are ligaments that run diagonally across the knee joint keeping it stable and in place – one of these two ligaments the cranial cruciate ligament (or anterior cruciate ligament in humans) is prone to rupture if the knee is twisted and put under pressure at a certain angle. This is the classic “footballers’ injury” most recently Vigil van Dijk has undergone surgery for a rupture ACL and for those of you with a longer memory Alan Shearer, Roy Keane and Paul Gascoigne have all suffered from this injury.

But I digress – we see these dogs limping into our consulting room in quite a distinctive way – but more of this next week!

*Alice Moore is a vet at Castle Veterinary Clinic, Dorchester and Weymouth. Tel 01305 267083