Crap.

To be fair, I knew it the moment he did it. I guess it's that slightly jaded been-there-done-that sort of mentality. It was nearly seven months after Clover had his first Cranial Cruciate Ligament (CCL) repaired, I was in my vet's office, looking at this:

CCL in dogs is essentially the ACL in humans. Think Tom Brady: run, twist, fall to the ground in pain. If you look at the right side of the image, he's got a lovely knee joint that is clearly connected. That knee had a repair in December of 2009. The left side of the image (appropriately entitled "ouch") shows the knee that is lacking one of the ligaments that connects the femur to the tibia, and is significantly swollen, making quite a space between these two bones.

The easiest way to tell if this ligament is damaged is a "drawer sign" - that is, if you place your hand on a healthy knee joint and try to slide the bone around, nothing happens. The knee will flex at the joint, but outside that motion, it's still. When one of the criss-cross cruciate ligaments is gone, you can literally slide the tibia forward like you can pull out a drawer. When it's bad, it's obvious to anyone that a knee just really shouldn't do that.

As I learned last time, for smaller, older, and or less active dogs, an aggressive bought of rest followed by some careful rehabilitation can successfully treat a partially torn CCL. Clover is smaller, and older, and, well - less active than he used to be, I guess. He was top-speed chasing around my aunt's one year old Havanese when it happened the first time. In all fairness - she is pretty cute. The second time, he was running hard into the house after an especially satisfying leg lift on a nearby tree.

Sadly, Clover does not do things by halves. The first CCL was totally ruptured, and his cartilage was twisted all around as well. In the words of the surgeon "pretty good mess." Sadly, with any CCL injury - whether treated by surgery or rest - there is a relatively high chance that the extra weight on the other leg makes the other CCL tear at some point.

So when I looked at round 2 radiographs and saw the drawer sign that is so similar to round 1, I sighed and called the surgeon.

You'd think a dog named Clover would be lucky.

But then, maybe he is, because I'm dishing out for bionic knee #2 in a seven month span.

I hope they take Discover card.