Staffies and cruciate ligament problems.

All you staffy people...how common is it?
I know its something they can suffer from but how common is it within the breed?

I have no idea as to how common but we did speak to a chap we regularly meet at the shows we go to and his dog has recently had an operation for this?
Cost him over £1000 and he reckons the dog still has problems

Harvey snapped his cruciate ligament 2 years ago, he went to hydrotheraphy afterwards and made a great recovery. He couldn't go off his lead for nearly a year but slowly but surley he's now ok. He has the odd limp now and again but he's a drama queen so I found if I took no notice he soon forgot to limp

So its obviously not 'uncommon'.As you know its what eventually caused Archer having to be PTS...and a freinds dogs has just been diagnosed.
Is it heritary?

My vet told me if he would have snapped it before he was a year it was proberbally heriditary, but Harvey was about 2 and had a fight with his mum and he caught it on the edge of a wall, I was there when it happened it was terrible.

Tell me about how it affected Archer?

Archer was fine until one day at the park he was running and then stopped suddenly obviously in pain.His knee cap had dislocated and the ligaments had stretched.
He had his first surgery to try and tighten the ligament...it didn't work,the second op was to move the ligament and deepen the groove the knee cap sits in,...that didn't work.The 3rd op removed the kneecap completely but after his recovery period he was still in pain.
Our final option was to remove the leg completely....but the vet said the ligament in the other leg was not good and so we decided to call it a day.....we couldn't bare to see him in pain any longer.He spent 18 months+ having operations and recovering...he died aged 4.

what is the difference between cruciate ligament and patellar luxation ?

edited cos I cant spell

The cruciate keeps the patella in place hence damage to the ligament can cause the patella to dislocate...or thats what I understood

so (sorry for sounding dumb) ops: is it a similair thing?

the reason I ask is that I have found something that mentions that luxating pateller can be common in the SBT if that helps Archer?

http://www.staffords.co.uk/sbtvet/patella.htm