I brought BHRR’s Ava Marie in to work with me today at KAH. Around 1:30 AM – 2:00 AM today; I noticed that her ‘good’ leg – the right one that had the ACL repair surgery back on May 21st, 2010 have a large odd shaped lump. I felt it and it looked almost like a really bad blown vein yet I knew that was not it and thought at one point it could have been an allergic reaction to something like a spider bite yet that did not seem right either and checked her temperature and it was normal and she was acting herself. I made an appointment first thing today for her and by the time we got to KAH; the large odd shaped lump was no longer ‘squishy’ yet very hard to the touch. That indicated to me that it is most likely fluid of some sort and the Vet confirmed this by doing an aspirate. It was synovial fluid and looked clear and did not appear to be infected yet the Vet had it spun down and looked more closely at it. The diagnosis is that by all the compensation that BHRR’s Ava Marie has had to do on this leg due to recovering from her leg leg ACL repair surgery(and we took the sutures out today while we were there…what a great girl!); that she developed a small tear and it was leaking. The Vet was not concerned that this would indicate any impact on her ACL and we discussed that most likely that Ava Marie will need to have this drained again in the future and possibly more than once. This is the leg that Dr. Liston drained a seroma from when I brought her in for a recheck and to remove her staples. The odd thing was as per the blog post that I made that the seroma was below the knee and it occured many days after her surgery. I am soooooooooooo relieved that we are not looking at anything more serious and the Vet felt so bad for Ava Marie with her very swollen knees with the arthritis. The Vet also could not believe that Ava Marie was 2 years old as she is so calm, well mannered and quiet. 😀 NOR with how amazing she was with all that poking, prodding that had to be done on her knees. I cannot stress enough about how incredible this Dane is!!!! Every time I took Ava Marie outside or when another person did, she just wanted to get into my truck to come home…..she just has been at the Vets far too many times and she just wanted to come home. WELL, we are home now and she is resting comfortably in the triage area and I will take her to LAH when Dr. Liston is back from holidays for a final ‘sign off’ on that leg and we will monitor her closely in case she needs more drainage. At this time, she will not be going up for adoption when we first anticipated she would as we want her as healthy as possible. Her weight today was 70.3 KGS(154.66 pounds) and she looked PERFECT for her size/age at this time. She is going to do some more filling out over the next year but she is right where I want her to be for the moment and gosh, she is stunning!