Haven't been web-surfing as much over the X'mas holidays, so can't bring you any new links. I have been reading instead. Went thru Book 1 and Book 2 of Harry Potter, and is currently about a third into Book 3. Haven't watched the movie thou, 'cos they are only showing the Cantonese-dubbed version in all three cinemas in
Tuen Mun, and I'd really like to see the one w/ the original sound track. Meant to pop out to Yau Ma Tei to see it at the Broadway, but was too tired to bother. Oh well, later maybe.
Just arranged for an appointment for Lily to see Dr Ryan, supposingly the specialist in H.K. We are hoping to proceed with the operation to fix Lily's hip problem. I did some research right before X'mas.
Lily has got what is called
hip dysplaysia. It's a genetic problem that is causes by imperfect hip joint development.
I have also found this list, which althou is a bit old, I suspect the situation nowadays isn't much better. In Hong Kong where the majority of the local golden retriever (or as a matter of fact, all dogs) population are rather small, there are a lot of breeding between closely related dogs, so the situation could only be far worse. For those who can't be bothered to visit these links, the summary is that close to 1 in 4 to 1 in 5 golden retrievers suffer some degree of hip dysplaysia. On Lily's family gathering party, 5 of Lily brothers were there. 4 of them already showed some signs of hip dysplaysia. Co Co the mother also showed some slight signs. Not good indeed.
Lily won't be getting a hip replacement, which is a HK$20K per joint job. A hip replacement is an operation where plastic implant is put into the hip socket, and the top part of the dog's upper leg bone is replaced with a plastic ball. It is not w/o problems, and usually done on older dogs. The general vet (Dr Pahl I think. The nurses called him Dr Gerry, which is his first name) who did the X-ray for Lily explained the kind of operation he recommends, and I think it's triple pelvic osteotomy. Basically, the socket bone is cut off, rotated by an angle so that the socket sits on top of the ball of the upper leg bone and then put back on. Wicked. Only puppies under the age of 1 are suitable for such operations. Dr Pahl said that Lily appeared to be suitable for this operation.
Will keep you updated on Lily.
10:36:35 PM 
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