Anyone's dog ever had an acl injury? Did you opt for surgery, or inactivity for a few months? If you did surgery, which type did you do? How were the results with each route?

11/7/2011 5:12:53 PM

how old is the dog? there are specialist who can do a real good job, but you still have to keep the dog down and sedentary for a good amount of time, and typically the dog could do it again


I am neither for nor against it, but it is a lot of money to spend on it if it could happen again. If it were my dog, I wouldn't do it, but he is not a work or a sport dog and doesn't need it

11/7/2011 6:18:23 PM

Thats what ive been reading...most people said you have to keep the dog inactive about the same amount of time anyway and the final result is the same for normally active dogs

I just dont wanna put him under the knife if the results are negligable

11/7/2011 7:21:37 PM

I'm in the same boat; I have a super-high drive dog and can't decide between surgery and in-activity. I'm not ready to spend a couple grand on something that might not work or could happen again.

11/12/2011 9:02:49 PM

The vet student says surgery. Without surgery the dog is going to be in pain for a long period of time and will likely develop excess scar tissue. Down the road it will be more likely to experience problems with arthritis.

11/12/2011 9:10:11 PM

Surgery has about the same recovery length. Is there any real way to tell an ACL injury w/o an MRI?

11/12/2011 9:12:54 PM

My dog had a minor team in her mcl from chasing rabbits. The DR said it wasn't too bad and would heal.

A year or two later she was running and completely tore her mc/acl and luxated her patella. The scans also reviled that she had developed a significant amount of arthritis in that leg from the lingering tear.

This time we had the surgery. We did about everything we could for PT but she did develop a good bit of scar tissue.

Looking back I think we should have done the surgery from the get-go.

11/13/2011 11:58:09 AM

My mom's golden retriever tore her ACL jumping over a wall (to chase a squirrel). We waited a while after she did it -- probably too long - but finally broke down and got the surgery, which was crazy expensive. Not sure the "type" of surgery it was, but she had it done four years ago and still walks with a very noticeable limp. Not sure exactly what went wrong ... something about too much scar tissue in the knee.

Regardless, she's still the happiest dog I've ever seen -- still runs and chases tennis balls like nothing happened (albeit much slower).

11/13/2011 10:46:40 PM

my dog has torn its acl in both knees. Opted for the surgery both times, and am glad I did it. I think it was only $700 or $900 each time. Recovery time wasn't too bad, it was just tough to keep her from licking the scars. Full recovery each time. She is 10 years old now, but both knees seem to hold up fine.

My next door neighbor's dog did something to her knee chasing a squirrel, and she only uses 3 legs now. Neighbor doesn't have the money to spend on fixing the knee. The dog seems happy enough, and has gotten pretty good at hopping around on 3 legs. Even though the dog seems happy, it sucks to see her limping all the time.

11/14/2011 10:45:45 AM

How severe is the tear? Our cat managed somehow to tear her ACL but it was really minor. The vet told us he could perform surgery but he thought it would be a waste of our money due to the size of the tear. So we just kept her confined while at work and under supervision while home, brought her back to the vet a few weeks later, and he said it healed fine. She'll limp from time to time on that leg, usually after she's done something stupid like jumping onto the top of the shower and jumping back down.

11/14/2011 11:03:49 AM

I'm not really sure as to the extent of the injury...the vet just took x-rays and said it was likely the acl since the hips were fine and there was a little play in the knee joint.

From what i've read, arthiritis is likely regardless of if they have the surgery or not.

it's been about 2 weeks since the injury and 1 week since the vet trip (x-rays, cortisone shot and glucosamine/creatine tablets) and he's using the leg more and more, so I'm gonna keep up the no activity regimen and see how it goes. There are a couple of forums where people share their experiences and they all said it takes about 8 weeks of inactivity before the injury healed enough to resume light exercise.

11/14/2011 12:13:05 PM

My dog tore his ACL about a month ago. I took him to our vet, where they do rehab for these kinds of injuries. They really wanted to jump to get the surgery done, but since I have had issues in the past with shotty surgeons, I decided the best thing would be to get a second opinion at the vet school. I know that surgery would have to be done, but I wanted to see what someone else would say about the different types of surgeries. There are several types of surgeries offered at very much different prices. TPO, TPLO, TTA and TTO are the different types. Some of these surgeries require cutting a piece of the bone in order to stabilize the position of the tibia and the fibia and then supported by a plate. There is another type of surgery where suture is used to essentially mimic the ligament that was torn to stabilize the joint until scar tissue can hold it in place.

Alot of surgeons with immediately throw the TPLO (most expensive and the bone cutting one) at you. I wasn't so convinced at first that this was the right surgery for my pup. But after talking with the Vet school (and learning about their prices compared to my vet's surgeon's prices), I feel more confident about our surgeon. I even ask them about her and they said that she has personally repaired a number of dogs that they knew. She also trained at the vet school. Dr. Rebbecca Tudor was highly recommended :-)

11/14/2011 5:05:37 PM

We are getting referred to NCSU; seems she has a chronic hip problem that is causing an alignment problem which it turn is causing the cruciate stress. She is only 1 so we are going to be spending $texas.

11/15/2011 6:11:58 PM