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Would love to hear some feedback from anyone who has a dog with a torn ACL!
Our cute little mutt tore her acl on friday and has been walking around with her leg up. We had her checked out by our vet who said she needed surgery- I didn't even realize that dogs had acl surgeries.
After coming home and doing some research, I am seeing lots of information about smaller dogs that seem to recover just as well without the surgery as they do with the surgery. My dog is about 32 pounds and 7 years old.
Has anyone had luck with no surgery on their dog or used one of the knee braces I have seen on line for dogs??
My dog has recieved surgery on both of her rear ACL's. She is a 55lb pit bull so we were recommended and decided to have a procedure called TPLO. This is where a portion of the bone is cut and repostitioned with a metal plate to compensate for the ACL. It was a bit costly, but it has something like a 95% recovery rate and she is perfect now!
Just to throw caution to the wind about letting it "heal on its own" is that even if it does (prob wont) the ACL will be week and is at a greater risk for a re rupture. Also, the dog will compensate on the other leg, and if it has genetically week ACL's you also increase the chance of rupturing the second one as well. Not to mention the almost certain arthritis and prolonged pain over time...
VERY sorry that your pup has this. It is not fun for them or their owners! But we are happy that our dog had the procedure, and she is too!
once it is torn. It's as if it's broken. If the dog is holding the leg up and not using it; it's in pain.
In 12/06 our dog tore hers (boxer, 65lbs). Had TPLO. She was a RARE case where the plate always bothered her and she seemed to limp. We had her back several times until recently when she wasnt using the leg at all again. I did some research and found in 2006 there were NOT releasing the meniscus. It tore. We just has surgery to release it and while they were in there they removed the plate. This was 2 wks ago and I see good improvement.
I recommend that if you proceed with the TPLO you have them release the meniscus as the same time no matter what their belief is unless you are willing to pay for the same surgery twice. These 2 surgeries cost us around 8 or so thousand.
I had the same thing with a mini schnauzer weighing 22 pounds. I learned that vets usually recommend surgery for dogs over 30 pounds and rest for smaller dogs. My dog healed OK after forcing him to take it easy and rest, (not easy to do), in about a month.
He did have some recurrence for about another two months but then it was completely healed.
32 pounds puts you right on the fence. Maybe you should talk to another vet or if you are close to a veterinarian teaching school you might get a consultation before making a decision.
Good luck no matter what you decide,
Don
I went to my vet and told me that my 50 pound dog tore his ACL and it requires surgery to fix him. She gave me a list of vets that do the surgery (not all vets do it). So I called to get prices for the ACL repair surgery, not the TPLO.
I am 8 months pregnant and the last thing we wanted to do was spend thousands on the dog, but there was no way he was going without the surgery.
I called the Buffalo Grove Vet Clinic and they said it's between $2600-$3000!
Animal Med Clinic in St. Charles $1800-$2100.
Woodstock Vet Clinic - $2200-2600
Dr. Bongiorno in Geneva - $1500
I decided to check in Wisconsin, since my parents live an hour away I thought it might be cheaper there. I called Country Veterinary Service in Burlington, WI (a little over an hour drive from the Western Suburbs, an hour from Algonquin). $700-$900. I researched the doctor and booked the surgery.
Chester had it done last Thursday and is already starting to put a little weight on it and is doing extremely well. The total cost was $680!
Makes me angry that Buffalo Grove was going to charge me almost 4 times that amount for the same surgery. If you think that they are vets because they love animals, think again, they love $$.
The vet in WI couldn't believe the prices I was quoted. He said it's a shame because a lot of dogs would never get the surgery and suffer for the rest of their lives or worse their owner might put them down because they cant afford it.
I also found a vet in the Quad cities, Preemption Veterinary in Preemption IL that did the surgery for $200, but it was only on dogs 25 pounds or less. And that was a pretty far trip, 3 hours or so.
I hope this helps!
Last edited by Kristen6; 08-06-2008 at 09:46 AM..
Reason: Want to put in the weight
Thank you for such VALUABLE information! Our dog has torn her ACL and I received the same quotes and prices. I checked the Vet school at Uof I and it was over $2k. So, she's been limping for a few weeks now. I just got off the phone to WI and will be calling back to schedule the surgery. If you didn't post this information, my 9 year old mutt might have to live the rest of her life in pain!!!! THANK YOU!
Please let me know how your dog is doing now..5/1/2009. I have a dog who needs an acl surgery.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kristen6
I went to my vet and told me that my 50 pound dog tore his ACL and it requires surgery to fix him. She gave me a list of vets that do the surgery (not all vets do it). So I called to get prices for the ACL repair surgery, not the TPLO.
I am 8 months pregnant and the last thing we wanted to do was spend thousands on the dog, but there was no way he was going without the surgery.
I called the Buffalo Grove Vet Clinic and they said it's between $2600-$3000!
Animal Med Clinic in St. Charles $1800-$2100.
Woodstock Vet Clinic - $2200-2600
Dr. Bongiorno in Geneva - $1500
I decided to check in Wisconsin, since my parents live an hour away I thought it might be cheaper there. I called Country Veterinary Service in Burlington, WI (a little over an hour drive from the Western Suburbs, an hour from Algonquin). $700-$900. I researched the doctor and booked the surgery.
Chester had it done last Thursday and is already starting to put a little weight on it and is doing extremely well. The total cost was $680!
Makes me angry that Buffalo Grove was going to charge me almost 4 times that amount for the same surgery. If you think that they are vets because they love animals, think again, they love $$.
The vet in WI couldn't believe the prices I was quoted. He said it's a shame because a lot of dogs would never get the surgery and suffer for the rest of their lives or worse their owner might put them down because they cant afford it.
I also found a vet in the Quad cities, Preemption Veterinary in Preemption IL that did the surgery for $200, but it was only on dogs 25 pounds or less. And that was a pretty far trip, 3 hours or so.
I hope this helps!
Chester did fantastic with the ACL surgery. He was in A LOT of pain for the first few days after the surgery, but after about 3 days he started putting weight on it and as of 3 days ago was still doing great.
He could go on long walks and run, but I did notice that the leg would shake the vet said that was a sign of pain, but it really didn't seem to bother him (Chester) and his leg wasn't as strong as before. If I pulled him back while he was on a leash, he would fall backwards.
One thing the vet said that had me scared was typically when one leg goes the other usually goes within 6 months. So I tried to limit his activities as much as possible and was happy when we past the 6-month mark. I thought maybe we would be ok.
However, my poor sweet Chester tore the ACL in his other leg on Wed 4/29 running around the house and with him being 15 with other issues and my knowing that his repaired leg could not hold his weight if he went through the surgery again, we decided to put him down.
So sad that your email came at this time, but I hope this helps you. I was very happy with Country Vet and would have gone to them again if I thought he could handle another surgery.
Please note that this doesn't mean your dogs leg won't support him after surgery to get the other leg fixed, just Chester was 50lbs (not overweight) and 15 years old. I would have done it if he was younger.
I went through this about a year ago with my 12 pound yorkie mix. Surgery for the small dogs is elective. There is really no way of knowing for sure if the acl is torn from the outside. The vet feels, twists, and pulls on the leg only making things worse for the little guy. I really wish I would have known then what I know now, I would not have let them do that. Anyway, she is completely fine now and here's what we did. (I apologize if someone above has already told you all this and I am now repeating. I did not start reading from the beginning)
I happened to get lucky with an excellent specialist that was not in a hurry to do surgery. He told me that I could take her home and not let her walk, run or play for 6-8 wks. That meant carrying her outside to go to the bathroom and then restrict her movement even if that means crating her. I did not have to crate her much, I pretty much carried her all the time. Anyway after about 6-8 wks she was allowed to do a little walking, but not much and very, very slowly work back up to what is normal. If you rush it, you have to start all over with the down time for 6-8 wks. Long story short, she is completely back to normal runs, walks, jumps, plays etc. You would never know she had any type of injury.
You can also do this with a larger dog, but it is a little more work trying to keep them down. There is a great website all about this http://home.earthlink.net/~tiggerpoz/index.html (broken link) The guy that put it together is great and will return emails. Good luck and remember patience is the key to their healing process.
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Your dog will not heal ACL
