Dog with partial ACL injury-Advice

[badcar]

This past weekend while hunting with my setter, she hurt her rear left knee and was diagnosed yesterday with a partial tear. Anyone here with experience with either surgery, crate restricted rehab, or any other methods of treatment. Weighing my options, but she is a sporting dog and my limited internet research is telling me surgery is most common...She is just a year old and has a full life ahead. Vet is recommending TPLO ($4k) after we observe and rest her for the next two weeks under careful conditions and very restricted movement. If she improves, we may have a chance to let it heal further....and not have to opt for surgery.

Looking for any words of wisdom....

Obligatory pics

[Don Ro]

"...diagnosed yesterday with a partial tear."
~~~~~~~~~~~
I wonder if this what my Tibetan Terrier had when she charged out the back door chasing a rabbit.
She flipped over and came up lame...cried out, etc.
Took her in and the vet said she could either have an operation or just let it heal.
I'll be damned, she did heal in a few weeks - all back to normal.

[Rikao4]

believe one of Baz's kids had something like this..
who will along shortly for sure..

a PM to SiberianDVM perhaps if he doesn't pop up...

good luck

Rika

[Spud]

We had a similar situation with our yellow Lab (Gwen). We tried the conservative approach for several months, even tried a neoprene type brace. Unfortunately being an active larger dog, every time she started to feel better she would do something stupid to re-aggravate it.

Eventually we decided on the TPLO surgery. It was a long recovery (months) but well worth it. She is fully recovered and able to do all the things a Lab loves to do. She was miserable when her knee was hurting, did not want to walk on it at all. Now she is her happy-go-lucky self again.

You'll have to decide whats right for your dog, but Gwen's story had a happy ending.

[stomachmonkey]

Had both TPLO's on both knees of our Mastiff.

Partial tear is not enough info.

Need to know why. ACL injuries in dogs are somewhat predictable. In medium to large dogs if the angle of the top of the tibia is 25 degrees or greater to the tibial shaft they are more prone to this type of injury.

Basically means if they tear one side they are nearly guaranteed to tear the other.

For our Mastiff it was nearly a year to the day between right and left leg tears.

Get pet insurance now, won't cover this mishap but if the dog is at risk then you'll thank me when the second lets loose and most of the bill is covered.

TPLO' work really well. Makes em walk a bit funny, bow legged, but does not impair their mobility in any noticeable way.

[badcar]

The injury was not immediately noticeable, no yelp, cry, etc. She came off the field with a slight limp. Two days later, on another hunt, she was going full bore in "tripod" mode. The second I noticed her with her leg up while running I got her to woah and I picked her up and carried her back to my truck. I think the initial injury happened two days prior to me seeing the "lame" lifted leg while she ran.

[stomachmonkey]

Even if she needs the surgery she'll be fine after the recoup and you can still hunt her.

Shop around though, $4k sounds on the high side. We paid $2,500 and $2,700 ish per knee. Granted it was a few years ago.

Find a good doggie ortho to do it. They exist.

Be prepared to be traumatized, the incision is pretty large and a bit gnarly.

Follow the recuperation instructions to the letter.

Worst worry is they start feeling better before they are fully healed and can make things worse in a bad way.

Patience.

[kaisen]

We've had three ACL surgeries.

With a small dog like yours, consider an extra-capsulary repair (pins and wires without cutting into the joint or bone) rather than TPLO -- especially if there is no torn minuscus. That repair would be more like $1000-1200, and would have similar results with the correct rehab.

We also ordered a supportive brace harness (A-TraC) that helped her recovery. They're spendy, at $400 for one side, or $550ish for both sides. What you may find is that she will favor the other leg for a while and may damage that knee soon after.

Check your local veterinary college to see if they do the new stem cell therapies as well.... lots of great research in ACL repair there, but not at the vet level yet.

[SiberianDVM]

stomachmonkey is pretty much on it, except for his price quote. If you want a TPLO, your choices are limited to board certified orthopods who paid to go the the special TPLO course and who have to buy the special TPLO equipment and parts. Porsche $$ vs. Camaro $$

Your dog is marginal size wize for extracapsular repair. I used to do these all the time on cats and small dogs and they did well. Those are also the critters who sometimes do OK with just rest, too, so who is to say. I really did enjoy doing those surgeries, as they had to be done just right.

Good luck.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by SiberianDVM

stomachmonkey is pretty much on it, except for his price quote. If you want a TPLO, your choices are limited to board certified orthopods who paid to go the the special TPLO course and who have to buy the special TPLO equipment and parts. Porsche $$ vs. Camaro $$

Your dog is marginal size wize for extracapsular repair. I used to do these all the time on cats and small dogs and they did well. Those are also the critters who sometimes do OK with just rest, too, so who is to say. I really did enjoy doing those surgeries, as they had to be done just right.

Good luck.

Yup, checked with wife and it was $3,500 for knee one and $3,700 for the second.

Having more and more senior moments. Sucks.

[badcar]

Thank you all. We will hope for the best and plan for the worst. No matter what, she will get the best care possible.

[Baz]

Hi Mark - Sorry to hear of your little one's lameness. I have some input to add to the already informative thread.

My youngest girl, Billabong, has had both back legs repaired with the procedure mentioned by Eric above. Couple criteria made this possible - her weight was ideal (under 50 lbs.) and according to the x-ray - her tibial plateau was at an acceptable slope. If you find a vet who can do this procedure they can walk you through it, of course.

The procedure my vet followed is called the Arthrex Tightrope procedure. This is the company who makes the hardware for this procedure:
Arthrex - ACL TightRope®

In the old days the same procedure was used with monofiliment or fishing line leader. In fact some docs still use that today and are successful.

My vet said when one knee goes usually the other side goes as well so be wary once yours recovers unless you curb her activity you may go through the same thing on the other leg. It happened to my girl about 1 year afterwards.

Something else - I've also experienced my other girl just sprain her knee and limp for a few days to a week and then I keep her crated to reduce strain on her leg and it clears up and she's back to normal. They do a test called a "drawer test" to see if the knee joint moves in and out like a dresser drawer plus an x-ray to determine if surgery is needed.

I'll try to post some more stuff later when I have more time.

Oh yeah - the cost for the tightrope procedure like Eric said was around $1,200.

[Chocaholic]

What does she weigh? We have a lab/chow/boxer mix that tore both, but has healed and doing fine (scar tissue) four years later. If under 70 lbs, you have a chance if you limit activity and keep her weight down. But if you want her to hunt and have fun, she's young so probably worth doing it right.

[badcar]

She is 38 pounds and extremely active. With this input we are going to discuss other procedures as options with the ortho and a referral vet from her breeder/trainer.

[stealthn]

We had that done on our Weim, she's fine now just old

Sad thing is statistically there is an 80% chance of blowing out the other knee within a year. Our girl is a little old for that now so we are lucky.

Just ask yourself if it were your child what would you do...

Good luck with your beautiful dog.

[fxeditor]

We had to get 2 TPLOs done to our Golden Retriever/Samoyed mix when he was between 1 1/2 and 2 years old. Although they were expensive procedures the fact that the TPLO was a permanent solution rather than just repairing the tear was preferable to us because he was so active. Now the big guy is 10 and as active as ever and shows no sign of pain!

If you opt for the TPLO be warned that to recovery time is long and in the beginning the dog will be in a good amount of pain.

Good luck with whatever you decide and I hope she feels better soon!

Michael

[Don Ro]

Originally Posted by stealthn

Just ask yourself if it were your child what would you do...

.
We love our dogs, don't we? !!!
And never too much.
.

[targa911S]

We had TPLO surgery on both of Big Henry's knees. Pricey but worth it as he was only 2 years old at the time. He lived and played to a ripe old age of 12 with no ill effects.

[targa911S]

Originally Posted by fxeditor

We had to get 2 TPLOs done to our Golden Retriever/Samoyed mix when he was between 1 1/2 and 2 years old. Although they were expensive procedures the fact that the TPLO was a permanent solution rather than just repairing the tear was preferable to us because he was so active. Now the big guy is 10 and as active as ever and shows no sign of pain!

If you opt for the TPLO be warned that to recovery time is long and in the beginning the dog will be in a good amount of pain.

Good luck with whatever you decide and I hope she feels better soon!

Michael

practice your "towel walking" now. Towel under belly hold both ends up to take the pressure off the bad leg. Do it soon, or you will be doing both knees.

[bob deluke]

We"ve had 3 dogs that had ACL surgery, a cane Corso, rottie, and latest, old English bulldog who had both knees done. Cost: $2K per knee for the bulldog. Don't screw around and get your dog operated on. Otherwise if you wait too long, she will go lame and will be too late to operate to repair damage. Go to an orthopedic dog surgeon who specializes in ACL repair. Most vets won't do this type of surgery, thus the cost. Well worth it though to see your dog running around on all fours.