Dog health recommendations

[NinePack]

[IMG][/IMG]Hi guys, I like to come here to post sometimes because of the wealth of information and personal experiences.

Well i have a 9 year old blue heeler that has blown her ACL. The surgery is around $4000 . Money isnt really an issue, she is insured as well we would pay that out of pocket if need be . I have done some research and consulted a few vets . The surgery is an option but the recovery time and possible re injuring the knee is one issue , as well she is over weight , which i have learned that she can now over compensate and blow he other knee out after surgery.

anyways , at which point do you let her do her own thing and just live with it? still high energy , shows no pain , just her normal dailys but on three legs.

What would be best for her quality of life? considering her age?

Thanks for any input

[Amethyst]

I haven't had a dog with that kind of injury, so don't have any first-hand experience. I think really only you can decide what is the right thing to do. One thing to keep in mind though, is that dogs are very good at hiding pain until it is absolutely unbearable, so don't go by the appearance (or lack thereof) of pain alone.

Also, three legged dogs can have great, active lives. My one guy is missing a front paw and we belong to a three legged dog group and it doesn't slow any of them down. Can you put her on a bit of a diet to lose some weight? That was the most important thing, according to my vet when I adopted my guy. Don't let him get overweight, as it would put too much stress on his one front leg.

[NinePack]

Thanks for the input . she has been on a diet before the injury and lost 8 pounds!

[FlamesAddiction]

Sorry, I don't know a lot about dogs... so no help.

But I am really sorry to hear about this. It's not a great situation to be in when you have to start weighing the greater good when it comes to your pet. I hope it works out for the best.

[AltaGuy]

Our dog had patella surgery and I really regret it. He was in agony, the healing took about a year, and he is in worse shape than before the surgery with that leg. He always over-compensates and his running gait is clearly off.

Anyway, if she's not in pain, I just wouldn't take the risk of making it permanently worse and going through that.

Just my experience.

[NinePack]

Originally Posted by AltaGuy

Our dog had patella surgery and I really regret it. He was in agony, the healing took about a year, and he is in worse shape than before the surgery with that leg. He always over-compensates and his running gait is clearly off.

Anyway, if she's not in pain, I just wouldn't take the risk of making it permanently worse and going through that.

Just my experience.

Im sorry to learn about your experience. Its a hard decision. She is pretty much at that age in my mind that she is not old but not young. Maybe just let her do her thing. If she was under 5 i would do surgery. She could live 1 - 5 years. If she only lives 2-3 years , do we want her to have invasive surgery which might not solve problem , or create more. we just thinking of how to make her retirement.golden years the best.

[Zevo]

I had a 3 three-legged shepherd cross that blew his acl in his only back leg. I think he was round 8 or 9 at the time. Being that it was his only hind leg, we didn't really think surgery was an option. He seemed to do fine but we had to curtail his activities quite a bit as he still was eager to go full bore but he would pay for it after. That was the hard part.

After a while we put him on Deramaxx, I think, and the last couples of years on another pain killer taht really helped. They were low doses so didn't make dopey or stoned or anything like that. He had a great quality of life and lived to 13.

Our only regret was not getting a cart for him at some point. We thought about it but never ended up doing it.

I think he is about 12 here.

[bossy22]

Happened to our dog. We got the surgery, she blew it out again. We didn't the second time and were more careful with her activities. She didn't last much longer after that. She had some other issues, and I think at that point her body just started to deteriorate.
Best dog I've ever had.

[1qqaaz]

Wow, beautiful dogs!

Blue Heelers are a pretty longed-lived/sturdy breed, relative to their size. So 9 years isn't terribly old in terms of capital investment.
Kudos for getting pet insurance, seems it was the right call.
I agree that for either option, it's definitely a good idea for her to lose some weight. It's definitely a good idea to put less pressure on her joints.

Hoping for the best

[Sr. Mints]

Originally Posted by NinePack

[IMG][/IMG]Hi guys, I like to come here to post sometimes because of the wealth of information and personal experiences.

Well i have a 9 year old blue heeler that has blown her ACL. The surgery is around $4000 . Money isnt really an issue, she is insured as well we would pay that out of pocket if need be . I have done some research and consulted a few vets . The surgery is an option but the recovery time and possible re injuring the knee is one issue , as well she is over weight , which i have learned that she can now over compensate and blow he other knee out after surgery.

anyways , at which point do you let her do her own thing and just live with it? still high energy , shows no pain , just her normal dailys but on three legs.

What would be best for her quality of life? considering her age?

Thanks for any input

One of my dogs tore his ACL at the end of January. He was not insured, and it cost me $3000 all-in to get him operated on.

He's seven, full of life, and happy as can be, so there was no question as to whether I'd get his leg fixed or not.

However, in the three weeks between tearing his knee and the surgery, he healed remarkably fast. The vet said he would improve, but the risk of not doing the surgery meant his knee would rub and he'd wear down the meniscus, until eventually it would bone on bone and would at that point it would not be reparable.

If he were older, I probably wouldn't have gotten the knee fixed. I've since stopped letting him use the stairs, and have stopped taking him to off leash dog parks (because the vet said in smaller dogs, if one knee goes, there is a greater chance the other could, versus a big dog where a torn ACL more likely is to occur from from wear and tear) and resorted to just taking my two dogs out on leash and occasionally to play ball with no other dogs around.

I guess what I'm saying is, if my dog were older, and he was exhibiting no pain, and healed on his own, I probably wouldn't have put him through the operation.

[Kybosh]

There are different surgery type options depending on the circumstances and the size of the dog. I'm assuming you're looking at the tibial plateau leveling osteomy, which literally cuts into and changes the way the forces are applied on the bone. It's a big surgery that's usually for larger animals (think horses) and doesn't always make sense for dogs in my opinion.

Another technique is where they basically use fishing line and some hardware to tie the tibia and femur together. This works pretty well for smaller dogs (<45-60 lbs I believe). There is also a new and improved method of this called Orthozip, which I elected to have done on my geriatric retriever (she was 12 at the time and around 65-70lbs). It basically uses orthopaedic screws in the tibia and femur and then a far higher tensile strength line ties between them. Anyway, it's been about a year since the surgery and she's doing about as good as you can expect a 13 year old golden retriever to be doing. I'd go looking around at different vets because they don't all charge the same or recommend the same procedures.

[NinePack]

bump. So we ended up not having surgery . This might sound a little different but we have been going to a dog chiropractor. Not sure if her body is healing itself or if having that service is contributing. Either way we are seeing results . She hasnt been on three legs for over a month! doesnt look sore , gets off the floor fast! acting so much better! still have to be really careful though. No more throwing stick or any high intensity activity.


Edit . Apparently her hips are facing the opposite side of her rib cage. This is what the "chiropractor" is currently correcting.

[Amethyst]

Glad to hear that she is getting better. I know someone who works for a dog chiropractor (she's the organizer for the three legged dog group I mentioned earlier).

[OutOfTheCube]

"Dog Chiropractor" might be the most first world job in existence.

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

"Dog Chiropractor" might be the most first world job in existence.

I wonder how well the placebo effect works on dogs...