Cruciate surgery advice and opinions please

[miss2]

Hi all, looking for a bit of advice / opinions re De’ Angelis surgery for a torn cruciate.

Earlier in the week my 6 year old JRT tore his back cruciate and he's booked in for surgery tomorrow.

I'm sooo nervous, frightened and unsure I'm doing the right thing. I trust my vet but have had a few conflicting opinions from people saying I should just wait and see if it gets better...

Spud is my world and I would do anything to make him better but I'm just a bit worried now that going for surgery to soon?

[Rascalmyshadow]

I can't comment on the type of procedure your vet is using however I wouldn't wait and see if it improves, we did that some years ago with my old poodle girl and it ended up making it worse and was a harder recovery, when she ruptured the second one we did surgery immediately and we had a much easier recovery with less arthritis later.

[Scrappi&Monty]

Good luck with your little Spud!  

Our Corgi x Jack Russell (Scrappi) tore both his cruciate ligaments in his younger years. Our vet recommended "bed rest" & meds for our boy, but surgery is probably the better option for most dogs. We were lucky! He recovered really well and still manages to zip around just as fast.  

[westiemum]

miss2 is it a complete or partial tear? And how old is Spud?   I believe that makes a difference.  My old Mac ruptured his ACL some years ago (about age 7 from memory), and I went with surgery straight away as it was a complete tear - and while the vet gave me other options, where the tear is complete I doubt you'll get as good a result without surgery.  But thats just my opinion.  And when he did his second one we went straight to surgery as well and had good results.  I agree with RMS's comments as well - its also hard keeping dogs contained and quiet for long enough for the non-surgery route to be effective.  Good luck with Spud.  

[soothie]

How did Spud's surgery go? 

I have a similiar issue and unsure what to do. Charlie, 8yo JR x so his is bigger (11kg).

There has been a small improvement in the past few days. Tomorrow we go in for assessment and x-ray.

I just don't know how to deal with caging him after surgery as he will be home alone 10 hours a day while I am at work.

I can't take any time off at the moment. I am so torn what is best for my boy

My older dog is also suffering from lack of exercise as the only form we get is a visit for 20 mins to the park daily with Charlie on lead sniffing around and usually only using 3 legs.

Really don't know what is best here. The thought of caging him alone for 10 hours a day seems worse

 

[ness]

Soothie I had to cage my 3 year old BC for that length of time after a patella surgery - she coped much better then I did with the process.

[Rebanne]

I had a greyhound on 6 weeks of cage rest. Granted I was home but they cope better then the people. It was a total turn around of life style for my girl.