My dog tore his ACL

I would recommend saving the money and getting the knee fixed….my biggest fear with a young active dog is that they would hurt the other knee. When both are bad, the dog cannot shift it’s weight to deal with the pain.

This happened to my Rott, he had one torn ACL for a few years, then tore the other one. I didn’t fix either one since they both happened late in his life, and he was a couch potato. Unfortunately, his decline was fairly rapid once both knees were injured.

If I had it to do again with a 3 year old dog, I’d have the knee fixed. Pain medication comes with it’s own set of headaches and health risks for the dog. Which medication is your dog on?

It’s imporatnt to get the surgery as soon as you can because when one ACL is torn it is likely that the other will tear within a year. We set up a surgery immediately for our dog. Unfortunately, she is a giant breed and the only place in the entire state that can do the surgery on a giant breed is Texas A&M and it’s a 4-6 week waiting period before surgery. Well we’re still three weeks away and she just tore her other ACL so it’s going to be a 7,000 dollar surgery plus medication costs. We don’t really have much choice though because she’s 135 pounds and we’d throw our backs out pretty quick helping her all the time and putting her down will NEVER be an option. My advice is to try and set up a payment plan and get it done before it gets worse.