Torn ACL

A friend of mine has a 30lb dog (or maybe about 40lbs) She thinks she tore her ACL running around in the yard yesterday. They are waiting for the xray and the results later on today.

The Vet said she would need surgery, but my friend had read that surgery is not always necessary, especially on smaller dogs. There may be a chance that it will heal on its own if , for a couple of weeks, they restrict her to no jumping, running around, or going outside to play. Basically, just making sure she relaxes as much as possible.

Does anyone have any experience with this? She doesnt want the dog to have unnecessary surgery if there are other alternatives.

Re: Torn ACL

Two years ago my 70 lb Rottweiler tore her ACL. We did surgery and she is fine now.

You don't say what kind of vet your friend took her dog to. If she has not, she should take her to an orthopedic vet to make this determination, a regular vet is really not truly qualified in this area, and a responsible vet will be the first one to say this.

A fully torn ACL cannot "heal", this is what the orthopedic vet told us. It also can't be determined from an XRAY if there is a torn ACL. The orthopedic vet we went to could feel it, so we didn't do an MRI.

The best thing is to get the opinion of an orthopedic vet.

Good luck to your friend - I don't know where she lives but I can recommend Atlantic Coast Veterinary on Vets Hwy Bohemia and also LI Vet Specialists in Plainview - both are excellent.

Re: Torn ACL

When Bella was a puppy we thought she tore her ACL. We were visiting our parents in NY and she fell down the stairs. We took her to the Emergency Vet on Sunrise Highway and they did and xray and said that it was torn and she needed surgery ASAP. Since we didn't live in NY we said we were going to wait and take her to her regular vet when we got home. So we basically kept her immobile. So when we took her to our vet in VA he examined her by sedating her and mainpulating her knee. He found that both knees had the same amount of "give" and wasn't sure if it was a partial tear or full tear or just a very bad sprain. So he recommended waiting a month and gave is anti-inflamitories and put her on STRICT cage rest. Within two weeks she was walking fine!! She didn't need the surgery!!

Re: Torn ACL

We had our 80 lb AB evaluated by the specialists in Plainview. It was torn and we waited for a bit but it got progressively worse and we did surgery at Port Jeff Animal Hospital and they were great.

Re: Torn ACL

My dog had cruciate surgery last year. He tore is slightly and we had to stop him from running and jumping to see if it would heal but it never did. When it got to the point where he couldn't put his leg down at all we went for the surgery. It took about 2 weeks for him to start putting weight on the leg again and about a month for him to walk regularly. After 3 months he was back to running and jumping like new.