Well my best bud has hurt his one knee. What we thought was maybe stiffness or early stages of arthritis, has now been 90% diagnosed with him blowing out his cruciate ligament.
The vet said it's like blowing your ACL, and is no longer stable. Duke heavily favors his other leg and we want the best for him of course.
We didn't get pet insurance and looks like surgery will be about 4K with a heavy recovery period of at least 6 weeks where he'll be grounded from running around and being a dog. (we consciously chose not to get pet insurance because so many companies find a way to get out of covering things)
He's about to turn 8 and very active for a lab.
The surgeon being recommended does most of her work out of Okotoks.
We do trust our vet out in Cochrane and he's a pretty level headed guy.
Anyone been through anything similar?
I've done a little bit of googling and here's a decent article.
http://www.topdoghealth.com/library/...steotomy-tplo/
Basically, he's at 50% usage of his leg now, and the vet expects if recovery and surgery go well he would be back up to 90%(ish).
It's going to be tough seeing him recover but think this is our best bet. We don't want him to blow out his other knee because he favours his one leg so much.
I know there's lots of Lab / Dog guys on this forum so comments are always appreciated.