Darn dogs

G

Gary Jensen

Active member
We have a 4 year old Pointer that tore his cruciate tendon yesterday, and we are not sure which direction to go with his health care.
As some of you know I had a GSP (German Shorthair pointer) that blew out both of his knees at about the same time. We did put him down because of the extreme healing time, (and cost) especially with both knees going at the same time.
With our most recent CCL damage to our EP (Elhews pointer) we are looking at a vet bill of $1200.00 and no guarantees that it will work. I am not trying to be cheap skate on this but look at reality and the quality of life this dog may or may not have. From everything that I have read on line is that there is only about a 15% success rate with the surgery. Our vet seems to think that repair of the knee is very likely possible, but,, I have to figure that her outlook on this may be a bit more positive, rather than realistic. After all, she went into this field to fix sick and wounded critters.
Is it fair to the dog to have the procedure done and then not hunt him in order to save his good knee as well as a patched together knee?
I have looked at knee replacement and HOLY SMOKES $6500.00
This just makes me sick, as the other knee will probably go also due to the additional load.

Darn dogs,,, why do they have to love us so much.
 
I have a 7 year old flat coated retriever...snapped acl in right rear leg. Cost of surgery vs "it might sort itself out". Let it be, stopped hard running retrieves...she's been happy and chasing squirrels at full pace. Yes, chance of stress on other pegs is a possibility. No issues to date (two years now), Maggie's quality of life is fine. Can't say no surgery is the correct route for every case; in this one, it's has not caused a problem...yet.
Tom
 
my dog got into it with a porcupine last summer when I was out of town working

600 something dollars and 300 quils and a lost tooth later, thay wanted to do surgery on his ankle. it was about the size of a tennis ball.
My friend told me to try epson salt twice a day and it worked wonders.
My only problem was with the vets quill pulling not the money. 2 weeks later the dog was still very sluggish and did not want to do much, like eat or play in the yard.
long story short they missed 3 quills one of which was inside his nose.
once I got that out he was happy, happy, happy.

What I found out was always make sure your vet does a good job. I brought this to the vets attension and they told me I was informed by them that there might be missed quils, which I wasn't. They told me they would refund me around 3 dollars for the missed quils.
Needless to say I dont see that vet anymore. Good luck with your dog and hopefully he gets better soon.
 
My American Water Spaniel ruptured his CCL last Oct. 28th. Cornell University operated on him Dec. 6th.
The operation, (there are 3),I chose was called a TTA,you can Google it. 100 percent recovery after 2 1/2
months of very labor intensive rehab,(whew!!). Go to retrievertraining.net,lotsa' good info. Search ,cruciate
ligiment,or ccl,you'll get a lot of good information.

The 3 operations are called,TPLO,TTA,andTightrope.They're all on youtube. Good luck.
 
Gary,

My chocolate, Bryant, has had the TTA done on both knees...first when he was 1, and the second when he was 7 (last year). 16 weeks after both surgeries, he was superman...not a problem since. I think the most important thing (if he is is in good shape) is adhering to the rehab plan. Bryant has been able to hunt just fine since, and I'm really looking forward to having him back this season (he blew the right one out last September...just in time to miss the whole season).

Not sure where you live (forgot to look at your profile before posting), but I'd take that price and run! Bryant's last bill was $2350 (some numbers you never forget).

Good luck,
Frank
 
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