My dog ruptured her ACL this weekend, have some questions

[geoffh4]

I have a 2.5 year old lab, hound mix. Not really sure what she is actually
She's about 44 pounds, very slim, and very healthy.
She gets one long walk per day and we spend at least one day per week hiking at the local nature park near my house. She usually goes off leash with my other dog and they run and play the entire time.

This past Saturday afternoon, she went from running on all 4s to walking on 3 legs. No yelp or fall, it was just a sudden change from 4 to 3.

She has knee problems (luxating patellas) so I naturally believed this was the problem. When I checked her knee cap, it was still in.

I gave her some rimmadyl from the vet and decided to wait 24 hours to bring her in. She was walking on 3 legs, but had her 4th leg on the ground most of the time...she just wasn't putting my pressure on it. When I took her in this morning, the vet said she had a partial drawer sign and therefore probably had a partial to complete tear of the ACL.

So now questions:
1. The vet quoted me about $3200-$3400 for a TLPO surgery to fix the ACL. Is this about righT?

2. The first vet I spoke to said that it was important to act quickly, but the 2nd vet I talked to said it wouldn't make things worse if we waited an additional week. We are supposed to go on a trip tomorrow for Thanksgiving, and had intended to bring her along and keep her quiet with us. Is it ok to wait a week for the surgery or should we act immediately?

3. The vet said that some dogs that don't have 100% tears can recover over the first 2-4 weeks. Is this true? Should I wait?

4. The local surgery center can see us right away, but they quoted us $3400. The veterninary school (Virginia Tech) has a surgery center and they quoted us $1000 less. However, they can't see her until Jaunary of 2010. Will she be in a lot of pain if we wait this long? Will the injury get worse?

Thanks!

[Dog Dancer]

Sorry to hear about your dog, but glad that you will have it taken care of. I can't offer you any advice on the waiting time unfortunately. When my dog tore her ACL due to her dysplasia we had no choice but to have her put down so time was not an issue for us sadly. I did want to bump this up though so that maybe somebody with experience would see it. I would not wait until January though, yes your dog is in pain.

Maybe try PMing Dr. Lee to see if he can give you a suggestion.

[rainbow]

The longer you wait the more she will compensate with her other leg which could lead to her tearing the ligament in that leg as well.

As far as the cost, we paid $3500 when our yellow lab tore his ligaments first in one leg and then the other and then there were complications on top of that. We live in Canada but I talked to someone that went to the US (I think Washington state or else Idaho) and she paid $2500 (US dollars).

I think you should get it done asap but if you decide to wait then I would ask your vet about Metacam instead of using Rimadyl.