Cricket has a CCL tear or rupture (outdoorschik)

 Man...I have no idea!  But I'm praying for you--you've just had far more than your fair share of health issues this year, darlin'! <3

Oh man -- you've got my prayers and good thots -- tell that black cloud to GO AWAY!!!

Oh man...when do you get to catch a break?  I don't have any info to offer, just moral support.  BTW Cricket is lovely.

Man you have had your share of bum luck! I am so sorry for your latest issue.

I have had a dog have CCL repair (TPLO) bilaterally. I have heard about the brace, but I have also heard, while it does help it does not heal because you can not keep the animal immobile enough. In the end the surgery is still needed. I hope that is not your case but according to all I have spoken with that is what has happened to them.

I know there are a couple different options for CCL repair work, one explained to me as a "suture" technique (I don't know the formal name) They literally use surgical thread or wire and figure 8 the joint to secure it. This process is less expensive than the TPLO and I have heard can be very successful. We chose the TPLO as it sounded "better" in my mind for an active dog. In either case if it comes to surgery please make sure you have a really good orthopedic surgeon. I really like my surgeon, highly recommended (he did my pup's THR too) and we had no brusing and a breeze of recovery. I have heard when a TPLO goes bad, it can go very bad. Most of the people I have spoken with have had awesome results and extremely active (agility, dock jumping, disc dogs etc) post surgical. We were cautioned that when one knee goes often the other does too, I hope that is NOT your case, you need all the good karma you can get.

Good Luck

One more thing I do belong to the K9 Ortho Yahoo forum board. Like most of these boards most people are there as things are going bad. Not too many "success" stories. I don't like you only hear the bad news. It could be worth your investigating though.

My vet also just suggested a good glucosamine/chondroitin/MSM supplement for my girl which she was already on at the time of her injury.

Thanks Max's mom :) for the info and suggestions.

Unfortunately TPLO isn't in the cards for her... the surgeon I brought Oliver for his TPO's who I don't even like is 2200-3,000 and is not board certified and the board certified vet (really the only one in a four/five hour radius) is between 3 and 5,000!!!

However, I can afford one of the other suture repairs that you mentioned and I've read about. I do have a country vet up here that i might trust to do that as he used to do surgery on military dogs and did a spectacular job fixing Khoale's knee when the muscle was severed from in it a dog attack. There is another non-board certified surgeon that will do one of the suture repairs for between 6 and 800 and he is fairly well known as competent up here. Believe me though, if this were a different situation (ie I had tons of money) I'd be all over getting the best board certified vet, unfortunately we may have to gamble on this one, my bank account and care credit are maxed out after snickers and to choose between low cost less reiable care and no care at all....

She has FINALLY begun to toe touch after 4 days which I hope means it isn't fully ruptured? 

I started her on 1/2 tab glyco flex III, knox nutra joint, salmon oil, and rimadyl... .she's in really great shape since she got so much exercise as a sled dog in training so no weight loss is needed. 

I'm sorry for your loss with Snickers and now for your dilemma with Cricket! And you know, you have had bad luck with non-board-certified surgeons/vets but I found a great one who has taught the board-certified ones and I think having enough successes under the belt is what counts the most.

You won't be selling yourself or Cricket short by asking about successes; my surgeon even gave me references and so many people talked so highly of him versus the board-certified that it made me feel better about him and everyone was right--he's that good.

I certainly think both vets are great options for serious consideration.

Poor Cricket and poor you - Dear God give this poor woman a break

A friend of mine's 3 yo lab had the figure eight thingy and he is doing really well - about  4 months post surgery - I believe his was a partial CCL

My 8 year old husky had a completely torn ACL in his right hind leg.  I went to 2 vets for opinions and the treatment options given to me were the same.  With a complete tear of the ligament, you can elect not to treat the injury surgically, but the dog will not recover complete use the leg and will develop osteoarthritis unless the joint is stabilized. The other options are surgical, where there are 2 types of surgery, one that can be done in the regular vet's office and the other called TPLO that must be performed by an orthopedic veterinarian.  My dog had the surgery in his regular vet's office where the ligament was recreated with high gauge suture material (the vet called it 100 lb test line!) because his ACL was completely torn.  He was initially given deramax than then we switched to rimadyl for pain.  This surgery stabilized the knee joint so that at least my dog can use his leg to walk and run now at 2 months post surgery.  At 6 weeks post surgery the vet checked my dog and gave me permission to start running him again, though to start training slowly and no more than a 5k run.  He is now up to running for 15 minutes at a time. Hope this helps and good luck to you and Cricket.   

Good luck to your and your dog too SS. Looks like recovery so far is going well. 

Sweet Sierra

My 8 year old husky had a completely torn ACL in his right hind leg.  I went to 2 vets for opinions and the treatment options given to me were the same.  With a complete tear of the ligament, you can elect not to treat the injury surgically, but the dog will not recover complete use the leg and will develop osteoarthritis unless the joint is stabilized. 

 I must politely disagree with your vet.... and any other vet who says the same thing.
I belong to a Yahoo group called Conservative Management.   Almost everyone new to that forum relays the same quotes from their vet!
And almost everyone who chooses to conservatively manage their dog's recovery is thankful they spared their dog a surgery.

I chose conservative route for my Weimaraner Rudi when he tore his ACL at age 9.   That is 2.5 years ago.
He wore a brace for 6 weeks 24/7, was restricted in movements around the house by use of gates/x-pens, slept on cushions on the floor rather than being allowed to climb on sofa, and was allowed to be outdoors for only leashed potty breaks.  
Once out of the brace, we began slow, leashed walks and home physical therapy.

There are several companies that make braces.   One Canadian company offers a bilateral brace that supports the good leg as well as the bad.
The idea is to keep activity at a minimum to allow scar tissue to build and support the knee.
The truth is that arthritis may or may not form....whether you opt for surgery or go the conservative route!

My Rudi has no arthritis.   He is active and running after squirrels and birds and charging the fence after deer.   He climbs steps and is enjoying his life.   There is never any rush to get these injuries repaired and there is every reason to first attempt to get your dog recovered in a conservative manner.      It does not work for every dog.   But it works for most!    

There is a wonderful website to inspire anyone whose dog has such a tear.....
http://home. earthlink. net/~tiggerpoz/

How is Cricket now?  I hope your vet jas ruled out any other possible reason for the lameness (Lyme disease or growths).
If you want to PM me about this, I would be very pleased to answer any specific questions.    I'm sorry I was not on this Board in April to address your concerns earlier.  

 Hi Claire, I belong to the Cm group too :)

Cricket had been doing awesome after about two months of rest. We rushed a few things I guess, including longer walks and off leash time after that and she suffered a major setback June 8, when I got a phone call at work saying she had jumped up and hurt it again to the point that she was in extreme pain and wouldn't get up.. For three days she would collapse screaming at random times and would scream and scream for minutes on end. I did bring her back to the vet to eval for surgery... but he's really not pushing surgery and feels many of these can heal on their own. Back on crate rest again with only leashed time inside and out and she's improving again. She has an appt. on July 9th to be put under to see if the looseness in her knee is worse than the first time and to have an x-ray. If it is, then she'll have the figure eight surgery, if not then she'll continue on CM... better managed this time and less impatient on my part. I was actually the one pushing for  a surgical solution the last time i brought her in because I felt horrible seeing her in such pain, but my vet really kept saying how she was not that bad and seemed really hesitant to treat it that way. It is very frustrating and feels like we're going to be in this cycle of improvement/reinjury forever since she is such a crazy, bouncy, tigger-esque young dog. It's very difficult to keep a sled dog pup quiet, especially with 8 other dogs around (I have 6 sled dogs and two other house dogs). I think the vet is probably right though and cm may be the route to go. He also suggested a scope of the joint if he didn't feel more looseness than last time and she was still screaming (she hasn't for quite a while now). I guess if we're gonna do surgery I just want to get on with it... I don't want to crate her for half a year and then do surgery and rehab, you know? I'm also going back and forth on getting an orthopets brace. Negative for lyme disease... no idea on growths.

Glad you found CM group and are giving it a try.   It sounds like Cricket was responding well, but it's those "ooops" moments that are sometimes the worst of it.

I strongly suggest getting a brace.    Even if Cricket ultimately needs surgery, it is something you can use post-surgery, too.  

The vet I used with Rudi (not my regular vet) treats a lot of farm dogs, and they wear the braces while continuing to do their jobs on the farm.   A brace gives a lot of support.   I'm not so sure Rudi would have recovered so well or so "quickly" (he was semi-discharged after 6 months) if I hadn't used a brace for him.

Be sure to bring the CM group up to date on Cricket!  

My dog tore his acl ccl . It was rough as I went to several forums getting bashed for refusing to do surgery on my dog. The bashing was so strong that they must have been paid by the tplo surgery industry to bash anyone not getting surgery. I had insurance so the surgery was covered  but I researched alternatives to surgery and discovered dog knee braces as an alternative to surgery and checked to find my insurance covers dog knee braces. Those that had  the pet insurance had posted that their dog did recover with a dog knee brace . They never had to get the tplo surgery .  They said try the dog knee brace first. If it doesn't heal in several months can always buy surgery later.  I used a posh dog knee brace on my dog and in a few months my dog was walking normally.  Fortunately I didn't buy the surgery. Surgery would have been a severe set back and the posh rear leg dog knee brace helped my dog to start healing right away. My friend 's dog had the dog knee surgery and months later his dog is still in severe pain and he knows he made a bad decision of having the knee surgery done on his dog.  I feel so bad for his dog as his dog doesn't seem to be healing well at all. Go with a dog knee brace and avoid this painful surgery.