My fantastic border collie appears to have torn the cruciate ligament in his knee (getting an xray today) , and am just wondering if anyone has had any experience of this with their hound? Not got insurance (opinions on this NOT welcome, ta) looking at a very large vet bill, and 4 months of very little exercise for him. Absolutely gutted, don’t know what to do :'(

I’ve just texted a good mate who’s a Vet and an orthopedic specialist to boot – just for a guesstimate on a cost for fixing it and a long term prognosis. I’ll post as soon as he replies. Best of luck with the X-Ray.

Our greyhound snapped his leg chasing rabbits. No insurance at the time.

Just gritted our teeth and paid out enough money to buy a new bike. And then got insurance.

Stupid animal. It’s not like he was even ever going to catch anything.

Yup my Lab has done exactly this she slipped in the snow before christmas.

Rest the dog. Complete rest, no walks for a month just outside to go. I’ve read loads and have a good vet now (First one was not great) and the upshot is that they compensate and can pull the other one too if you don’t enforce rest. If it’s not too bad a tear it will heal but it may need surgery to correct at which point it gets expensive. Ours it on painkillers, oil for her joints and is being injected once a week with a new drug that should help. If that fails they can put in a new artifical ligamment, plane the bones so the ligament becomes redendant or plane and manipulate the knee joint so other ligments serve the cruciates function.

Not good news really but our vet feels that rest and these injections will hopefully cure the problem.

There are lots of online sites for this.

Cheers deadly. Sat with him this morning before going to work and just cried. Not got much spare cash at the mo due to 7 week old nohands jnr.

yep whippets/greyhounds are vuvnerable dogs (i have two of them now, but ive had big vet bills in the past with their skin being stapled together only the next morning the hound had unplucked all the staples, so that was two lots of 80 quid in two days… stupido dog had to find barbed wire as it chased a rabbit in the hill. now ive pet insurance which covers everything as recently my little whippet was attacked and ripped open his skin…luckily the owner of other dog agreed to pay …

Sat with him this morning before going to work and just cried.

You or him? If him, he has my sympathy and get well vibes being sent. If you, MTFU. 😉

Shop around would be my advice. Our cat got run over a few years ago and bust it’s pelvis in four places. We took it to our usual vet and they said £2.5k. We said no way, and went and saw another vet. It turned out there was a guy there who was training and said he would do it for £250. which he did, and the cat has been fine since. She bit his ear the next time we took her in for jabs, and now has notes on her file as a fiesty customer and has to have two vets in the room to handle her!

Cheers deadly. Sat with him this morning before going to work and just cried.

🙁 Sorry 🙁

It’s ok mate, I’m sure you can find plenty of info on tinternet today in the meantime. My mate is not always the fastest at replying but I’ll be sure to copy and paste whatever he says – whereabouts in the country are you? You’re SW I think (seem to remember something about Cranham)? My mate (Matt) is based in Kingswood, Bristol – he’s brilliant with dogs, dedicated and from what he’s said – cheap – as he’s building up his business working with a rather famous ortho specialist (he’s written the book! check out Hamish Denny on amazon, no joke) – so whatever your vet quotes, get another price. email me off forum if you need contact details. Email addy is in my profile.

As before, best of luck!

Our Boxer had major knee surgery just over 2 years ago, with a similar injury but more complicated. Basically she had advanced cartlidge damage in her knee and also had ripped muscles and tendons.

The local vet wanted to treat her but my wife insisted we took her to an orthopaedic vet. She had a knee arthroscopy (camera in the knee) which was actually worth every penny as it meant the vet knew what he needed to before opening her up. You might want to do this rather than just an xray.

Anyhow she ended up have her leg broken in a couple of places so that the knee joint could be realigned to the only good bit of cartlidge.

She was bed ridden for a couple of days after, and we had to help her go to the toilet every day for a couple of weeks. After a couple of weeks she started getting lame again, but this was because it was stiffening up. So we had to force her to walk.

It took about 3 month before we were happy walking her for about 15mins, and about 6 months before we would let her off the lead. After about 1 year she was back to bounding round like an idiot as she had been 2-3 years before the trouuble started.

I think all in all it cost about £4k (luckily we are insured)

The vet was fantastic and definately worth every penny, and he drove a very nice Ferrari too !

I would definately see an orthopaedic specialist though rather than your local vet.

The vet was fantastic and definately worth every penny, and he drove a very nice Ferrari too !

My mate drives a 10 year old Audi 🙂 But he’s a bit tight anyway. He’ll probably read this thread at some point – 😛

I would definately see an orthopaedic specialist though rather than your local vet.

+1

Your vet will probably refer the patient on anyway if they don’t have an orthopaedic specialist.

Our dog did her cruciate ligament in when another dog decided to side swipe her.

Luckily we had insurance as the bill was £8K, but we did have the best surgeon in the country (I’m almost thinking it was Hammish Denny) and done at Langford. She was back winning scurries 4 months after the op.

I’ve heard the name Hammish Denny before (friends in the vet trade) and recommend giving deadlydarcy’s friend a call. It’s not going to be quick, but at least with some strict cage rest and seeing a specialist it will be able to be sorted.

Good luck, chin up, hope your dog gets better soon.

the bill was £8K,

If it was done at Langford, and it was Hamish, then this would be about right. However, Matt (who’s trained by Hamish) wouldn’t be anywhere near as expensive.

He works for Fernlea Vets based in Bristol.

Cheers for all the kind words people. Deadly – am not too far from bristol, will send you an email later. 🙂

I’ve got a poorly dog at the moment. He has had to have a tumour and an anal gland removed and is restricted to the house until the incision starts to heal and the pain starts to subside. My dog isn’t insured as he was always my folks dog up until recently and they couldn’t afford it. So far the bill has come in at just under a grand but that may be subject to increases depending on the treatment options. Following this I may take out insurance to cover him for accidents but now that he has cancer he won’t be covered for most conditions. Looks like I won’t be buying anything shiny for the bike for a while.

The enforced rest is the hardest thing to deal with. I’ve been told not to let him jump on the furniture or climb stairs so of course the first thing the furry loony did when I got him home was charge around the house and leap on the sofa. As I type he is noisily attacking the recently delivered mail despite the fact he must be in pain. Best check he hasn’t pulled his stiches out.

Right, he’s just replied:

How old is it? Prognosis generally good with surgery, not great without, but most esp in young dog. Cost-wise can vary wildly depending on type of op, in-house or referral, area of country etc. Can’t give accurate price without seeing dog, and might create unrealistic expectation. Sorry!

Sounds like you should give him a call once you’ve heard back from X-ray.

Vets website here. Don’t be expecting anything too whizzbang! 🙂

Usually 3 options.

1. rest, anti-inflammatories and hope it improves. More chance not healing well, more arthritis etc. Outlook not usually as good in larger/active dogs.

2. Surgical repair with local normal vet, usually 1 of 2 techniques as descibed above.

3. refer to orthopaedic surgeon where may do more complicated surgery.

For very active dogs surgery is probably going to get best result but to refer to an orthopaedic specialist is proabably going to be too pricy. If your local vet isn’t prepared to do the surgery then try other practices in the area. Sorry don’t know anyone down your way.

Good luck

Speak to your vet and be up front re your worries on cost. They will be very used to dealing with those issues.

Eight Grand – and people have the nerve to complain that insurance premiums are high.

ouch
Yep your going to have an expensive bill
My lab did hers a couple of years ago, twisted jumping off a wall
We didnt realise as she seemed to initially run it off but months later she was still stiff and in pain occasionally (in the meantime she had been up Snowdon and done all sorts of stuff she shouldnt have)
Ended up with titanium plates and screws inserted. Vets bill was in excess of £2.5k, but again that was the best Ortho vet in Derbyshire (and worth every penny, couldnt have seen the poor girl suffer any more) we where offered a cheaper solution (was about 4 years ago now so I forget the technical details) but we where told it had a much lower success rate
She now suffers through cold weather with quite bad arthritus as a result of the delay in getting her operated on and is still limited to what exercise we can do with her (fine for 5-8mile walks any longer or any rocky hilly bits and she struggles) but its all side effects of her not getting treated quick enough, the actual cruciate is fine now

We give her some tablets for 5 months of the year now for the arthritus and her joints, originally from the vet but we now get the human version from local chemist/supermarket, they are identical, and same strength just a fraction of the price – I’ll try and find out what they are called, they really make a noticeable difference through the winter

BTW – Additional costs because I got “Titanium envy” and had to buy a titanium frame to match the hound was another £1.5k 🙂

Luckily we did have insurance, its the only policy that has ever been worth its costs in pay outs, what with her being quite accident prone and also having an undiagnioseable for some time slight heart murmor (prob cost us £2.5k over 7 years and has paid out easily more than £4k in vets bills over the years!)

I hope all goes well, be sure to let us know how you get on, and post some pics of the dog when recovered. We like dog pics on STW 🙂

off on a tangent, glucosamine and msm is likely the supplement for arthritis (kai was on it before he got amputated)
i bought the joint suppleness powder from equiform – about £50 for 3 or 4 years worth, as its dose/kg works out about a teaspoon for a large dog

Just got our dachshund back from the Royal Dick Vets after major surgery for a second ruptured disc, first one was operated on 3 month ago.
Quite large bills, second one was cheaper as we told the vets to try and keep the costs down, his cut was stapled instead of stitched and he was out within a week whereas it was nearly 2 weeks for the first op.
On the other hand my old greyhound only had a major vet bill for getting his teeth fixed when we got him.
Good luck with your dog.

Any news OP?

Lookmanohands – If it’s an uncomplicated CCL rupture your dogs got then the most expensive course of treatment (ie, referral to a specialist) isn’t necessarily the one with the best outcome. Certainly not saying it won’t work as it probably will but there are alternatives, especially if money is tight.

Email me if you want some advice on surgery. Not really anything I’d post on here but it might help your decision making process.

My friend’s Dal suffered a ruptured ACL a few years back when he struggled a bit too much while we were lifting him over a shonky style, and we dropped him… 🙄

Because he’s a rather well-built, powerful dog, the vet reckoned simply replacing the broken ACL with an artificial one wouldn’t work (he’d probably just snap that as well, and end up having to have it done again… and again…), so he ended up having Tibial Plateau Levelling Osteotomy which as joolsburger mentioned basically changes the angle of the knee joint so it no longer needs an ACL to hold it in place. Think it cost £2k, but this was about 5 years ago now.

Since the op he’s had a bit of a limp and does stiffen up after a walk, but at least he’s still able to potter around although his mountain-biking and serious hill-walking days are definitely over. 🙁

Anyway, good luck, hope all goes well for you and your hound.

Just got back from the vets…….so nothing broken bone wise, which is good I guess. He’s completely snapped his cruciate ligament ( the one in the middle, front to back) supposed to be going in tomorrow for the op where they are going to put a suture (sp?) In and that should hold everything in place while he heals up. 8 – 12 weeks recovery, very little exercise and he might be okish to come out biking with me in a year! I’m gutted (oh and skint now)

Oh and no referral, they can do it on site.

Not read the other posts but happened to my Lab while she was recovering from being run over. The vet who is an excellent vet fixed her leg up a treat that was basically shattered, said he could fix her with an op but it would cost lots and he’d already charged us lots for the leg repair. Or he said gentle exercise and let it recover itself, given it was the leg injured in the accident and she was on gentle exercise anyway he’d suggest it was the sensible option.

She recovered well from both and lived to she was 11 before having a stroke. She could work as a gun dog for a few years after but her trail hound days were limited to gentle rides once in a blue moon.

Sounds reasonable, and great that there’s no boney involvement. Assuming you take things easy post op, there’s a good chance he’ll do well.

Hope everything goes smoothly.

heres the unbroken mutt 😆

and his mate

Not all bad news then. 😀

Great looking dog too, good luck on the recovery.

Well the deed has been done, cost less than I thought. Poor little thing ain’t to good on 3 legs at the mo, though he is sporting a nice shaved leg. Thanks for all the replys. Lmnh. 😀

Love Border Collies, glad to see he patched up well 🙂

Glad to hear he’s on the mind. Right must make an appointment today to get our new dog insured.

Tesco’s pet insurance looks pretty reasonable 🙂

Good Luck with the recovery. Just do what the vets says and remember all that hard work can be undone with one silly movement, so its worth the wait. Stick with it and good luck.

Tesco’s pet insurance looks pretty reasonable

Apparently not too good at paying out. I was recommended PetPlan for speed and amounts paid out. They are expensive though. Bit of research and I went for the Kennel Club’s in the end.

Your bill could easily have been £5k+

Oh and any further damage to that leg won’t be covered I reckon (just guessing here though).

We have tesco pet insurance too but not had to make a claim for it yet although im guessing thats just a matter of time though.
I’m sure i read on here somewhere that tesco pet insurance was a rubbish policy from somebody in the insurance game.

EDIT: not just me that remembers it then.

I know a lot of vets & nurses, everyone recommends Pet Plan, yes it is expensive but you pay for what you get. Unless its that useless one (E&L), which you pay for and get nothing.

Where is the cone of shame?

Glad to hear the pup is on the mend. Ours is in for a second jab this morning but seems to be, very slowly, getting better..

He will soon be back to full strength, back ripping the singletrack,cleaning the northshore…..