Having just gone thru lp surgery with Hot Rod, I am glad I did it. Now that being said, I was a wreck during and right after it.
He went from grade 1 to a 3 in what seemed like overnight. His annual checkup was in November and was not showing any signs of it getting worse. All of a sudden he would not want to walk very far. He would just stop and stand there looking at me or just sit down. I was litterally pulling on him to walk. He wound up having a uti that I initially took him in for and while I was there talked with my vet about that and she took xrays and immediately referred us to an ortho surgeon.
I learned later that the surgeons office keeps appts open for potential surgeries as soon as the next day for new cases. We had our appt on a Mon and was scheduled for surgery the very next day so I didn't have much time to freak out. His lp caused his little leg to bow. His ligament was on the side of the knee cap and the groove needed to be deepened.
His surgery was the end of March and he's gotten the all clear. Now he is still picks his leg up every once in a while (esp. when he gets going running on the grass) but he doesn't have any limp what so ever. He does walk/sprint sideways though, lol. And he does get tired so I wind up picking him up. Stairs seemed to be hard on him so we didn't let him go up and down at first; we've be letting him do it more and more now. Our surgeon told us to keep him still for 6 weeks
and the largest area he should be in is a 3' x 3'.
So I am sure that he's a little weak in that leg. He's getting stronger and better each day. We'd always done a bit of walking prior to surgery, probably a total of 1 1/2 miles throughout the day. I can't wait until we get back to that, we both enjoyed our walks tremendously.
Our surgeon told us that he would not have arthritis which I was really worred about. He also said that I should not be surprised it it takes up to 2 months before getting back to normal. Good luck with whatever you decide to do, in my case I am very glad that I did it...but I'm also on the other side of it now.
