[Ellie May]

A young pup who is already symptomatic, I think surgery sounds like the right thing to do also.

I'd say go with the specialist because there seems to be doubt that the general vet could do an adequate job in your post. Why take the risk if you are already uncomfortable with the idea? There seems to be a lot of vets that do LP surgery now, but how many have they done, are they trained to do it, what method are they using (there is more than one and there is an additional procedure sometimes needed that not everyone does), etc. Boarded vets mess up too, but it's less of a gamble if you have no info about success rates from both boarded and unboarded vets.

I'm not against generals doing ortho surgery if I think they know what they are doing. That is, if I think they just want to add a $2K surgery to their list of services, then I'd run. Some are very good at it though. My dogs would see an unboarded surgeon for these issues, but that is because I'm very comfortable with their abilities. And if it was over their head, they would not do it. But of course with that comes the possibility that the animal gets closed and sent to a specialist. Not the end of the world imo. It's all in what you're comfortable with for your pup. BTW, on the other side of that, I know of two other generals performing ortho surgery that simply should not be. They would not touch my dogs with a zillion foot pole. And this is exactly why I'd say go to the specialist. You could very easily end up with a general doing it that thinks they know what they are doing and they just don't..