[bobohyde]

My Columbo had exactly the same thing as your pup. He is now 9. Last April (8.5 yrs old), he had a "catastrophic" event just like yours. He jumped down off the sofa and couldn't walk. We found out he had luxating patella, but also had torn his ACL. His vet said he could do the surgery or he could refer us to an orthopedic surgeon, which is where he went. What I learned is if a dog has a torn ACL, sometimes they don't need surgery, but if they also have LP, it will never heal. If you give him a few days, you will see an improvement, but then it will level off and he will always limp and be impared. There is not much pain after the injury, unless you mess with his leg, then it hurts him, but he will not get better without the surgery. Columbo had the surgery and recovered very quickly. 4 months later the identical injury happened in the other knee (this is very common), so this time we just went straight to the surgeon and saved the regular vet visit costs. The second leg took a little longer to completely heal, but he is now 110% percent in both knees. I hope my dog will live a long life and we want him to have a good quality of life. The LP is really the cause of the ACL tear. Because the knee cap pops out of place, it put the legs in a position that over time and with age, finally causes the ACL to tear. I'm pretty sure yours is also a complete tear (the catastrophic event), which means it will not heal on its own. If its not a complete tear, he may get better, but eventually it will completely tear. Columbo had limped for no reason a couple times prior to the tear, but then was fine the next day. When your dog yelped, that's when the tear happened. And because of the LP, it can never heal. I definitely recommend you get a consult with a board certified surgeon. Our surgeon has done thousands of this surgery and I attribute that to Columbo's easy recovery. My regular vet had only done about 15 of these and although he was a little more expensive, we chose the surgeon. Our vet even said he used the surgeon for his own dogs. They say you always want the heart surgeon that operates on the most people, well this is no different. Although it was expensive and hard to swallow the cost, I do not regret a penny of it, especially as I see Columbo 8 months later (4 months from the second leg) and he is so happy and completely back to normal. If you have any questions about anything let me know. I am happy to answer any questions since we've been through it twice now. I do not agree with your vet saying that usually small dogs don't have this surgery and heal on their own. The surgery is necessary, however, it won't hurt him if you had to wait a couple weeks. Just don't wait too long as arthritis will set in.