My first girl, Zada, was 15 weeks old when I adopted her and she had grade 3 LP in both her back legs as well and by the time she was almost 19 months old the Vet. said she needed surgery, so I let him operate on both knees at the same time. A couple months later she was limping but that Vet. retired and move to Utah so I took her to an orthopedic surgeon. He had to do surgery on one of her knees again and told me the last Vet. did not deepen the groove the cap sits on. Also she should not have had that first surgery since she was not limping. He said he wouldn't operate on the other knee unless she started limping in it too. Then he checked the knees of my second Yorkie, Azrael, who is Zada's 1st cousin and only 5 weeks younger than Zada, and she has grade 3 LP in both her knees but he doesn't suggest having surgery on her unless she's limping. She's ended up having surgery for a medially luxating patella and ruptured cranial cruciate ligament. That was 10 months ago, and so far the other knee is holding up.
With this information you can see that there is no real concrete answer to the question of if or when will they need surgery. There is no real answer. LP is very common in small dogs. |