[OwnedByJezebel]

Sorry about Mochi, poor little pup.

I would be at the specialist in a heartbeat, but that's just me. They are MUCH better at coming to a correct diagnosis, they see and fix things that regular vets don't see.

FWIW, my Jezebel was diagnosed during a routine vet visit with grade IV lp by our regular vet, who said that it would soon need to be corrected with surgery. Jezebel had never shown ANY symptoms at that point, and the regular vet was steering us toward surgery! (We see a different vet now). A couple of months later, Jez started to limp -- not carrying the leg for a few steps and popping it back into place like you would expect with lp, but actually limping. I took her to a specialist that was highly recommended here and he said that she only had grade II, but that her ligament was torn. She had surgery to repair both the town ligament and the lp. There are others that are members here that have taken their pups to the same orthopedic specialist and he did not recommend surgery, it depends on the diagnosis. If her ligament had NOT been torn, he would not have recommended surgery just to correct the lp, contrary to the advise of the regular vet.

If you have a great surgeon, you are going to find that they are in such a high demand that they do not need to drum up surgeries where none is needed, they are beyond busy with no spare time available in their OR.

That being said, there is absolutely no problem with the way you are handling this at the moment. Letting him rest and allowing the swelling to go down for a bit before a re-check is fine. It will make it easier to get a correct diagnosis. You have time to take a conservative approach at present. You don't want to wait too long, though, because if it is something more serious the knee will be wobbly and more prone to a more serious injury and damaging and wearing down the meniscus. If that happens, there will be bone-on-bone which is painful and the pup will be lame for the rest of it's life.

Do you now anything about the reputation of the orthopedic specialist that you were referred to? I would be googling his name to see what I could find out. Is he board certified?