[Bart's Mom]

One of my other dogs, a Lhasa, has this on her rear left leg. We opted not to do surgery because while the success rate is pretty good, we were told it is very painful (a neighbor told us their dog cried for months!) and that she still would have a 50% chance of developing arthritis with the surgery (70% chance without.) This all happened last summer. She's 6 years old. We opted to put her on Cosequin (per the vet's recommendation) - twice a day - for several weeks and after two months, tapered back to one capsule daily. Within two weeks, she started putting weight back on her leg. Within 6-8 weeks she was running again. Because she didn't use the leg regularly for so long, she did lose quite a bit of muscle mass, but it has built back up to the point where it is almost as strong as her good leg. We still have to limit her playtime and rough-housing and are very careful about her jumping off any high places (she loves to jump off the last two stairs!) It just becomes something you manage, but fortunately, there are quite a few good products out there for preventing arthritis, reducing inflammation, and protecting their joints. I do recommend Cosequin, and until they come out with something better, Ginger will be on this for the rest of her life. Good luck with your baby. I know how upsetting these types of setbacks are, but they can be overcome.