My husband and I were in a very similar situation when we brought Tia home just a couple of weeks ago. She was bought from a pet store (husband wanted to surprise me and felt safer buying from a place with a guarantee). We brought her to the vet, found out she had LP and that vet estimated surgery to be upwards of $2000 cdn per knee. We were upset with the store for not informing us, made a big stink and they offered us 2 options. Either to refundher completely (but we were already attached and weren't sure what would become of our sweet little Tia) or to let us keep her and refund the money.
I got in touch with a local breeder and spoke to a couple of other vets for their opinion. The bottom line was that LP is common among small/toy breeds. Our dilemma was that if we gave her up, we could just as well buy another yorkie who could develope LP, and then we might as well have kept Tia.
Recommendations were no table scraps, plently of exercise, don't let her bcome obese, suplement her diet with glucosamine sulfate and try to not let her jump to and from high places.
Also learned that it may be unlikely that she will need surgery because she is a light weight dog. If and when hte LP begins to bother her, surgery would not be the first course of action (many dogs with LP learn to cope with it...surgery is reserved for dogs who are in pain). I also found a veterinary hospital here in Ottawa that would perform the surgery for about $500 cdn per leg (plus the cost of medication and other post-op care.
With all this info and more...plus with the advice of YT (this situation is how I found out about this forum!)...and by following our heart, we decided to keep her and the money we paid for her. We're going to use the money refunded to us to pay for her surgery if and when she needs it.
Oh yeah, and the breeder I spoke to stressed that we needed to decide whether or not to keep her based on whether or not we would be able to care for her pre and post-op (expenses, seeing her leg shaved with sticthes, monitoring her progress and rehab/physio). Some people can deal with it, others can't. My husband and I decided that we would be able to care for her...and we love her to bits! We wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing she was with another family! |