YorkieTalk.com Forums - Yorkshire Terrier Community

To all of you moms dealing with lp surgeries, past and upcoming, I wish you all well. We just went through it. Hot Rod had his surgery a week prior to Amanadawash and her little Ranger.

Hot Rod went from a grade 1 to a grade 3 in a matter of 3-4 months. In our case, the surgeon only deepened the groove and moved the ligament to the proper location. Hot Rod's little leg had become bowed as a result of his issue. Our surgeon told us strict, strict confinement for 6 weeks. Hot Rod was to either be crated or in a 3 x 3 area. We could only let him down for potty-we were to carry him to and from. We crated and held him initially and then started to let him lay on the table rest between us on the sofa with basically a lanyard attached to his harness which we held so he wouldn't be able to jump. Je was crated at bedtime beside our bed. There were a coupld of nights that I had to let him out to use his pad. Normally he is in an expen with a pad at night. I cannot tell you how my heart ached and broke to see him in "jail" but I kept telling myself that it would all be better one day. And it is!

His surgery was 3/31/09. We were told that it could 2 months before he was "healed". We literally just had a scare and I thought he had not healed properly so hubby took him back just this past Monday and the surgeon was very, very pleased with the leg. He said that Hot Rod is good to go for a very long time on the leg. His limping and hobbling is just from remembering the pain of after surgery and so forth. In addition, our 1 year old yorkie keeps jumping on him.

Before surgery, we would walk about 2- 2 1/2 miles total a day. Now we're down to about 1 1/2 miles total. The surgeon said that we were all good to go with that.

I don't know of any vets/surgeons in your areas but I would highly recommend ours in Annapolis, MD. Coincidentally, I have 2 neighbors and know of someone else who have used this surgeon and the surgeon has a yorkie himself!

Whatever you do, make sure he is board certified and ask him/her how many of these types of surgeries they have done. Don't feel bad about asking any and all questions. Write everything down so you will not forget anything. The nght staff at the hospital propably thought I was a looney mom but I must have called 3 times until I finally went to sleep and then I called them first thing in the a.m., lol. They were wonderful. Bottom line, you will need to be comfortable with your surgeon, if not, please do yourself a favor and find one that you are with. Ask them for references and do call them. And most importantly, listen to what he/she prescribes by way of recuperating time. We were not prescribed any physical therapy. I did however, ask if we could do water therapy at about 4 weeks into recuperation. The surgeon was okay with that on a limited basis-no more than 5 mins. We did this every other day in our hot tub when we did it.