My girl is a 23kg , 19m old.
Last summer she had a crash into another dog while playing and hurt her leg. Xrays at the time revealed nothing terrible and it improved. However she is now having problems as the patella is luxating when she's running at full pelt and does quick turns. She yelps, sits with leg up for a minute or two then gets back up and goes again, though sometimes a bit tentatively. The vet doesn't feel she needs the op yet, but can be managed. Obviously I don't want to put her through an unpleasant operation and tedious recovery before time, but it's 'gone' twice in the lst few days and is obviously going to impact her fun..she's a very active dog, lives to hunt for bunnies and play. It never happens 'just wlking' thankfully (as yet) only when she is basically going all out and dashing in all directions.
I like and trust my vet but am struggling to figure out whether low grade luxation (as it seems to be but it obviously hurts!) is manageable or whether we should be pushing for treatment now as most info I can find seems to be about little dogs.
Any vets or those who have experienced this , please advise me! He did say he was happy to refer us on to an orthopaedic specialist when needed. I just don't know 'how often is too often' if that makes sense!