Dog Cruciate Ligament Operations

[BecsJones]

Hi all, a wise friend of mine suggested I ask for some advice on here. I have a 13 year old West Highland Terrier, he is the love of my life and has torn his cruciate ligament.

He desperately needs an operation to repair this so that he can walk and move properly again.

I live in Oxfordshire at the moment and the cheapest I can find is
£3,600 and Arthur is no longer insured as they stop paying out for older dogs.

I'm in an unexpected position of having to find a new job and place to live, so I just don't have this money, at the moment I am not claiming benefits, so I would not qualify for help with his treatment.

Does anyone know of any cheaper options for this operation or vets that may consider payment plans or been through this themselves?

I would be happy to travel to a different area for this treatment.

Really, really appreciate any advice you can provide.

Some small dogs do not need surgery for a Cruciate Ligament injury so may be worth speaking to your vet about the rest option.

Is he walking on three legs at the moment? Is he being rested and on very very restrictive exercise?

Yes some vets do do payment plans but do think if this is the way you want to proceed with an older small dog there may be other options.

I think that's par for the course I'm afraid. We paid that about 4 years ago for a lab, and then about £2k for a partial last year on his other back leg (if one back leg goes, chances are the other one will too). He was also uninsured.

I'm not sure if the size of the dog has any bearing on cost.

My sister had a JRT x border that recovered perfectly well with rest / conservative treatment , it’s perfectly possible with small dogs although it can take a long while . Her dog was about 12/13 at the time and was also fairly hefty which wouldn’t have helped . The other leg never went and he was fine for the rest of his life which was about 5 yrs .

My dog has a cruciate injury as well, I’ve not done anything about it as he’s recently had an operation and didn’t want to put him through another so soon. I bought a support for it and have rested him as much as possible, he has gone from hopping on 3 legs to now walking (all bet with a limp) on all 4 it’s taken about 3 months to heal this much. Before anyone says I’m being cruel he’s not in pain and has been seen by the vet regularly but has lots of clinical reasons why he can’t have another operation right now. While waiting for him to be well enough to consider an op he has begun to recover, he is a small dog btw

Our westie had surgery for his cruciate ligament when he was 9 and after getting a second opinion we went for a surgery which effectively used an elastic band rather than the full op. It cost about 1100 compared to 3k and worked ok. He was quite traumatised though, never fully regained all functions of his back legs and the following year his other back paws went. With the advice of his vet we opted to let that heal naturally which happened slowly over about 6 months.

Has your vet advised if surgery is absolutely necessary? 13 seems quite old for surgery like this and the aftercare is intense.

Have you tried dog trust for any affordable treatment options?

@dibly can I ask what sort of aftercare is needed? It’s something I would still consider if my boy really needs it. He had an eye op earlier this year and the aftercare for that was a nightmare! He’s only just been discharged from the vets after 4 months of regular follow up visits

Our dog had a crucial event ligament injury just over a year back. Because she’s 11 and has other health issues (and she’s not insured, though we would have paid) the vet discussed resting it with us. She said that looking after her after the op was not going to be an easy option either. We crate rested her for 6 weeks and then limited her exercise for some while after that. Not sure that the crate rest was great for her mentally (though we kept her with us and busy in there) but the ligament has more or less healed.

I say more or less because most of the time you wouldn’t know. She goes on long walks and runs and is very active on all four legs. But we do have to be careful not to let her jump on high furniture or overdo stairs or she will suddenly stand on three legs and then we have to rest her a day or two.

I think we did the right thing. She doesn’t appear in pain and has good quality of life. For an 11 year old dog who’s been through a lot of health stuff she’s exceptionally lively and active.

Shes 9.2kg, by the way, and that was factored into the vets advice. She’s also not a scrap overweight for her breed (Jack Russell/ Spaniel Cross). I know weight has a bearing on how successful resting it is likely to be.

It sounds like resting it might be something to try first before risking surgery considering his age.

Sorry to reply so late. Aftercare was basically crate rest, for up to 6 weeks with basically just toilet breaks. Like a pp it’s really tough on them mentally, and naively I hadn’t released they basically shave the hip, so it looks quite brutal. I still don’t know if we’d have been better off letting it heal on its own, the leg that wasn’t operated on seemed stronger.

With a Westie I would definitely try rest and anti-inflams as beneath 15kg body weight and significant number of these injuries stabilise without surgical intervention.
I am not that far from you and there definitely options in the Thames Valley that are less than 3K for a westie cruciate.

Our rescue pup just broke her leg but for a bit before the X-ray they thought it was her circulate ligament. We were looking around online and saw Animal Trust where the surgery sounded more affordable, they have a few surgeries in the north of England and we were going to travel, then we found out it was a fracture instead. If you do need the surgery this might be a good option. Good luck

Our 15kg terrier had a cruciate ligament injury when he was about 13 years old ... we kept him on metacam and just garden pottering instead of walks for about 3 months and it healed by itself.

@dibly thank you, no my boy wouldn’t cope with crate rest for 6 weeks, I had to keep him and rest him when he had his eye op and that was bad enough. He would be utterly miserable, I think I’ve made the right choice letting it heal naturally

Tara - we managed aftercare for 2 cruciate ops (Labrador) without crating.

It was very easy because he was about 7 when he had the first one so not prone to charging around anyway.

Initially we kept him in one room - an office so no comfy chairs for him to climb on. Put a child gate in the doorway so the door could be left open and he could see us coming and going when we weren't in there with him. Then we progressed to the living room making sure access to comfy chairs was blocked and that he had a nice big mattress on the floor, so wasn't tempted anyway. I appreciate we were also fortunate in that he was hardly ever left alone.