I am writing to share Maggie’s story because when I found out about her injury I scoured the internet for stories relating to cruciate injuries and this website was my saving grace! We adopted Maggie at 8 weeks old as a rescue pup from New Mexico. We are avid hikers so Maggie was always hiking…
Category: Owner Experiences
Conservative Management with Lupus – Kaylie
My 9-year-old 64 lb Kaylie became critically ill in June 2015 and was diagnosed with canine systemic lupus (which acts very much like human lupus) but luckily I found a wonderful internal medicine vet who is very knowledgable in this area. Through immunosuppressive drugs–Prednisone and Imuran among them–she has been in remission since mid-summer 2015,…
Beginning Conservative Management – Jackson
I joined this community because my 3-year-old Lab, Jackson, was just diagnosed with a partial cruciate ligament tear. The vet receommended surgery, and said it didn’t need to be done right away, but eventually it would. After going home upset at the though of putting my poor baby under the knife, I began researching other…
Conservative Management Success – Annabelle
I cannot praise this website enough and thank you to everyone who has contributed. I feel qualified to give my 100% endorsement to using the conservative management method because I have experienced both TPLO surgery and opting out of surgery and following the CM method. There is NO WAY that I would ever recommend the…
Traditional Extracapsular Repair – Periwinkle
Hey there! It is with great pleasure that I share Periwinkle’s success with her “traditional” knee repair surgery. Winksy is a 6-ish year old pit bull terrier or mix. I am sharing this story 3 years after Winksy’s surgery because I wanted to give the repair time to succeed or fail, so to speak. My…
Undecided Treatment – Roxy
My Roxy girl is 2.5 yrs old and weighs 55 pounds. I took her to the vet 2 weeks ago because she was throwing up. She was diagnosed with Giardia and pancreatitis. She stopped throwing up immediately after being treated. A few days later I took her for a hike, our favorite activity. She came…
Debridement Surgery – Shadow
My Australian Shepherd, Shadow, is 7 years old now. He has always been a very active dog, so needless to say, the last four months have been crazy. On October 13, Shadow was hit by a car; luckily the guy was barely moving 5 mph or this would’ve been way worse. Shadow’s right front leg…
TTA Surgery – Simba
Simba got his surgery done at a vet that specializes in knee surgery so we decided to do his TTA surgery there. Simba stayed over night at the hospital and came home with us yesterday. He is not eating his food (Simba is on a raw food diet) but ate a small amount of tuna with…
Panzer – Lateral Meniscus Tear
Panzer completely ruptured his ACL in his left leg in Sept 2014. Panzer is a 5-year-old Doberman who weighs around 105 lbs. He’s lean and loves to run the fence line and turn on a dime…thus the ACL tear. His surgery was a success! He gained back all of the muscle in his left leg…
Surgery vs. Alternative Treatment – Dhani Doberman
My dog has been favoring a back leg for months, but not been lame. He was playing, landed on my other dog, and yelped. At the time I thought it could have been a muscle strain, so I kept him on the lead for two weeks but to be fair he wasn’t lame! I took…