Bad news from the vet for our 1.5 year old choc lab

[Joseph Harari, DVM]

I've raised Labs (rescued hunting, non-hunting dogs in my clinic) for nearly 30 years and have been doing surgery on ruptured cruciate ligament injury, as a specialist for nearly 20 years so I offer this prespective to my friends & clients - this is an athletic injury, as in humans, and most patients repond well to surgery if they are in good shape & have good rehab (just like people!). NSAIDs and pain relief meds can make affected dogs comfortable, but active, athletic dogs recover best with surgery - at the very least, owners should get a consult with a surgery specialist trained to treat these patients (just like we do as human patients!). Thanks for reading, just joined today and was reading posts about inbjured knees in hunting dogs.

[Happy Gilmore]

I've raised Labs (rescued hunting, non-hunting dogs in my clinic) for nearly 30 years and have been doing surgery on ruptured cruciate ligament injury, as a specialist for nearly 20 years so I offer this prespective to my friends & clients - this is an athletic injury, as in humans, and most patients repond well to surgery if they are in good shape & have good rehab (just like people!). NSAIDs and pain relief meds can make affected dogs comfortable, but active, athletic dogs recover best with surgery - at the very least, owners should get a consult with a surgery specialist trained to treat these patients (just like we do as human patients!). Thanks for reading, just joined today and was reading posts about inbjured knees in hunting dogs.

Thank you for posting. Unfortunately, people often get poor information from some DMV's who are not active with performance breeds and don't seem to understand that recovery from knee injuries are possible and often very successful. As you said, just like humans, athletes can recover from injury and dogs are not an acception.

Thanks again for posting, Hap