Surgery or rest for CCL tear.

Dr. Marie replied:

This is a tough question to answer without knowing exactly what injury Ting Ting has.

I am assuming, however, that what you are asking about is a torn cranial cruciate ligament. This is the ligament in the knee of the dog and is the same thing as an ACL tear.

In small dogs we will often give people the choice of surgery vs rest to repair a torn acl. (For large dogs, rest just doesn't work well.)

However, given the choice, in my opinion, surgery is almost always the best option. We know that some small dogs who don't have surgery will end up making enough scar tissue to have a relatively normal joint. But, not all dogs do. These days with the surgical techniques we have, Ting Ting would have a much better chance at a full recovery with having surgery.

When I have a case like this, usually what I do is put the dog on some anti-inflammatory medication for a few weeks and gauge the response. Sometimes what we think is a CCL tear is just a partial tear and if a dog is mostly back to normal in a few weeks then there is no need for surgery. But, if there has not been much improvement then surgery is the best bet.

I hope all goes well!

Dr. Marie.

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