Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs CCL/ACL treatments

The Flash, all 13 years and 5 months of him, was diagnosed with a CCL tear today. Pondering the path forward for him. I guess him being in pain isn't an option for me, and I can afford to have him fixed. But I'm wondering if anyone has had a dog use a brace instead and had a good outcome/quality of life. He needs to get around the yard is about all, his hunting days are over unless we spring him to find a downed bird. I'm not looking for miracles but not convinced that surgery is his best option either. Thoughts welcomed.

In general, a hunting dog of that age, is not the best candidate for surgery (particularly the anesthesia) as you’ll note in this link. However, (more) arthritis in that joint is likely the next thing to occur.

With no more hunting demands, I would seek another option for that great companion.

https://caninearthritis.org/article/ccl-non-surgical/

One persons experience....

A hard running Springer tore his up at around 8YO. Just started limping and then after a while it went away and I didn't pay much more attention to it. He didn't slow down, still hunted hard and didn't seem to complain. Then one day I noticed the joint was bigger and harder. Vet said, can't do anything now. He hunted up till 13YO, and only slowed his pace. When he hit scent, it was close to the same old hard charge.

He didn't lay around licking it, didn't moan about the pain. It may have hurt bad, but it wasn't easily obvious.

I have seen dogs crated up for weeks with pins and rods on their back legs and younger dogs that limp for a while and get over it by themselves.

A dog's age and physical condition plays a large part in how the condition is treated.

At thirteen years, it's not going to fix itself like it could on a younger dog.

Thanks the vet is a nice young lady and she's going to call with options for him today probably. I don't think he's in alot of pain at all, and he's on prednisone for his bronchial hardening. He can handle surgery, his health is excellent.

Maybe it would be better to put him on Tramidol every day for the pain if there is any, and let him finish out his life.