I want to hear your thoughts please - what would you do?

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I would get it fixed.. To me, pets are part of the family.. Have you asked the vet if it may be a long term problem? (as in ongoing vet bills?) It is a hard one, pets are so expensive.. Maybe you could take out pet insurance? It wont help now, but maybe if you need it in the future.. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.. I don't envy this emotionally and financially difficult situation.. :( Also, dogs can adapt to having 3 legs very well.. I know a lady who has a dog with 3 legs and she gets around fine..

OK.. I could be wrong seems Ihave not seen the dog and am not actually a vet but I worked as a qualified vet nurse for 10 years & had when I believe is the same operation on both legs of a dog I owned.... Ok so.. first off, it is possible that something happened that trigged her knee to start popping out while out with the kids. BUT it could have been as simple as her twisting it funny while running. It is a very common thing in smaller dogs.
2nd, while its been a few years since I was in a vet surgery $1800 seems like a LOT to me for this surgery. I would look at getting a second opinion. As far as I know once it is fixed you shouldn't have too many drama's with that knee BUT the other may very well start later down the track AND it is very possible that she will still develop arthritis which she will need some form of treatment for later on ( there is an injection called Pentosan I think, if I am remembering right that they can have that helps with their joints. So for example as winter comes on she may need a few injections to help her through the cold months when she is older)
third.. Amputating would be extream in this case, her current problem is very common & while surgery seems extream to fix it, its a fairly straight forward one. The shock her body would possible go through from loosing a leg...Personally I would put down if that was your 2 options.

i would get a second opinon on the price of surgery to fix & go from there.. I really wouldn't expect to pay over $1000 to fix that. Even that I would be thinking is high but tryig to allow for the fact its been about 4 years since I seen a vet bill LOL

I agree with the above.

I am not a vet nurse or a vet student but I am a Biol student (so don't know as much as Efjay) and as I understand it, correct me if I am wrong, dodgy breeding can commonly cause problems with hips, knees, feet etc. Is she overweight at all?

It does sound like a very excessive cost to me...but my only experience of vet costs is fostering some very sick animals over the years.

Vets in different suburbs DO have very different pricing, I have found. So def get a 2nd opinion.

Some vets also offer payment plans.

I think amputation is very drastic and will cause the dog way more stress than she and you both need. My dog had a toe amputated...just a toe!...and she was down and out for a couple of days, and was a bit unbalanced for a tiny bit. I was beside myself with just a toe going!

Is re-homing an option? You would miss her but it's probably nicer than amputation or euthanasia.

Yep I would definitely get the surgery done....after getting a second opinion on the price.

5 is pretty young and I'm sure your pooch could have a perfectly happy life once the knee is fixed. They are part of the family (even if it is your parents) and for me, I can't give up on them if something can be done. DH had a dog when I met him, and MIL wanted to get him put down because he was 10 and had arthritis....I took him under my wing...got him some cartrophen injections (I think that's what it was called) gave him glucosamine for his joints and gave him an extra 3 years :)

They count on us. The hard thing is without knowing the history of the parents of your pooch you will never know if this will be an ongoing problem with other joints, but you can help with the one that has a problem and try and prevent it happening in other joints later on.

Maybe you can do a payment plan with the vet, or perhaps share the cost with your parents?

Good luck, I hope your doggy is OK.

Also local animal aids / shelters are able to provide a list of more affordable animal care options - have you contacted them? I had financial troubles a while ago and contacted the uni vet hospital - the final year students do work as part of their experience and it is very cheap if there is a uni near you - worth checking out. Or the RSPcA if there's one nearby.

Def get a second opinion.

get a second opinion, or third! Most vets will offer payment plans for such a large bill, so if you could initially go halves with your parents and then arrange to pay it off every week would that be more affordable?
I don't agree with amputation..very drastic action and in this case not necessary. If it happens to another knee then what will you do, can't amputate another one!

I agree with the others on getting a second opinion. Lort Smith in Melbourne usually have much lower costs than private vets.

I will also go against the majority and say that personally i could not justify paying a thousand dollars for surgery on one of my animals. I also would not want my parents to pay that much. I love them hugely, and would be devastated if i lost one of them but i could not spend that much on them. If they could live comfortably with the ailment i would do things to make it easier for them (non weightbearing exercise like swimming) but if they were in a lot of pain i would have to let them go.

Hope you find a solution.

My Cairn Terrorist has the same problem. Called a subluxing patella. I thought he would need an operation. Luckily for us my best mate is an (equine) vet and she suggested that we keep him REALLY quiet for a couple of weeks. NO jumping, walking only on a short leash. In his crate if he wasn't being supervised etc. It was a horrible 2 weeks. We had to lift him onto lounge and up stairs etc and it was very hard to confine a dog just because he'd had a slight intermittent limp.
It worked! My little Terrorist didn't talk to me for a while but he didn't need an operation. The joint is no longer 100% but the vet checks it each time we take him in or if we take our other dog for something else we get him checked at the same time. Sometimes he puts it down badly and limps so we just confine him to rest it.
My dog is 4 years old and the vet tells me he might need an operation when he's older but we've certainly made him comfortable for now.
Perhaps you could find out from a vet if your dog's leg is not too far gone if you could try this. There is a good dog athritis medication called Cartrophen which can help as the dog gets older with arthritis symptoms.
If you decide to go ahead with the surgery make sure you are fully informed and the vet who is doing it is very experienced. Our vet (obviously not the equine one) sends clients to another local vet who is highly experienced with the operation.
Hope this helps.
Kate

I'd also be getting another opinion and enquiring about a payment plan if it's going to be costing that much. Also, to me pets are a valued member of the family and treating medical conditions is just part and parcel of having a pet (or child for that matter!). I would definitely do anything I could to decrease suffering to them. Anyway, are you in Melb? If you are, the Lort Smith Hospital in North Melb is a good place to call and get some more advice. Good luck and hope pooch is better in no time :)

you have been given some suggestions already and I just wanted to comment about paying for the operation. We are in a similar situation in that my MIL took on one of our own dogs and has had her for about 2 and 1/2 years. She seems to be pretty sick at the moment and we are expecting a huge vet bill that neither my MIL or we can afford. I also feel responsible for the bill cause she was our dog. I am going to offer to pay for 1/2 the bill, just a suggestion that maybe you could pay 1/2, 3/4 or whatever to help out your parents?

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Unfortunately costs of vet bills are rising. I work in emergency at a specialist centre, and if you were to have that surgery with a specialist orthopaedic surgeon it would be over $4000. So to me, $1800 is a reasonable price. The cost of veterinary fees are going up because the costs of drugs, treatments and expectations of clients are going up. Procedures have changed drastically, 13 years ago when I first started vet nursing, we didn't have to be as skilled nurses, they didn't even offer a uni course, it was just 2 years part-time at tafe and TBH the course was ridiculous. Now its a 4 year course either through Uni or through specialist education centres. Yet, the wages still are quite low. For a nurse with 10 years experience and fully qualified the award rate is around $17.50 an hour.

So the costs of veterinary bills are going up because the skills are going up and it less of a backyard job anymore and more of a specialised career. HTH