I have a young 4/5 month old female that became lame on her rear about 3 weeks ago. She is extremely large boned and has very baggy skin.
I took her to my local gen vet. She had a fever(from teething?) and usual puppy laxity in her knees. We did x-rays and found nothing wrong. Hips were great. We then started her on Keflex, NSAID (Metacam), crate rest & and hoped for the best. After 2 weeks she was no better, so off to the the ortho specialist. MANY x-rays later, he told me she had swelling in both her knees and that he felt she had a condition called "Baggy ACL Syndrome". He said to keep her on limited exercise, feed her puppy food till 8 months old then switch to a quality adult. We will continue the NSAID for swelling and add Glucosamine. He said she should grow into her ACLs???? He told me it wasn't genetic.
I NEVER heard of this????? She does have an excessive amount of skin or pelt? Could this be all apart of this? Anyone else ever experience this?
She is still lame after another month.

Put her on Adult food now for starters. Then do crate rest. No puppy here is ever fed puppy food , period ! And put on adult food by 3 months of age, or you will live to regret it.

I've never heard it called "baggy knees" but I have heard of shredded ACLs in a young pup. I've also heard of misdiagnosis of lax ACLs in young pups that actually have OCD in the stifles or hocks.
Unfortunately I would assume something significant is wrong after a month of lameness at this age (common for OCD to show up at 4 - 6 months) and would rest her, put her on adult food, and re-evaluate in 6 weeks and have x-rays taken of stifles and hocks by a qualified orthopedic.

Hocks and stifles were normal..... We had $500 worth of x-rays. He said everything looked normal.
The swelling in the triangle of the knee bilat was very evident in the x-rays.
He said he did not require "crate rest", just quiet. She is with the 15 yr olds now... They are sssllllooowwww. LOL
I appreciate the above postings, thank you!

Often initial x-rays after just a week or even month of lameness show nothing. When lameness persists for 6 - 8 weeks an x-rays are taken again then usually the issue is evident. Good luck.

Timely post, as my young girl has just been diagnosed with a partial tear in one knee and complete tear in the other. Bilateral surgery was recommended, but after much lost sleep and serious soul-searching, I am totally stumped as she is almost sound (mild limp on "totally torn" leg but happy as can be and unless looking for it, you'd think she was fine. Anyone ever see this?

I had a puppy returned to me at 5 1/2 mos because of what one ortho thought was an ACL tear,I got a second opinion and it turned out to be an Avulsion fracture of the ACL, basically the bone attachment pulls away from the bone,not a midline tear in the middle.
Any way we kept her very quiet and did the rehab just as if she had a repair and when the ortho saw her again he said he wouldn't need to operate, she had healed up better than if he had done surgery.She's had no problems with it since and is now 3 1/2 years old.

same here, surgeon wanted $3000 to fix a knee, I opted out of that game, gave her crate rest , only out on leash , and now as sound as she ever was.
They do these surgeries , because they can ! And they don't give the dog any more quality of life than if the injury is treated conservative with crate rest and no surgery.

A friend of mine had a Berner with an ACL tear - she elected not to do surgery but had a brace made for her instead - was ~ $800 for the brace vs $2500 for the surgery. She runs around with it everywhere and is more sound than if she'd had the surgery.

Thanks everyone. She is actually getting a bit better. I have hope that she will outgrow this.

Surgery should never be done on a partial tear and conservative management can resolve this. If your vet suggested surgery for a partial tear, I would look for another vet.

Conservative management or braces are not recommended for complete tears because the joint cannot be stabilized well enough. This will result in excessive wear on the joint and the resulting arthritis will be worse than if you opted for surgery.

If your dog is young and has a complete tear surgery is your bet option in the long run.

how is a full tear diagnosed? don't they have to go in to look and see?