I'm trying to decide between surgery or crate/NSAID/Nutraceuticals.
What have been your experience with either one.
This is a 78 pounds 2 years old female just injured.

Just had this happen to one of my girls, 78# and 3 years old. It was a couple of weeks before she had surgery and while she was doing well enough with walking she couldn't go out and run and play so I knew that fixing it was the way to go. She had a traditional repair a week ago and she is doing fabulous! She's on Metacam and Ultram and is now up to walking 10 minutes 3-4 times a day.Her incision was very small compared to some that I have seen the sutures are all on the inside and she never touched her incision, she also had very minimal swelling.
Good luck with your girl!

Actually I've done both. Both dogs were young when the injury occured. The dog I had surgery on , was so arthritic at the age of 4 , she needed medicated daily .
The dog I chose to crate rest, and have only poddie breaks on leash , for 6 weeks , is an active , sound, swimming fool , she is now 4 yrs and shows no signs of pain or unsoundness.
These are facts, there were several years inbetween these two dogs lives, but if I had it to face again, I would not do surgery, I beleive it is a quick fix that all pet owners want, the more conservative approach is time consuming, hard work , and takes lots of patience. The PET OWNERS of this world , like instant gratification, the surgeons like to give that to them!

I had a young male who showed symtpoms at under a year..we did the crate, meds thing for 6 mos-he ended up rupturing the other leg. He needed TPLO (he was 100 lbs at a year-all bone, very lean).
He is still jumping on beds,and zooming around the yard at the age of 10 never having to take another med in his life for pain etc.

If it's completely torn, I think surgery is your only option but if it's a partial tear, you could look into prolotherapy. My holistic vet has apparently had very good successes w/ it. http://www.holisticvetlist.com/

You are 100% correct, no amount of crate rest or anything else will help a complete tear, surgery is your only option. On a partial, you do have a prayer on recovery.

Thanks for all the responses. It is hard to decide for surgery when more than half the people and even some vets recommend conservative treatment over surgery.
For the people that have done surgery, can you share how much did you ended of paying at the end? my estimates are around $5k.
Thanks for the link Windy. Great tool.

My boy had a partial tear. We did leash walking,very gentle exercise and crate rest for five months. Thought he was doing well. One day he turned somehow and torn it completely. Had the surgery and is doing quite well three months later.Good luck.

I forgot to mention that the procedure my boy had was the TTA (Tibial Tuberosity Advancement).
He was walking on the leg two days after surgery.
Cost was about $3000 and included followup exams and water treadmill sessions.

Ours was a complete tear. Had it been a partial I would have opted for rest and rehab and a wait and see approach.
I feel that with a complete tear the body cannot make enough scar tissue to adequately reinforce the knee in enough time to prevent the after effects of the grating of bone on bone.

That's why you really want to consider the prolotherapy in the case of a partial tear. It will sclarify the tissue and stabilize that region so it can heal properly. It is really inexpensive (~$300 a few years ago on a neck injury here). It saved my dog imo, and she is still doing great today, never had to have a retouch or anything-- and I even started running agility w/ her at age 5 (which is a lot of stress on the neck)! She's 7 now, looks and feels great.

I had the traditional "fishing line" repair on my bitch almost 5 years ago. The surgery was done at NC State, and the cost was around $2,000 (that included the initial appt with all the x-rays, etc). Then my bitch went to the rehab center located a few blocks from NC State where she stated for 3 weeks. That cost an additional $1,000 a week.

The only cruciate tear I've had was over 25 years ago. We had the surgery in which connective tissue was taken from the leg and used to stabilize the joint. It took a long time to heal, over 6 months, but my girl went on to get her championship, her JH, and her CDX at a time when they still had to jump 1.5 times their height. she had to jump 32 inches. She was a beautiful mover before the accident, and she eventually regained that effortless float over the ground. She lived to be 14 and was still moving well enough to win Veteran's at a couple specialties.

So don't despair. You may still accomplish all your goals and have a healthy happy buddy for many years.

You will find with the newer TPLO's and other surgeries today; the healing time is lots faster and the dog recoups even better.

Good experience on the part of the orthopedic vet and you'll be shocked at how well your dog can do in a short time. Follow up with PT if recommended and you'll be back in anything you want together sooner then you can imagine.

do you know how the TPLO has changed over the years?