Just wanted to express a vote of confidence, in the advice of Dr. Doug.
If it is an acl, You have basically two options, surgery or meds and rehab.
Surgery is not without it's own set of problems, including, crating the dog, it is not always successful, and the cost, about 3K here.
The other issue being if he blows one acl, he has a 50% chance of blowing the other one in a year.
My 10 year old Lab blew his right acl in September of 13. We rehabbed him to being back to a 3 mile dog. ( from a 10 mile dog) This last Sept he blew the left one. So we are starting over.
At this date he is doing well, back to a 1 mile dog, and pretty well pain free with a good quality of life.
I could not have hoped for a better outcome, even with surgery.
I found Dr. Doug's advice in our case to be excellent and I thank him for it.
One thing to keep in mind, very often the primary care vet is going to refer you to an orthopedist. And the Ortho is going to want to do surgery.
Just saying there are other options, and in my opinion surgery, on an older dog, may not be the best idea.
Good luck, hopefully it is nothing more than a sprain
