We have a 2.5 year old German Shepherd. She is the best, most intelligent dog we have ever had. She was not a cheap dog, and we spent a lot of time and money training her. I travel a lot for work, so her training helps my wife and daughter feel like they have a protector when I am away. I know without a doubt, that she would at the very least delay a threat until my wife could get a gun. Most likely she will scare any threat away before a gun is needed. Heck, even when I am home, I am thankful to have such a dedicated well trained dog to look after us. She refused to put weight on one of her rear legs after playing outside the other day. We took her to the vet, and she has a torn ACL. We really have 3 options. Let her stay as is, which doesn't seem humane, put her down, which we don't want to do, or have an orthopedic surgeon operate, which costs a lot of money. Right now, we are leaning heavily toward the surgery. From the financial side, if we put her down, then bought a similar dog, and trained the dog, we would end up spending about the same amount of money as having the surgery. Plus we would have to dedicate a tremendous amount of time to the training of a new dog. To get a dog to where our dog is, it takes a LOT of hours every day. So, for those who would say "its just a dog, put her down and get a new one," this is not a just a dog that we could replace easily and cheaply. So, I am curious, has anyone had this happen to their dog? Did you have the operation done? Was it successful? Who did the operation? I don't want to put a dog through the surgery and 6-8 weeks of living in a kennel if the end result is not likely to be positive. I just don't know what to expect. Any stories from experience with this issue would be appreciated.