Conservative Management for Torn ACL

My beautiful girl, Kimber, also known as"Beauty Jr." (Fly's nickname was "Beauty"), tore her cruciate ligament a month after I had to let my beautiful Fly go. Because Trouble and Fly had developed osteosarcoma after having knee surgeries, I looked into conservative management to avoid surgery. I learned so much from a wonderful support group, the Conservative Management group at http://www.yahoo.groups.com/ and had a custom made stifle brace for Kimber. The brace supports the knee externally, just as surgery supports it internally. Kimber went from walking on three legs, to walking on four, bearing weight on her leg, and now swimming.