Week 19 got skipped because I'd done a post earlier in the week, but also because I was on the road to Ohio for the weekend. I learned that it's really hard to stick with a solid rehab program while traveling.... Our hotel room also had laminate flooring throughout the room, so I was loathe to do anything there. I actually ended up stopping at Walmart and picked up a couple of yoga mats to at least help with the on/off the bed situation.
I brought Jedi inside once a day at the trial to work on rehab stuff. I'd packed along his balance disc, figuring we could use that for pivot work and weight shift exercises. We also were able to fit in one decent walk per day, but definitely far less than what we do on a usual day.
Unfortunately Jedi's routine has continued to be disrupted because I brought a puppy home with us from Ohio! Not surprisingly, puppies take up a lot of time and we've modified our daily routine a bit. We're still doing the 8-lap morning walk, but we haven't done hills all week (the fact that it's 90+ degrees isn't helping that). We've also only gone swimming once.
I wish I could say that I've noticed an improvement in the pivot shift, but I haven't. It's still there. If there's anything good it's that the Deramaxx seems to have at least made Jedi more comfortable.
We're at a trial in Murfreesboro this weekend, but our days are short since Jedi was supposed to be running and I only entered the regular classes. Then we're back in Ohio next weekend.
Today Jedi and I drove just under two hours for our first rehab visit with Cassie at VCA RIVER in Chattanooga. I can't say there were any big epiphanies or anything, but it is nice to have someone to work with through this. I wish we had this service a bit closer to home because I would certainly sign on for weekly visits, but I did commit to going every other week for a package of five visits. We will go back on Monday the 30th, which will also allow us to talk to Dr. Wearing while he is there to discuss our next steps with medication.
Jedi found a tennis ball shortly after we arrived, so it instantly became his favorite place on earth. He was less thrilled when he had to lay down to have his knee lasered, probably just because the ball wasn't involved. He also got to do 10 minutes in the underwater treadmill. He wasn't sure of it at first, but it didn't take long before he was happily walking along with the tennis ball in his mouth. It was interesting to see that except for a time or two, he really didn't have the twist in his leg while walking in the water.
Cassie is hopeful that we can have him back for the October trial in Franklin, which would give us one trial before Cynosport. Fingers crossed. We were sent home with a bunch of exercises, which I will post here. Truly, a lot of this is going to return us to the very early, most basic rehab stuff that is recommended after TPLO. It is entirely possible that I did not spend enough time on the "simple stuff" like weight shifting the first time around. Tonight we did weight shifting with the hind end on the disc, with both front and hind end on unstable surfaces (brought in the bone for the rear), and the leg lifts. I was surprised at how much Jedi still resists the diagonal two-legged stand. That's pretty telling, I guess. Oh, we also tried the "dancing," which he absolutely hated, so I'm guessing that was hard for him as well.
Here are screenshots of everything we were sent home to work on the next two weeks. She didn't prescribe anything done in any sort of order, claiming they all more or less are going to work on the same thing. We are supposed to spend 15-20 minutes a couple times a day.
As planned, we met with Dr. Wearing this morning to discuss a plan forward for Jedi. The first thing we did was go outside so that he could see Jedi's gait in person. I was prepared with video because he usually doesn't wobble if he's pulling on leash at all, and, well, he pulls on leash a lot. Our appointment was at 8:20, though, and we had done our usual morning walk, so he wasn't super crazy and his leg did wobble for us.
Dr. Wearing said that he is familiar with this and has treated it in the past. The poor man had to listen to me rant and rave about everything I've been doing and how it's not working at all. He manipulated Jedi's leg a bit and confirmed that there is inflammation.
We were sent home with a larger dose of Deramaxx -- I'll be giving half of a 75mg tablet for the next few weeks, which is pretty much the max dose for his size. I also have an appointment with the rehab specialist that Dr. Wearing works with in Chattanooga on Monday morning. I am looking forward to having someone put their hands on him and define which muscles we need to build up and hopefully come up with a plan. It is likely that we'll meet up with Dr. Wearing again down in Chattanooga at the end of the month since I will be traveling on the days when he's at our clinic.
Dr. Wearing said he is "cautiously optimistic" that we can resolve this without resorting to surgery, but that's always an option. He did not seem to have any concerns that the meniscus is involved, though. We'll see how the PT appointment goes.
I sure do wish that I had better news to report after 18 weeks of recovery following Jedi's TPLO surgery in April. Unfortunately we are just stuck... Or sadly, even going backwards.
We spent the weekend at an agility trial in Murfreesboro (no worries, we weren't entered in that one, so didn't have to pull) and I spoke with a few people who have gone through the recovery process with their dogs. One person mentioned that her dog was not recovering very well, so they put him on Deramaxx for a few weeks and it really helped him to turn a corner.
With that in mind (planning to make him comfortable), I let Jedi do some agility on Tuesday after setting up the course for class that morning. I ran him through the "baby" course from Monday with no bars and low contacts. After the new course was set, I let him do pieces of it with the bars at 20". It was really no more than a couple minutes of work. It is grossly hot this week, so we went down to the creek to swim for a few minutes after. Everything seemed fine.
As usual, Jedi went ripping up out of the creek bottom well ahead of me. He usually runs and throws himself into a roll to dry off. When I got up to the top I saw that he just looked off. He was crouched by the fence like he didn't want to move at all, like everything hurt. He had to poop and seemed to be trying very hard to avoid it. The first thing that went through my head was that he blew the other leg. Who knows, maybe he did. He just moved so awkwardly as we made our way back to the house.
I hit him up with a Deramaxx as planned, although I had not expected the soreness to hit him until later, like it usually does. He did get better as the day went on. I gave him another one for dinner and I have been giving him one at each meal since.
I called the vet's office on Tuesday to see if I could get in for a recheck with Dr. Wearing. We are going in tomorrow morning to discuss our options and come up with a plan. I am okay with the conservative route of "let's drug him for a few weeks and see if that gets him using the leg enough to stabilize it," but I'm also prepared for, "This sounds like we need surgery again." And of course, there's still the dreaded possibility of the other leg needing to be done, because I have no idea what that behavior was about.
So we have that appointment in the morning, and then the chiropractor is here on Saturday. I am really hoping that one way or another we can move forward again. I'm still waiting to hear from Dr. Eide's team about getting on the schedule. Here's today's video (link for mobile: https://youtu.be/viVQf4LHEyo )
I forgot to get a picture for today's post, so this is what you get. Jedi has assumed his usual position of sleeping under the table until we go to bed. This is actually pretty good, usually he's wedged through the rungs of one of the chairs.
I had our pre-consultation with a member of Dr. Eide's team on Monday as scheduled. No surprise, our "20 minute call" quickly doubled in time, but I was just so thankful that someone was finally listening to me and acknowledging our struggles. I shared our history and it sounds like we're going to move forward with scheduling a 90-minute consult with Dr. Eide to come up with a plan. Unfortunately she's currently serving jury duty, so we have to wait until that wraps up to actually schedule something. Until I hear back from them, I'm just going to continue with what we're doing.
I actually feel like maybe there has been some progress this week. Don't get me wrong, the leg still wobbles, but maybe just a little bit less? I've modified our routine slightly in that I keep Jedi on leash for the first five laps, and then when I bring the old dogs out for the last three laps I am letting Jedi off leash. The three leashes just wasn't working well.... I am keeping him to a walk and trot off leash, although I'm thrilled to report that I've actually seen him lope on the right lead a time or two this week. He gets to be off leash again for the after-class walk in the evenings and is being a good boy. I keep him on leash for the hill work to control his speed for that, although he seems to hate hill work and drags a bit going up hill. Me, too, buddy....
I've backed off on agility stuff for the most part. I've let him play a little while I'm setting stuff up, and that's about it. Monday was my first night of a new session of contacts class, so everything was set very low. I let Jedi go over everything, including his running a-frame. Everything looked fine, but he definitely seemed sore later on. A couple of days later we did some jump wraps for his toy and he seemed to actually hold up well to that with no gimping later on.
I pulled Jedi from the AKC trial in Ohio that I'd stuck him in on August 20/21 (19 weeks post-op). I haven't pulled entries for the trials the next two weekends yet and figure we'll go day by day on those and pull on the closing date if need be.
Sixteen weeks have come and gone since Jedi's TPLO surgery now. We're currently in a holding pattern until our consultation with Dr. Eide. We have our pre-consultation on Monday afternoon to determine the best solution for going forward. Until then, we continue plugging forward with what we're doing. In the morning we do our leashed walk. Jedi and Ren get five laps on their own, which takes about 25 minutes, and then I keep Jedi on leash for the three laps that the old dogs get. That's super fun since the Klee Kai are also on leash, but it does get him up to about 40 minutes of walking in the mornings now.
We have returned to hill work,which is also super fun given that we are at the height of our summertime temperatures right now. We've been going up and down the hill at the side of my parent's house about 4-5 times in the morning, and a couple more times during our evening walk.
We also continue to do our "fitness sessions" for both breakfast and dinner. That's what I will mostly be looking for guidance on from Dr. Eide. There is no rhyme or reason to the exercises we do, but at this point I hope that something is better than nothing.
Jedi is otherwise allowed off leash, but I have backed off any additional work the last few days. Earlier this week I was doing circle work, where I ask him to run clockwise through some hoops or wings to force him to actually run on the right lead. Later that day he was really favoring his leg, even holding it up in the air after rising. I haven't even swam him the last two days to give him a break, which Jedi thinks is a terrible travesty. He has seemed more comfortable again today, so maybe tomorrow we can give him his swimming back. The running will probably wait until we have more guidance. I feel like I may as well go ahead and pull him from the upcoming AKC trials, but I am awaiting official word from our consultation. We are not going to be able to qualify for AKC Nationals, so I may as well just remove the pressure and not push to return too early. I am still hopeful for Cynosport in October.
Here is today's video, which I made a bit lengthy in the event that I have to have something to share with Dr. Eide. It is in chronological order, and you can see that it gets worse as the walk goes on. He actually starts out pretty decent these days. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/Ge3v-ndTgcA )
I had so hoped that we'd be well on our way to the finish line by this point, but unfortunately that's just not the case. This week, after so many weeks of obsessing over "the wobble" in Jedi's leg when he walks, I finally learned that it has a name. It's called a pivot shift, and it's seemingly a very uncommon phenomenon that happens in a small percentage of TPLO patients. Some reports make it seem like a very small number of dogs, like <5% experience it. A vet in a Facebook group where I posted said it's probably more like 30%, but your average pet owner probably doesn't notice it.
So here we are, 15 weeks post op, still dealing with something that I have been expressing concerns over for the last 10+ weeks. Everyone has always said, "give it time." This week I swear it has been worse than ever, which is what prompted me to really start digging online. I saw someone in the TPLO group mention the term pivot shift, so I started to dig through the group to see if there were any other conversations about it. I'm really a bit surprised by how very little there is to find. I made a post on a canine conditioning page, though, and that's where I got a lot of good responses. One of the professionals on the page has a dog who had TPLO done in both legs and ended up with pivot shift in both (from what I did find, it seems as though it's more common in border collies).
The news doesn't seem all that encouraging from the people who have been through it. It is possible to correct the condition through very specific and focused exercises that build up the correct muscles to support the leg. This conditioning then has to be maintained. For some dogs, the only way to correct the condition is by going in and doing a lateral suture, which is basically a whole 'nother CCL surgery.
Given that his leg seems to be getting worse, not better, Jedi has returned to being on leash for our walks. He still has freedom in the yard, in the house, and when we're out back setting up for classes, but he's on leash for walks to ensure that he gets focused time each day where he's using his leg correctly. I'm quite sure that his off leash time on walks have not been helping to build up muscle as hoped, or at least not the correct muscle. For example, he lopes around on his left lead 100% of the time, so clearly he is compensating.
I reached out online to Dr. Leslie Eide, a rehab professional who does virtual consultations. Unfortunately the earliest time slot I could get to meet with her was Monday, August 2. I'm not even sure if I meet with her at that appointment, or someone from her staff, as it sounds like more of a information-collecting meeting to determine the best way to help me. My hope is to get a very specific exercise plan to build up the correct muscles. Until then I will keep plugging along with the stuff I've found online for canine fitness work. I am now working Jedi for both breakfast and dinner.
I have no idea what this means for his return to agility timeline. I'm hoping that Dr. Eide can help to answer that question. I'm also hoping that she has experience with this issue and will be able to tell me at what point we need to contact our surgeon to discuss those options.
Here's our video from today. It just really bothers me to see his leg moving like this. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/hlCSUVeWId0 )
We're now 14 weeks following Jedi's TPLO surgery. That's almost 100 days! In the above photo Jedi is posing with his daily castoffs. I've been combing through his coat pretty much daily while we are on the floor doing his PT and I seem to get about this much hair out of him every day. It's crazy. Our daily swims have given him a pretty crazy hairdo and I figured that the daily grooming will hopefully help to blend in the new growth. Overall I think he's looking pretty good!
I have more or less given Jedi freedom to do whatever on our morning walks these days. He overdid it on Sunday, unfortunately. Because we take Sundays off from our morning PT exercises, I decided to let Jedi & Ren stay out to walk extra laps with the old dogs. We have been doing five laps lately (about 20 minutes), and on Sunday we did four and then I got the other dogs, who get an extra three laps. Jedi was running around like a loon the whole time and just as we were finishing up the last lap I noted that he was standing by the gate holding up his surgery leg, and then he continued to favor it the rest of the way back into the house (without a leash on him, good luck getting him to just walk....). I gave him some Deramaxx that morning and we took it easy that day. He's been doing well since, but it is not uncommon for him to be stiff for a bit following activity. I definitely can't skip his nightly massage or I notice a difference the next day.
Jedi continues to be allowed to do more agility in short spurts. I had hoops and a barrel out for class on Monday, for instance, so I let him run through those some. On Tuesday I let him run through some 8" jumps on the course I had set. The turning was a bit much for him, I think, because he did seem sore after that. I have started to do some short 1-jump drills of offering the jump back and forth at 20". That's where I really see weakness and lack of power from his hind end. Finally, I let him play on the short training teeter some, because I still think the full sized teeter has a little more bounce back than I want to see for him right now.
We still have the "problem" of the right leg toeing in, but it's not 100% of the time so I still hope that it continues to improve. It hasn't seemed to bother Jedi at all, I just worry about long-term soundness from it. But other than that I'm really quite happy with the way he's carrying himself and he seems to more or less be weighting his legs equally when standing.
Here's our video from today. It includes our morning walk, Jedi's water workout (I stand in more shallow water now so that he has to push through it a bit before swimming), and a demo of where he's at with "agility"work. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/flPt1UtENEs )
Today we are 13 weeks out from Jedi's TPLO surgery! Jedi is very much enjoying his continued freedoms and activity since being "released" by his surgeon last week. We traveled up to Indianapolis over the weekend, which included a hotel stay and our very first time back in a bed since Jedi's surgery. The dogs thought it was awesome, whereas I pretty much slept as well as I always do in hotels. We've been back in the bedroom since arriving home, though, and it's been very nice.
Note in the above photo that Jedi got his tug leash back. This makes him exceptionally happy. I switched him out to a leather leash at the beginning of his recovery to discourage him from his jumping/leaping/tugging habit, and he's been very good about not going after the leather. As soon as his fleece leash came back out he was a tugging fool. He really missed it.
We were able to take several nice walks on the streets around the trial facility during the day, but that was the extent of Jedi's rehab over the weekend. Thankfully we got home in time on Sunday that he could go swimming! He did get in lots and lots of tugging while ringside at the trial, too. The poor guy was ever so hopeful that he was going to get to go in the ring every time we came back inside the building.
This week has largely been about learning to let go. For the most part I'm letting Jedi go outside by himself now, although that's more self-serving than anything. He did one of his leap & spin maneuvers off the porch this morning, so I'm going to have to put him back into his harness for that first trip outside again. I didn't like that move even before he broke himself. Otherwise he's been pretty much free and only under verbal control (he is a good boy).
Here's the hair growth situation as of this morning. I comb through his coat most evenings during his massage & stretching sessions. Right now he's carrying about the least amount of coat that I've ever seen on him, but it helps to blend in the shaved bits.
I have been slowly reintroducing agility to Jedi, mostly with the goal of safely adding in speed again. I had a straight tunnel set for class on Monday night, so I recalled him through that a couple of times. This week I have recalled him over some 8" jumps a few times, and today we did 12". Everything is just in a straight line right now. I let Jedi do a teeter this afternoon and cringed a bit at the force with which it hit the ground. This evening we played around on the tiny training teeter that I have out for the beginners and I felt a lot better about that one. He's so happy to be playing again! We are entered in a trial in Ohio that is six weeks out, so we'll see if we're ready come then.
Here's our video from today. It's our morning walk, some of his morning workout for breakfast, and swimming. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/sz1Y85hg79I )
We are home from our vet visit with a glowing report! Dr. Wearing said that Jedi's bone is 100% healed and that he is released from all restrictions. I probably asked at least five times if he really meant ALL restrictions and each time he said yes, but that if we overdo it then it is likely that Jedi will be lame for a bit. I know that I'm going to struggle letting go all at once, so there will still be certain restrictions in place. When we got home today, though, Jedi got to be off leash while I prepped for class, and then I let the boys out the back gate to go potty. Jedi took off running to the weeds, and then (likely because I wouldn't let him this morning because I didn't want him to be wet for his appointment....) he went and jumped straight into the creek.
We discussed the toed-in gait and Dr. Wearing explained to me the mechanics of the CCL and why we're seeing that. Apparently there is another type of plate that claims to help stabilize the rotation of the leg, but it has a much higher incidence of causing infection and needing to be removed. Dr. Wearing feels like what we're experiencing now is normal, and the improvement that we've seen lately is proof that we're going in the right direction. He told me that someone I know had found a rehab specialist that he felt was a miracle worker, so I'm going to reach out to her and get some info on that.
But big news, I guess we all get to sleep in a bed tonight for the first time in 12 weeks. 😁
If Jedi looks happy in the above picture, it's likely because he's loving the continued increase in activity and privileges that come with being 12 weeks post op! Our xrays tomorrow will hopefully confirm bone healing, at which point we can start to do even more. I'm thinking we'll stay on leash for certain things, like going out doors and through gates, for some time, though. Mostly out of laziness, I have graduated Jedi to a flexi lead for some of our walks. I can't say he's really taken advantage of it, though, because he's still generally just moving at a walk or trot. He has loped short distances while off leash in the front or back yards, but I haven't allowed him to be in a situation where he would have the opportunity to run. He's been very well-behaved with his supervised off leash time.
It's possible that our daily exercises are finally starting to have an impact on the wobbly leg. On our walks today I really tried to get video of his leg at its worst, but it really wasn't that terrible today. I will take my phone with me tomorrow morning (provided it's not raining) so that I can catch it if he goes wobbly again, but right now I don't have a whole lot to show Dr. Wearing as a current example.
Here's a current side profile shot to show the progress we're making in blending in Jedi's hair! Much to his dismay, I continue to brush and comb him regularly because I feel like it helps to promote growth and tame down the wild stuff around the new growth. There is actual definition in his leg again, no more chicken leg for Jedi!
I have by and large been focusing almost exclusively on hind end strengthening exercises for our morning PT. Jedi is starting to rock the sit to stand with the front feet raised. We usually do it with the front feet on something stable like the giant disc or the donut. I did pivots again the other day and he really struggles with that. But really, so did Ren, so that's something we should work on.
I still plan to talk to Dr. Wearing about our PT options tomorrow to see if he has any opinions or suggestions, but I've asked around and have not received much response to whether or not we have any PT professionals who specialize in return to sport rehab. There are some online options that I can pursue, but then I would miss out on someone actually putting their hands on him.
Tomorrow afternoon we will hit the road for Indianapolis, where Ren will get to run in a USDAA trial this weekend. Jedi is along for the ride and I still have no idea what we're going to do about the sleeping arrangements. Do I have him sleep in the fleece harness and tie his leash to me to keep him on the bed? Do I pack an xpen and a dog bed and keep him on the floor? Hotel beds are just always so darn high...
Hopefully I'm able to jot off a quick blog post about our vet visit before we leave, as I am not planning on packing my laptop. Here is our video from today. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/WnLXqq16Njw )
Today we are at 11 weeks post op from Jedi's TPLO procedure. The once per week update seems reasonable these days given the overall repetitiveness of our daily routine. I had hoped to have a good update following our latest vet appointment, but I got a call earlier this week saying that Dr. Wearing wouldn't be in the office this week so we needed to reschedule. That was a bummer. I have a dentist appointment Thursday morning, so we will be going in on Friday next week. A 12-week followup seems standard for many, and hopefully it's just another week to solidify bone healing for us.
I had hoped that a good set of xrays would mean some additional activities for Jedi this week, but honestly, I've already gone ahead and increased his freedom about as much as should be allowed. He's doing well with house freedom, although today he scaled the couch and jumped into the dining room while I was in the bathroom, so I guess that's a thing again.... No more leaving him in the living room behind a baby gate. I've let him drag the leash a bit in the agility ring while I'm out there and he's been pretty good about things, and I've also started to tug with him some, which makes him very happy.
Our fun addition to the household is a pet scale! Now I don't have to wait for vet visits to get a weight, which I've been obsessing over during Jedi's recovery. The whole family is going to do regular weigh-ins, and now I can stop guessing at their weights. Jedi was 40.4lbs this morning, which means he's about where he was at for his 7-week vet appointment, and surely he's put on some muscle since then. One of these days I will have to wean him off the morning lickimat routine. I think staying in the 39-40 lb range is where we want to be, but it's hard to judge since he's going to lose muscle mass from being neutered at the same time as his TPLO.
Today's video includes our morning jog along with some walking to show the current level of instability that I'm still seeing. I will do an updated video prior to our vet appointment next week to show the vet, and to see if he feels that it would be appropriate to refer us to a physiotherapist. I also included some of our morning fitness stuff. We've also been doing rear paws up, side paws, and individual paw exercises, but I largely focus on "front paws up" to work on weight-shifting to the rear. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/vN_bMoDw9Pc )
It's been ten weeks since Jedi's TPLO surgery! Ten weeks seems like a literal lifetime, but yet I continue to have people remind me that "it's only been ten weeks." This week I put entries in the mail for an agility trial at the end of August, which was hard for me to do given that it seems like we have a long, long road ahead of us before we can even consider that. But then I realize that, given that the trial is 20 weeks post op, we are only halfway through our recovery and rehab to meet that date. Ten more weeks.... How much can change in ten more weeks?!
We are at the stage where I feel like things are changing at a snail's pace. Jedi has been doing well with all of his rehab exercises, but the leg continues to twist and bend in ways that really bother me (cue all of the people who say, "it's only been ten weeks"). At some point I feel like I should make an appointment with a rehab specialist down in Chattanooga just to get another opinion and a plan to move forward. Based on their website it seems like I need a referral to do that, though, so I figure I will wait until our followup appointment next week and ask Dr. Wearing.
As much as I'd hoped that this would be a celebratory "we're rocking it" post for the 10-week mark, we've taken a bit of a step back the last couple of days. It started yesterday, when I had Jedi in his outside pen while I worked Ren through the agility course I had set up for class. We have done this many times with no issues and I have no idea what might have happened, but when I came to collect Jedi for our trip down to the creek he was holding his leg up. As we walked towards the creek he was putting weight on it, but the twist was so bad. We still went down to the creek, but I didn't throw his toy for him. I let him carry it and swim around on his own, mostly to see if he was using his leg (he was). I iced his leg and did an extra light pad session yesterday afternoon. I also gave him some arnica.
Although he seemed to be doing well last night, I'd already planned to keep things low-key today. I kept us to a walk this morning instead of trotting our laps, but something was going on that had all of the dogs going nuts (deer in the thicket, maybe?) which resulted in a LOT of pulling from Jedi. Perhaps because of that, he was favoring his leg again later. I did let him swim today, but for a shorter period, and I cut out our normal p.m. walks. He just seemed very tired this afternoon, and when he's tired the wonky leg is always worse. My guess is that tomorrow morning we'll stick to a walk again. We're still doing the fitness routine for breakfast, too.
Today we are nine weeks out from Jedi's TPLO surgery! That seems like a crazy amount of time when you think of it. It also marks nine weeks of sleeping on the couch in the living room.... This week I sent entries for a USDAA trial in Indianapolis that will require two nights in a hotel over the 4th of July weekend. Clearly Jedi is not running at the trial, but I do plan to take him with. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to manage that one yet.
To celebrate the 9-week milestone, I've started to let Jedi have some free time outside of his xpen while supervised. For the most part I've kept him confined to the living room or have him in the office with me during a work meeting. I have a baby gate propped up against the couch to keep him from jumping up there, but he can get up there via the steps if he wishes (which he did once so far). The only "oh crap" moment we've had thus far is when it was time to lock the dogs up so that I could go out and teach a lesson. When Jedi saw me reaching towards the treat jar he ran down the hallway and used the ramp to go up onto the bed. I mean, I guess it's good that he used the ramp.... Since then I've been sure to put him into his pen before grabbing for the treats.
The goal of the extra free time is to encourage more use of the leg in situations where he's not all hyped up about going for a walk or a swim, and where his gait is not influenced by myself or the leash. Jedi is not generally one to pace about a room so he's not been super active during his free time, but I've been happy to see that he seems to be putting weight on it well when standing.
We've taken it a bit easy the last couple of days because I was just getting the feeling that Jedi was tired and we were doing too much. Between the jogging, the fitness work, the hills, and swimming I do think we might overdo it some days. Yesterday we walked our four laps and did not get to go for a swim due to rain and high water in the creek. This morning I let Jedi do "intervals" on our morning walk, in that I didn't jog, but I let Jedi trot to the end of the leash, reeled him in as he walked, and then let him trot on again. The water cleared up today, so the boys did get to go for a swim again this afternoon.
Here is our 9-week video from today, just a gait analysis video for this one. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/OvupXsatu8c )
There is not a lot to share, this is just a midweek check-in. Plus we're on day 60 and who doesn't like round numbers?
Most days are a carbon copy of the last. The weather has been a bit warmer and a bit more humid, which might be affecting the dogs' energy levels a bit. Even Ren seemed a bit done in this weekend so we didn't push too hard and took things easy. For the most part, though, we're still jogging four laps in the morning and getting in a 5 minute swim each day. The hill work seems to come and go. If Jedi seems tired (or his leg seems tired) then I forgo it.
We're still dealing with the twist as Jedi walks, which stems from him toeing in and stepping too far under his body. Interestingly, during his nightly massage sessions he also still tries to tuck that leg in tight and crosses his right lower leg under the left. I can still manipulate his stride to get him to place his foot straight, and he strides out wider on his own when he's pulling like a freight train (like on the way to the creek), so I'm still hoping that this will go away with time and the return of his muscle. It sure is a long process, though. On the other hand, I realized today that if the goal is to return to an agility trial after 20 weeks, we aren't even halfway there yet....
I have a couple of videos today. One is snippets from our morning fitness session, in which I chopped off Jedi's head in most of the clips.... (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/fGLRTE9O3fI )
The other video is just our standard progress update video -- trotting, walking, and swimming, since we do it every day! (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/SKI6z1cGveE )
Today is eight weeks since Jedi had his TPLO surgery. As you can see by the above picture, his hair is finally starting to come back in! There is even some "floof" starting to grow in his pants area. That shaved bit on the top of his back is going to take a good bit of time to grow out long enough to where it starts to blend in better. It's still quite a chunk out of his top line.
Routine-wise, we've made a couple of recent adjustments. Because our morning walk includes a lot of trotting, we're now doing a fifth lap. For the record, the fact that I am RUNNING behind my dog is proof that I love him. 😂 This morning I at least put on tennis shoes. Trying to jog behind him in my garden shoes was getting difficult. Sadly for me, Jedi is getting used to me running. It used to be that he'd be trotting along and then realize I was running behind him, so he'd whip around all excited. This gave me a chance to stop and catch my breath. lol He's doing that a lot less now, which means fewer breaks for me. Oh well, it's good for both of us.
The other change to our routine is the addition of fitness work at meal times. I brought some of my FitPaws stuff into the house along with a rubber bucket/pedestal. I also bought a couple of foam balance pads. At the trial this past weekend I had a good discussion with a physiotherapist about how small micro movements of the muscles are what we're looking for right now to improve balance, strength, and proprioception. Not big jarring movements like I was doing with the wobble board.
Right now I'm mixing and matching a lot, trying to find the best combination and to work different muscle groups. We definitely get the best stance when I use a target for both front and back. The most challenging part for Jedi is stillness. We are not good at not moving. I signed up for an online fitness program (for the dog....) and am looking forward to learning a bit more about this. It is not specifically geared towards rehab, but any general knowledge about canine fitness will surely help us. I'm really focusing on Ren as well. Jedi's rehab work has opened my eyes to a lot of weaknesses in Ren's structure and movement. I don't want to go through this again!
Otherwise our routine is more or less the same. We have our morning walk followed by mid-morning hill work. Jedi continues to enjoy our afternoon swims in the creek. I probably should have skipped it today due to how much rain we got, as the creek was pretty high and fast when we went down this afternoon. Because swimming against the current took significantly more effort than usual, I did shorten their swimming time today. We've been doing 5-6 solid minutes of swimming, which is quite a lot with no break. It varies whether or not we go for another walk after my classes at night. We did today because I still needed to get video of Jedi's gait, but now that we're also doing another fitness session with dinner it could get to be a lot. While the leg continues to get stronger and his gait has definitely improved, when he gets tired there is still a bit of laxity and twisting in the leg as he walks.
Here is our video from today. It's a longer one because it covers trotting, swimming, stair work, and some of his fitness stuff. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/wkbw2cBGu28 )
Jedi's PT routine was pretty disrupted this weekend, but I don't think he minded too much because he got to tag along to an agility trial. Granted, the majority of his time was spent in the van, but the weather was mostly nice and I'm sure he appreciates the change of scenery. We got 2" of rain on Friday, though, which meant the creek was too high to swim that day. Then yesterday it was only in the 50s, so no swimming again because of that. It was only about 67 when I got home today, but we went swimming because poor Jedi deserved it.
On Friday and Saturday we were able to get in our morning walk due to late enough start times at the trial. Jedi has moved up to 4 laps around the property, mostly because we're now moving at a much faster pace. Now that Jedi is allowed to trot, he wants to trot EVERYWHERE. He's going to make me take up running.
We did lots of walking at the trial all weekend as well, over a variety of terrain. We even went inside and did a couple of laps in the dirt warmup ring, although I don't think it was deep enough to provide much of an additional workout. There were some curbs, but I think they were too high to do "curb work." We are doing stairs now, very slowly, one controlled step at a time. Speaking of control..... When Jedi and I got back from our first walk on Friday I had my back turned to him while I was getting his water bowl ready. Suddenly Jedi was next to me. In the van. He jumped up! I watched him much closer the rest of the weekend. He really hates being picked up.
Jedi was a good boy while we watched some agility runs, although he did try to get my attention often by offering tricks. His favorite one right now is his "wee-wee" trick, which I am rewarding generously for the reason that it's doing great things to help shift all of his weight onto his right hind. I included some of it in today's video, although the angle is really pretty bad and you can't get a full appreciation for it.
In other news, Jedi is totally off of his post-surgery meds now!
Today marks the 7 week mark following Jedi's TPLO surgery. Routine-wise, nothing changed this past week. Our morning walk has been 3 laps (15-20 minutes), with a mid-morning hill walk and an afternoon creek walk. Probably the most notable thing has been our reduction in meds. Earlier this week I started to only give Jedi his Gabapentin and Trazodone at noon (half of a T, 100mg G). Today I pushed it back to about 3:00 p.m. (that was more of an accident, really). Tomorrow maybe I'll give it at bedtime, and then I think that will be it.
Our followup appointment at the vet was this morning. Jedi weighed in at 40.8 lbs, so he has put on just over two pounds in the last four weeks. Some of it is getting his muscle back, but I do think the lickimats are probably catching up to us now. I have already started to cut his food back a bit more.
They decided to go ahead and try to do Jedi's xrays without sedation. I had no reservations about their ability to get him to behave on the table, but man did I cringe as the tech walked him out of the room (and then again back in) and he was scrambling and sliding all over the tile floor. Dr. Wearing said that everything looks good and that the hardware is still firmly in place and doing its job, but that Jedi's bone healing is not advanced as we would hope to see at this stage. He said it's not concerning, just that it's a bit slow. I have to admit that this kind of kicked me in the gut a bit. Jedi has excelled at everything in life, so I guess I just assumed that we were going to get an A+ report at the vet today.
I told Dr. Wearing my concerns about Jedi's twisty leg, which seems to have been getting more twisty in the last couple of days. I've still been able to control it with pressure against his harness, but this morning it seemed to persist no matter how slow we went. Dr. Wearing wasn't concerned and said it was just lack of muscle to hold the leg straight throughout the stride. He really wants us to focus on building strength and muscle over the coming weeks. We have the go-ahead to start doing actual swimming (lots of it!) as well as adding trotting on leash. Our next followup appointment will be in four weeks and we'll do xrays again.
We wasted no time following the doctor's orders. I brought a bumper along on our afternoon creek walk and we went to the spot where we normally turn around because it starts getting deep. I kept the throws short to keep Jedi from jumping after it or trying to swim too fast (there is a current, after all) and kept him swimming by tossing it out again as soon as he brought it back. I didn't do this for too terribly long, probably less than 5 minutes, because I don't want to overdo things right away. Jedi loved it so much! It's the first time he's gotten to play in the last 7 weeks. I let him trot on leash on our last walk of the day and I think things are looking pretty good. Maybe I've been going the wrong way by slowing him down to fix the wonky twist, as it seemed better when I let him walk really fast to encourage the trot.
Not much has changed in our world, so there hasn't been much to report of late. We are continuing the process of weaning Jedi off his meds and that's going fine. I started to cut the Trazodone in half yesterday, so he's now getting that 1/2 pill along with the 100mg Gabapentin twice a day. In the next day or two I think I'll switch that to once a day at noon or so.
We had a lot of outdoor time again this weekend and Jedi got to hang out in his outdoor pen. He's always a good boy while I'm doing yard work, and even though he tends to take a nap I think he appreciates the change of scenery.
Our daily creek walks continue to be the highlight of Jedi's day. He's doing well with his 3 laps in the morning, and this morning I added the extra loop through my parent's yard. I imagine we'll go up to 4 laps soon enough. I took a day or so off hill work in favor of the other PT stuff we were doing, but we returned to the hill for a couple of laps today. I'm starting to feel muscle definition returning to Jedi's leg again. We're almost out of our first bag of Myos, so I did go ahead and order a second one to keep him on it through this phase of his recovery.
It has been six weeks since Jedi's TPLO surgery and we are trucking right along in our rehab program. Someone at work today made the comment that it seems like time has flown and that she didn't think it had been that long. I feel much the opposite and this has become such a way of life for us that I feel like we've been doing it forever.
The above photo was taken sitting inside Jedi's pen with him today. 😄 We took care of some grooming needs today and it was the easiest way to tackle it. I trimmed nails after our hill walk this morning, and then this afternoon I tried to tackle Jedi's foot floof with the scissors and then brushed him on our next trip out. I'm going to need to get some trimming sheers to tackle those feet, assuming Jedi still won't let me near him with the clippers. He wasn't a fan of the scissors at first, either, but he did finally give in. Too bad they stink at cutting hair.
Jedi got to spend some extra time outside today, as I decided to sit out on the deck for a couple of work meetings this morning. I put him into his pen around 9:45 and then took him for his hill walk at 10:30, after my meeting let out. We only did one lap around the hill today because Jedi was just dragging. I guess his meds had kicked in and he hadn't gotten his usual morning nap. I put him back in the outside pen until around 11:30 or so when my next meeting let out.
Jedi hung out for a bit while I worked Ren briefly after lunch, and then we went for our creek walk. With the water being down as much as it is, I've been experimenting with whether there might be an easier way to get out. The way I've been going is great for going down, but Jedi has not been patient and it has resulted in more scrambling than I prefer when going back up. Yesterday I tried walking all the way down to the corner and we still encountered about a 10' section where Jedi had to swim to get across. Today we tried the halfway point where I was able to lift him onto the rock and have him wait while I got out. It wasn't terrible, he probably used his leg less than he does on the other spot. Patience and going slow is not a strength of ours....
Because my classes got combined tonight and didn't start until later, I decided to put together Jedi's 6 week video beforehand. We did the wobble board with the biggest ball under it, we played with the FitPaws stuff, and we did some serpentines around cones. I think his gait looks a bit off in the video for two reasons -- the hair adds some weird optical illusion, and he was more worried about looking up at me than striding forward. The regular walking is from just after that. I think we did a bit much today, though, because he was a little wobbly when he poo'd after dinner. Because of that, I didn't take him for a post-dinner walk tonight. I figured we'd done enough for the day.
One more week until xrays and our next followup visit!
