TPLO Day 63

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 )