TPLO Day 16

I know I said yesterday that I should start to spread my posts out, but I'm bad at taking days off. That said, that's pretty much what we did today. It was raining when we got up this morning and continued to rain for much of the morning. Jedi still got his pre-breakfast walk in, but I didn't take everyone else out in the rain for their usual walk. This meant Jedi didn't get left in the house, so he was pretty okay with this. We all got in lots of naps today.

The only PT exercises that I did with Jedi today were some series of sit/stand during a midday walk. His sit is looking very nice and balanced. Since it had stopped raining I figured I owed the other dogs their walk, too. I set Jedi up in his outdoor xpen and gave him a lickimat to keep him busy for a while. He seemed happy with this arrangement and the only outburst we had was when I exchanged the big dogs for little. For some reason this has always caused him to go for one of the balls, bark, and run the fence line. Not having access to his balls or running, Jedi instead tried to grab at the lickimat out of frustration. I told him to knock it off and he settled for the rest of their walk.

After an afternoon nap I stuck Jedi out in the pen again where he hung out while I weed whacked for a bit. I have more yard work to do tomorrow so he'll probably get to spend a bit of time out there again. It should be a little warmer finally, so I might have to rig up a shade cloth for him.

The knee looks great. I try not to get dismayed by how much Jedi is still off-loading his weight onto the left leg, especially while in his pen. I know that's normal. I think it just bothers me so much because I'm worried it's going to make the other leg go bad. Tomorrow we'll return to some weight shifting exercises. He did stand his full weight on the right leg to pee again, so there is that!

During one of our normal indoor PT sessions I spent the time giving Jedi one of his full body massages along with the light pad -- basically our normal routine pre-TPLO. I know that this has been hard on the rest of his body as it compensates for the bad leg, so I'm going to try to focus more on this now. It took the place of one of his icing sessions, but I believe that inflammation has gone down enough that icing is not the priority that it once was.

Here's today's video, we're back to the regular walking video for this one. Looking good!  (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/y0Tj24EudnA )

TPLO Day 15

It may be time to start spreading posts out, as I don't expect there to be as much day-to-day change going forward. There are only so many ways to say, "Jedi was a good boy."   :)  He has been doing well, though, and has accepted the whole being left in the house while I walk the dogs routine. Kaiser doesn't mind it, either, as I've been giving him the other lickimat in the crate next to Jedi while I take Ren & Secret out. Then I give Secret the mat from the crate when I take the Klee Kai out, and she lays right in front of Jedi's pen while we're out.

Jedi has gone over 24 hours without the blow up collar now. In looking at (what was) his suture line, I have a hard time imagining that he could do any damage there. He also hasn't really been paying it any attention, so we should be good.

We may have overdone it on the PT stuff today. In our mid-afternoon session I noticed things like Jedi's sit was getting progressively more sloppy. When I got him out of his pen for his last heat/massage/laser session of the day he was not putting his right foot down, although he was using it again when we were done. It's supposed to rain most of the day tomorrow, so we'll likely be forced into a day of rest.

Here's video of our mid-afternoon session today. Again, probably little point in doing these videos EVERY day at this point.  (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/o8XLI3yLyEU )

TPLO Day 14

 
Today marks two weeks since Jedi had his TPLO surgery. Each week is a milestone because it marks another week towards recovery and we get to add in more activity. Jedi's walks are creeping up on ten minutes now, in which we essentially do one slow lap of our property. Today I went and grabbed the head halter out of the van. It's been quite some time since Jedi has worn this, as he and Ren really only wore it for a time as puppies. After briefly trying to rub it off at the start of our midday walk, Jedi accepted the head halter and our walk was SO MUCH better. He actually walked slowly at my side. I'm glad for this because I was worrying about how much he was pulling in the harness, along with the fact that he wasn't walking well because he was gorging himself on grass spit out from the mower.

Jedi's incision is looking fantastic. He's been out of his collar since our pre-lunch walk. I left it off of him on purpose then since I was in the house and able to watch him. I fully intended to put it back on when I went out for class tonight, but I completely forgot. I scrolled through the camera footage from the two hours I was outside and I didn't see him licking at his leg even once. Earlier today he seemed to enjoy scratching at his ears and neck a bit, and once he went after the bare spot on his back, but I haven't seen him show interest in the incision spot at all. I'm thinking he may get to go naked from here on out.

That poor naked chicken leg... Up close you can see hair starting to grow in, but from a distance things still look pretty bad. I also still need to tackle Jedi with a brush, but I did get his nails trimmed today! Following his afternoon PT exercises I sat with him in the outdoor xpen and got it done. He was a good boy.

We got refills of Gabapentin and Trazodone today. I called the vet clinic yesterday, planning ahead before we ran out this time. I figured it would be best to keep him on it until we see Dr. Wearing next week at the very least. We ran out of the post-surgery Deramaxx this morning, but I have that on hand and will keep him on that as well.

Our video today is of our afternoon PT session, following a walk around the back. We walked over ground poles and we did a figure eight pattern around a couple of cones. (Video for mobile: https://youtu.be/GkbSFR9qBDg )

TPLO Day 13

Poor naked Jedi! I felt bad for him today, given that he is missing hair on 25% of his body. It was in the low 30s when we walked this morning and never got above the low 40s today. I'm sure he was fine and doesn't care, but I have to believe that the cold has to make the leg ache. I know it never helps my arm with the hardware in it. I didn't put his coat on for a quick potty trip after dinner and it seemed like he was hesitant to put his leg down again after he peed. I made it up to him with a hot pack treatment to the leg when we got back inside. Of course I'm freezing and am heating up the house with the fireplace. Jedi is camped in front of his fan like usual.

I still haven't gone after the crusty bits around the suture line. That's on my list of things to do, along with a much-needed nail trim. Our routine is normally to do nails outside, though, so that definitely wasn't happening today. Grooming-wise, Jedi is just a hot mess right now. He dislikes brushing so much, though, that I haven't yet tackled that. That poor bald spot on his butt is going to take forever to fill in....

It was quite windy last night, so I put away the pool noodle cavaletti that I had left out from the Monday class. Today I replaced it with 5 jump bars. These are obviously heavier and move around less than the pool noodles, but also have a lower profile so that he doesn't have to raise his leg as high to step over them. It might be a good idea to cut a slit in the pool noodles to slide them over the jump bars at some point to increase the height and difficulty.

We also included more hip sways in our PT routine. Maybe tomorrow I'll start to do 3-legged standing. I'm mostly just looking for ways to get Jedi to put more weight on the bad leg while standing. He seems fine while walking, but continues to offload weight while standing. It's shocking how out of balance his two leg muscles are already. I'm sure a lot of what I'm feeling is all of the hair on the left leg, but there is definitely less definition in the right leg. It's amazing how quickly that can happen. I have Jedi on a supplement called Myos that is supposed to help prevent muscle wasting, but I probably should have started him sooner. He also just started something called Ligaplex II that is supposed to support ligaments and hopefully keep the other one from going.

Here's our walking video from today, complete with winter coat! (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/H1pNSEJNiAs )

TPLO Day 12

We're on day 12 and really, there isn't much to report today. Jedi is pictured here without his blow up collar, but we had a couple of mishaps with that today. It would seem that he's okay to go without it from dinner to bedtime because he generally just sleeps during that time. This morning I was lazy about putting it on while I got dressed and while I was making lunch, and both times I came back into the living room and he was licking his knee. I guess that tells me that we aren't ready to get rid of the collar yet.

I still haven't gone after the crusty bits around the suture line. Some of it seemed to fall off today, or maybe Jedi took care of it during those brief licking sessions.... At any rate, it's still looking good. Jedi still isn't a fan of hip stretches, and sometimes he would rather roll around on the rug than sit for his PT stuff, but for the most part he usually falls asleep during it. Lately the routine has been heat after the first walk, ice after the second, ice after the third, and then we finish our day with the heat again. We're also doing 20-30 total minutes of laser per day.

Jedi is enjoying our walks. Including the time it takes to have him go potty in the front yard, we're probably out there for close to ten minutes now. I had some pool noodles set out as cavaletti from class last night and on a couple of our trips I had Jedi try his hand at walking over them. That's technically a "week 3" physical therapy task, but he's been doing great and I'm sure he's ready. These are totally unsecured and easy to knock around, but I thought he did very well stepping over them and putting weight on the bad leg. We also did more hip sways during our indoor PT to encourage a weight shift onto the right leg.
 

I let Jedi hang out in the outdoor xpen while I built a course for class tonight. My parents were out there helping me and Jedi hasn't seen them since his surgery -- and I asked them not to go say hello to him because I don't trust that he wouldn't jump up to try to say hello. I'm not sure if it was because of them or just because I was setting up agility stuff, but man did he cry and carry on. When we were done building I took Jedi and Ren on a trip around the back, went into the house and did Jedi's icing, and then left everyone in the house while I took Ren out to run the course. Jedi seems to have accepted his fate of staying in the house and seems particularly fine if he's not the only dog left in there.

Here's our day 12 video. Still looking good. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/sn9GvkBX4MU )

TPLO Day 11

 

 
I think my main comment for today is, "If this is the behavior I'm seeing while Jedi is still drugged up, I'm not looking forward to the day when we are off everything." Don't get me wrong, he's being a good boy in the house and in his pen, but he's definitely getting a bit more worked up on his walks. I've had to take to looping part of the leash around his neck and holding on to that along with the part that goes to the harness. This has been my go-to for "control" at busy agility trials. It has been keeping him in check and preventing him from trying to flail at the end of the leash. He's also starting to get a lot more excited when all of the other dogs set off. As expected, the worst time is when it's time to go outside after my classes are done. I might need to play with order of letting out and make everyone else stay in while I take Jedi out.

I feel like we're so close to being totally healed with the incision, although the crusty stuff is driving me nuts. Maybe tomorrow I'll dab at it a bit with some alcohol or something. I figure I should at least be able to go at that large chunk at the bottom. Jedi is still wearing the blow up collar most of the time. I left him naked after his last PT session tonight to see how he does. The thing he went after the hardest was the naked spot on his butt. I've given him a couple of "eh-eh" noises to divert his attention away when he starts sniffing at his leg, but he's not trying to lick. He'll sleep in the collar, but I thought it would be nice to give him a little time out of it.

Little by little I keep seeing improvements with the hip stretches. I'm also feeling a lot more mobility and less resistance coming from the knee, so that's good. Today I introduced hip sways to our routine. I just have Jedi stand facing away from me and then gently push his hip back and forth to encourage him to put weight on the right leg. He wants to look over his right shoulder at me and not put any weight on that side at all, but when I get him to straighten out or look back over his left shoulder then he seems to not have any problems with this exercise. He stood on his right leg to pee again today, too.

Here's our video from today. These are becoming a little non-exciting, but I'll keep it up through the 14 day mark for sure. Then I may transition to videoing some PT stuff like figure-eights, cavaletti, etc. We're closing in on that two-week time table where we get to do more of that. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/OylR7qI-T74 ) 

TPLO Day 10

Jedi got to go on another field trip today, as we returned to Watertown for Ren to run in the AKC trial. We lucked out and got the same parking spot under a tree where we parked on Friday. I'm glad everyone else is too lazy to want to walk "that far" and didn't take it.  :)  I was slightly concerned by some of the noises coming from Jedi's crate in the last few miles of our ride. Given his history of seizures, my first concern was that he might be having one (I mostly heard the blow-up collar scraping against the crate). When we arrived and I checked in on him, though, it appeared as though he had just done a lot of "re-arranging" and the crate pad and towel were all bunched up. He really hates being hot and forced into laying on bedding....

While Jedi was once again very well behaved, I do wonder if we may have overdone it a bit these last few days. We're walking well (although still pulling on the leash altogether too much), but as the day has worn on Jedi is choosing to put less weight on the leg when not in motion. That said, there were at least two instances today where he again put all of his weight on the right leg to pee. I'm glad we have several more days of pain meds. The last dose of cephalexin was given with dinner this evening.

I think the surgery incision is looking fantastic! While I didn't specifically ask her to look at Jedi's incision, when I asked our vet friend at the trial today how to know when it's okay to go without the cone/collar, her comment was that the #1 reason that TPLOs fail is because dogs get at their incision and compromise the plate. She recommends that dogs stay in the cone a minimum of two weeks. We can certainly continue on that path since Jedi really has done well in the blow up collar, although you can kind of see in the top picture how gross it's starting to get. It gets food stuff on it when he gets the lickimat, so it's smeared in peanut butter and pumpkin.

Here's Jedi's video from day ten, once again taken during one of his walks in Watertown today.  (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/VA8RDw8-Efo ) 

TPLO Day 9

Things continue to move in the right direction. While Jedi does seem to initially come out of his pen a bit stiff-legged in the mornings, he does seem to warm up and walk out of it relatively quickly. Knowing this, I made it a point this morning to take him on one of his 5-minute walks straight away before breakfast. We circled around the edge of the property along the creek and Jedi thoroughly enjoyed taking in all of the sniffs. When we walk he doesn't lift his nose off the ground, although it's a tossup if it's because of smells or his ravenous appetite for dried/mowed grass...

We did our second walk around 10:30 a.m., followed by another session of PT and a nap. I had to make a run into town for some stuff, including Jedi's CBD oil, so I elected to take him along since he seemed to do well in the crate yesterday. Due to a crazy amount of traffic and a long holdup in the checkout at Lowe's, we ended up being gone almost two hours. He was ready to get out and seemed a bit hot. He did have the fan on him yesterday, I'll give him that.

When we got home I dragged out my last and tallest x-pen to set up Jedi's "summer home." The dogs are used to spending a lot of time outside in the summer, just hanging out in the front & back yards while I'm out doing yard work like weed whacking and mowing. I would feel exceptionally guilty to keep Jedi locked inside by himself all of those hours, so I figured I could set him up with an outdoor xpen. It was cool out today, only 60 degrees and overcast, so I put it right out in the middle of the backyard. Going forward I can throw a shade cloth over it on warmer days, but I do figure that Jedi would rather be in the grass than up on the deck or something. We were out there a couple of hours after getting home from running errands. Every time I looked over it looked like Jedi was probably just sleeping. Normally he hangs out under the deck while I'm mowing, though, so not really much different.

Here's our video from today. I may not continue the daily walking video after the two week mark, as there really isn't a lot more progress to report on at the moment. He's walking really well!  (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/HjHaAZr5YWs )

TPLO Day 8

 

Jedi got to go on a field trip today! Today was a Novice/Open day of AKC in Watertown and I had a lot of students making their trial debut. I also had agreed to run one of my student's dogs for her, as she had two dogs in Novice and it would be a lot to handle. This plan was in place before I knew that Jedi would be having surgery. Knowing that there were plenty of concerns surrounding leaving him home and having my mom come deal with his routine, I figured the best plan would be to take Jedi along. He'd be in a crate anyhow, and I would have time to do his PT between classes.

Jedi LOVED having a change of scenery today. He was a very good boy. I had Ren along as well and both boys stayed in the van until after the Novice JWW class was done, probably close to 10:00? I got Jedi out of the van for his first 5 minute walk, which was mostly spent wandering around the pasture eating grass and some cow (?) poop. I brought my big mat along, so we parked there in the shade under a tree for an icing session, massage, and laser. He went back into his crate while I took Ren for a walk and went back into the trial, and then I came out and we did it again around 1:00. He got his Trazodone at 2:00, and we left for home around 3:00. He definitely seems a bit tired out tonight, it was a big day for someone eight days post major surgery I'm sure. I'm glad he enjoyed it and did well, though, because we will be going back on Sunday for when Ren gets to run.

We continue to have improvement in the hip stretch! Jedi is also offering full stretches on his own even more. He seems to do the best following a session with heat vs ice, which makes sense, although he still seems to enjoy the icing more than the heat. This also makes sense given that he seems to live in front of the fan 95% of the time now. That's where he is now, and in the van he was curled up right in front of it every time I checked on him. I wonder if all these meds he's on makes him run hot?

Oh! I almost forgot the biggest news of the day! One one of our walks at the trial Jedi stood all of his weight on the right/bad leg to lift his left leg to pee! My jaw dropped and I couldn't react fast enough to document it.  lol  That's amazing progress!

Here's our video from today, while walking around the pasture at the trial. You can see his big smile at the end, showing how happy he was to be somewhere different.  (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/YlqxW_ZBpVM )

TPLO Day 7

 

 

We made it a week! Today seemed to be a good day for Jedi. I changed things up again for my walk with Ren & Secret this morning and it seemed to work. Once again Kaiser went into the crate next to Jedi, and I put up the crate screen to block their view outside through the patio door. I gave Jedi a non-frozen lickimat with peanut butter and canned dog food, and then I took Ren and Secret out the FRONT door instead of the patio door. Maybe this worked better for him or maybe Jedi is just accepting things, but when I checked in on him with the camera he stayed settled the whole time. After he finished the mat he just laid down.

 

 

The suture line is looking good, especially that top part right at the knee. I got distracted by work stuff following one of our PT sessions this morning and stuck him back in the xpen without his collar on, and when I looked over there a short time later he was licking at it. So I guess that answers that, we're not ready to get rid of the collar yet. I put him in the cone during my class tonight just to be safe.

 

Today we officially started our five minute walks. We did three of them, and they pretty much consisted of walking down the front fence line and back, followed by a couple of trips up and down the driveway. Jedi has always been terrible on leash and I am concerned about the amount of pulling he's doing. Surely that must put pressure on the hind legs, right? I may have to pull out the head halter to walk him in for a while. That said, he seemed so happy to have a change of pace in his boring daily schedule and also seemed to sleep a bit more today.

Finally, we actually seemed to make some progress on his hip stretches today! For the most part he's still defaulting to clutching his knee into his side when he lays down, but I was able to get him to stretch it out several times today. The main struggle now seems to be his desire to just roll around on the rug on his back grunting. I mean, he does tend to stretch out his leg when he does it, so there is that, but I think he's just trying to get out of PT.

Our medication schedule is bonkers these days...

Breakfast (6:00/6:30 a.m.): Deramaxx, Cephalexin, Trazodone
8:00 a.m.: Gabapentin
9:00 a.m.: Phenobarbital
2:00 p.m.: Gabapentin
Dinner (5:30/6:00 p.m.) Cephalexin
8:00 p.m.: Gabapentin
9:00 p.m.: Phenobarbital

If nothing else, Jedi thinks it's pretty sweet to get canned food 7 times a day... I feel like he's getting practically nothing at dinner time to compensate. It will be interesting to get his weight at the next vet appointment. I took more off of him than I was expecting before surgery, so we have some wiggle room.

Here's our day 7 video. Jedi is still favoring the leg in his pen, but is pretty much using it once we start heading outside. Every now and then he'll go back to three legs outside for some reason, but if I slow him down enough he'll start using it again.  (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/GMDW0wovXoU )

I also decided to compile our first week progress into one video so that I can better appreciate how far we've come already. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/Fk2gtvPPgpY )