As we end 2024 and look forward to 2025, I feel I owe an explanation regarding my absence from blog postings and photos...
My absence from blogging began around the week of August 18th. Sometime early that week, or perhaps late the previous week, my puppy (she’s actually an 8-year-old rescue dog; I still call her “puppy”) hurt her left leg, probably while running.
As I mentioned, Harley is a rescue dog, a bit skittish and afraid of a lot of things, like loud noises. I found her at a rescue dog adoption event which is held regularly at a local PetSmart (Cats and Dogs for Adoption: PetSmart Saves Lives). I was told that Harley, along with her seven littermates, were rescued from a dumpster in Houston, Texas. The callousness of people to load eight puppies into a cardboard box and dump them into a garbage bin is beyond me. Well, my daughter talked me into going to the adoption event, even though I was adamant that I would not buy a dog.
I made the mistake of allowing my 17 y.o. (at that time) daughter, Taylor, to browse the numerous cages of various sized dogs. She found Harley, a scared little puppy huddled in the back of her small cage, not liking all the people and all the noise.
Harley and Taylor took to each other at first sight.
So, here I am eight years later… Harley and me (perhaps I was the one who was rescued).
These days, we typically go on a long walk every morning, about 3 miles, and at a couple of points on the walk she is off-leash and able to run through the fields. Harley has matured to be a medium sized puppy, about 48 lbs. and very lean… and man does she love to run! You can see her joy in running at top speed through the prairie grasses, it’s what she lives for, and it’s what she has missed for the last 4 months.
Early the week of August 18th, I noticed her favoring her left leg, at times barely touching her paw to the ground. On August 22nd, I took Harley to the veterinarian (not her favorite place to visit) for an examination of her left leg. Her vet is West Ridge Animal Hospital, in west Greeley, Colorado (Animal Hospital | West Ridge Animal Hospital | Greeley). They were very thorough with their exam, including X-rays. The diagnosis was torn cranial cruciate ligament behind her left knee. The vet provided me with a comprehensive exam report, diagnosis, and several remedies. So, now my online research began…
After several days of online research and evaluation of the various prescribed remedies from bracing the leg (two recommended types of braces) to three different types of surgeries. I decided to go with the type of surgery discussed with the vet during the August 22nd appointment. It’s called Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy (TPLO) (Tibial-plateau-leveling osteotomy - Wikipedia) and has the highest percentage of success and recovery. Once I made the decision, I called the vet and scheduled Harley’s surgery for September 26th.
Now, my challenge was to keep her relatively quiet for about 3 weeks leading up to her surgery, while still getting her some exercise so that her leg muscles don’t atrophy due to her favoring the leg.
The big day arrived quickly, and again Harley finds herself walking into her least favorite place. I dropped her off around 7:00am that morning and she had her surgery before Noon. The surgeon called me after Harley was in recovery and gave me a bit of a verbal report on the success of the surgery. Two days later, the surgeon sent me a written report including treatment and recovery procedures for week 1 through week 12 – yes, a 12-week recovery from the TPLO surgery.
Since the surgery was considered a success, I won’t bore you with the details from the Surgery Report (some instruction items below I copied from the Surgery Report, prepared by the surgeon, Dr. Jennifer Fick, DVM). The Surgery Report and the recovery procedure instructions are 4 pages and very detailed instructions from minimal movement in week 1 (keeping her in a kennel was recommended, ha-ha – not happening) to using a harness with handles to lift her. Initially, stairs are out of the question and no jumping up to lay on the couch.
The first two weeks were the most difficult and all about strict exercise restriction, very confusing for my little rescue dog who loves to run… absolutely no running, jumping, or stairs. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to put Harley in a wire kennel, I gave up and kept her harnessed and leashed at all times. It was the only way I could ensure her exercise restrictions.
Antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs were prescribed and given 2 to 3 times each day. The vet also gave Harley a “lamp shade” to wear to keep her from licking the incision. Since she never tried to lick the incision, I didn’t have her wear the lamp shade… she hated that contraption. The incision healed well and needed no attention except for applying a cold/ice pack as recommended in the instructions, to minimize swelling.
At the end of week two, the vet removed the staples and examined the incision site and the knee. Harley was healing nicely and the exercise restrictions continued.
During weeks two through six the strict exercise restrictions continued. Harley and I began to do short walks outside, gradually increasing to about a mile in distance and more than one walk in the day, if she seemed up to it. Harley showed no signs of any lameness and never favored her left leg. At the end of week six, the vet did a thorough exam and took X-rays to check the bone healing progress. Harley’s healing was progressing well and I was told to continue what I was doing.
Weeks six through ten saw Harley get some off-leash freedom in the house, and she was even allowed to do stairs. The leash was still used religiously outdoors especially for all her daily walks.
Even though I increased her walking distance to over three miles, Harley never exhibited any favoring of her left leg or any hint of lameness.
At the end of week eleven, we went in for Harley’s last post-op follow-up exam. Primarily, for me, this exam/evaluation was to find out if she could spend some time off-leash when outdoors.
At her appointment on December 12th the vet did a physical exam, and they took X-rays and sent them to the surgeon for her review and evaluation. After the exam, the vet said I could taper Harley off the two anti-inflammatory drugs she was still taking. That afternoon I received an email from the surgeon and the vet explaining:
“Dr. Fick agrees that Harley's x-rays of her left knee look great and she's healed well -- she has no concerns at this time. I'm ok with her going back to normal activity and continuing with the medication taper that we discussed earlier today.”
From the day following the message from the vet Harley has been getting more and more off-leash time during our morning walks and my little rescue dog is loving the opportunity to run again… first time in 4-months.
This has been my life for the past four months. I am glad I was able to take care of Harley and assist in her having a full and successful surgery and recovery.
My best friend is running again…
Hope everyone has a Happy, Prosperous New Year!!!
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