One More Week!

One more week until Riley’s 8 week follow-up appointment after her TPLO knee surgery.  Hopefully she’ll get off of strict crate rest and be allowed to roam the house.  I read online somewhere that you have to keep your dog from running and jumping for 16 weeks…shoot me now!  I’m hoping her X-rays will show that her bone is 100% healed and she’ll be able to slowly work back up to normal activity.  We’ve followed all the instructions to a T, so we’ll see if all of our hard work has paid off.

Her appointment is next Wednesday, December 14th, at 9:00 AM.  I can’t wait to see how well she’s healing because in MY humble opinion, she’s doing great!

Thanks to Miss Barbara and the OP Pack for giving this Monkey Mark toy to Riley!  She has enjoyed the heck out of it and has chewed it into shreds that she STILL likes to play with.  She likes to lay her head on it when she’s sleeping.

Attempting to get a belly rub from Grandma!

“Ah, that feels good!  Thanks, Grandma!”

Continue to keep your paws crossed for Riley’s recovery!  She’s doing great so far and we hope she can be freed of the crate next Wednesday.

Physical Therapy Flop

Riley usually does well during her physical therapy.  It isn’t painful to her and she’s still really flexible and muscular.  She lets me flex and extend her leg, no problem.  She’s supposed to have it done for 10 minutes at a time…she gets a little silly after about 6 minutes and decides it’s time to roach around on her back and get a belly rub…and greet me (as if she hasn’t just been spending time with me).

No worries…she’s on a leash.  I’m sitting on it.

 Doing well!

 Oh no…here we go!  I can’t help but laugh…I will be such a bad parent if I ever have human kids!

 Now it’s time to visit with Momma…

Oh my gosh…on her hind legs!!!!!  I’m pretty sure that’s a no-no…

Even more excitement happened outside in the backyard yesterday…  It was dark (only like 5:00 yet dark as everything…sigh) and I had a flashlight in my hand and her leash.  Riley was intent on sniffing this one spot in the yard–like nose straight in the ground sniffing–and I dragged her away from it and back onto the patio where there’s a water bowl.  She hasn’t been drinking a whole lot of water, so I refresh the water outside a couple of times a day and encourage her to drink it.  She walked behind my back so I went to switch the leash to my other hand to straighten it out just as Riley decided she needed to make her way back over to that wonderful-smelling spot in the yard…pulled the leash right out of my hand and she trotted on over to the spot in the yard about 20 feet away.

Luckily she only trotted and didn’t go running or sprinting over there and luckily she also didn’t realize that I wasn’t holding the leash anymore.  I told her to stay and went over to her and stepped on her leash, then picked it up.  I could just envision all the dollar signs–failed surgery, another surgery, 8 more weeks of recovery time/crate rest, etc!!

All seems to be well with her leg though.  I can hardly even see the scar where she had her leg cut open and she’s bearing full weight on both legs equally all the time, no limping or any signs she ever even had a problem with her leg or knee (except for the lack of fur on the leg–they shaved her bald!).  Her fur is starting to grow back though and is growing over the barely-visible incision nicely.  She is nice and quiet in her crate most of the time and seems sort of resigned to it or used to it now.  She’s not by any means thrilled to be confined to the crate 23 hours a day (that other hour [or probably actually less than that] includes potty breaks and 2 physical therapy sessions a day).

Oh, and plus she got a new orthopedic dog bed that fits her new crate and a new KONG Ballistic toy that is surprisingly still all in one piece!

Progress and a New Friend!

Well, we are 8 days post-surgery and the native is getting restless.  She is obviously feeling a whole lot better because she’s taken to sporadic bursts of barking and scratching on the crate door.  We have been doing the heat regimen of 15 minutes of a hot compress on her leg two or three times a day.  6 more days until her staples come out!

Hot compress and time out of the crate!

No, friends, she’s not yawning…that’s her barking!  See my pillow next to her crate?

We got a nice surprise in the mail today–the toy Riley won over at Miss Barbara’s blog that the OP Pack passed along to her came…that was SUPER fast!  They must have known Riley is getting cabin fever!  It’s the cutest monkey toy you ever did see and she LOVES it!  She’s trying to rip it apart at the moment and is having tons of fun with it.

It even says “I Love You” on it, how sweet!

Plus they included some treat samples in the package and both dogs enjoyed those!

Playing with her new toy!

Riley’s incision still looks great and I can’t believe that she hardly ever tries to lick it.  I have to tell her to “leave it” maybe once or twice a day, but other than that, she leaves it alone.  She had diarrhea a couple of days ago but that seems to have cleared up now.  I think it was because she was drinking some rain water outside a few days ago and maybe that was doing it…who knows.