Luxating Patella Surgery: Day 21
Posted by in Paw Prints
It has been 3 weeks since Henry had his luxating patella surgery on both knees. His x-ray went very well last Thursday and as you can see a couple posts below, he even had a bath and a cut. The last few days have been very difficult for me as I have become nervous and anxious about his recovery. When I put him down to walk to his pad, he walks fine. I have seen him raise his leg up once and this worries me a lot. I feel like it’s all a part of the recovery process and I don’t want my expectations of him walking perfectly so soon to be unrealistic, but it’s just so hard to know what’s going on. Sometimes I feel very out of the loop about the recovery process. I’ve read different things that mention how some dogs were given physical therapy schedules or other dogs were not even touching the ground until 6 weeks. It’s been 3 weeks and Henry can walk pretty fine, I am just overly worried. I don’t honestly know how people have kids, the amount of worrying that goes into children is in itself worrysome.
Henry does not have another vet appointment until next Thursday. From then on, I am going to confine him to his crate and only let him walk a couple minutes a day, closely supervised. I wish I knew more about this and I sincerely hope I’m doing the right things to aid in his recovery. My mind won’t be at ease until his next x-ray.
I have also scheduled him for a 2 hour examination at the California Animal Rehab Center, a facility which was recommended to me on a forum I visit. They completely assess the state of his legs and send me home with a physical therapy schedule. I’m looking forward to it. Until then, I will keep writing about his progress!
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The dog understands what you feel. Dogs don’t really understand words, although they learn to act a certain way in reaction to certain sets of sounds. But feeling they understand. It’s almost like they can read your mind, except they read feelings not thoughts. Actually you can feel your dog too, you just have to trust your instincts and you’ll realize you start to understand how your dog feels. You can help your dog heal in a non-medical way and it’s more effective than medicine, you just have to kinda send your dog the healthy-legs-vibe, talk to him, even though he won’t understand words, he’ll feel what you’re talking about, imagine how you’ll run around together and go for nice walks and play in the park as soon as he gets well. My dog had a nasty sore spot that just wouldn’t go away, we tried different medicines, diets, some doctors would say it’s parasites, another doctor insisted it’s allergy… Anyway, here’s what really worked in a magical way. Before New Years I was cuddling with my dog and I kissed the sore spot and said “promise me that after the new year this spot will be gone for good”. It healed in one week and never appeared again.
Yulia,
Thanks for this! And that’s a great story about your dog. I wish I could work from home! Then I would be able to send him good vibes all day long, haha.
Oh it doesn’t need to be all day long, you’ll get tired of each other
A few minutes a day is all it takes!
It is definitely hard to judge when the dog should start walking again. Paddington only had one leg done and didn’t touch the operated leg down until several weeks after her surgery. I’m sure that if he is feeling ok walking then it means he is healing well. I would just caution against letting him run!