6 Weeks Post-Op - Goofing Around

Koda is walking close to normal these days and feeling spry enough to fetch treats. He is three-quarters of the way through the bone-healing phase (which is 8 weeks). This past week, I could sense that he considers the less-agile leg a bit of a hindrance to unleashing his new-found energy. He walks steady, pivots & turns, and sometimes breaks into a gallop when he gets really excited. (We have to discourage that for now.) There has been a definite shift in his demeanor. He is noticeably in a better mood (tail wagging), much more energetic and playful. Up until this point, he had no interest in playing with his toys...

"What?"

But when we finally gave him Monkey back to play with, he wasted no time in gutting the stuffed primate and beheading him. He seemed quite satisfied with that play session. The head was easier to fit in his mouth without the dangling body, too.

"Well, yes... the head *DID* come off."

Next, we started testing out the roll-up ramp we bought from Ramps4Paws. It was pricey ($209 on sale!), but we don't want to risk any damage to his knee jumping in or out of the cargo area of our SUV during his recovery or going forward. So we did a little training to get him familiar with it, followed by copious amounts of praise. He is still not allowed to climb any stairs (so yes, this means we are still sleeping on a sofa & air mattress at Camp Koda).

Here is 6 weeks' worth of fur growth. The fur on the previously-shaved foot/ankle is now almost blended into his foot fur. And the fuzzy undercoat is getting thicker by the day. But it will still be a few weeks (heading into summer, how ironic) before he has a full coat on that leg.

In the meantime, Monkey had some radical, life-saving surgery of his own. P painstakingly re-stuffed and stitched the dismembered limbs and head back together. We are going to let Monkey "recover" a bit more before playing with Koda. LOL

Day 30 - Almost Normal

Well, not much to report. It's been about one month since Koda's surgery. I suppose this is the long, boring, uneventful part of the recovery process. While the bone is healing inside, there are not many changes happening visually - other than watching his walk. He is walking with normal alignment and weight placement on both hind legs now. He does appear a bit "creaky" when he first wakes up, but the knee joint loosens up and he moves around the house almost as normal as he did before.

The fur is really thickening up.

Of course, he doesn't have his agility and quick responsiveness back yet. But he tries. He gets excited and sometimes gallops over when I call him. And he does some backwards leap-frogging when he knows treats are about to be doled out. The sparkle is back in his eyes when it's treat time. But we try to keep him calm to prevent any twists or pivoting on that Bionic Leg.

Koda spends his days mostly in the front room, dozing off or looking out the window. Which is what he used to do before the surgery - napping either there or upstairs. So this part of his life is back to routine. But when I open the front door for him to get a few nostrilfuls of the outdoor breeze, I can tell he really misses being outside and taking walks. It will be 4 more weeks before we can venture out for real "walkies" - as we call them.

His incision has healed up perfectly. The hair is growing right over and you can barely feel the scar tissue. He doesn't mind being pet there.

Standing on his still naked-looking "turkey" leg. I hadn't realized how thin his legs are until you take away all that fur. Huskies have a good inch and a half of insulation just from fur!

Stay tuned and check in with us next week. Hopefully I'll have some more video, which is more interesting for seeing progress.

Day 21 - Videos! Walking! Treats!

So after Koda's "staircase (high jinx) set-back" this weekend, some rest, and some anti-inflammatory drugs - he appears to be back on track for his recovery. No permanent damage done (so it appears). Here you can see he's walking pretty well, with his re-hab'ing left leg in alignment while he strides instead of splaying out sideways. As the leg muscle grows stronger, he should be walking more evenly.



And he is in good spirits. Treats always make doggies happy, even finicky ones named Koda. We usually play this find-the-treat game over a bigger area and I chuck the treats far and wide. He thinks it's a gas to scamper around, sniffing to find them. But since he is re-hab'ing, I just toss within a few feet of him. As far as Koda is concerned, he found the treat and they taste yummy. More please!

Weekend 3 - Stairs & Set-backs

I suppose everyone gets tempted. After 3 weeks of not being allowed upstairs (where Koda used to sleep in our master bedroom), he succumbed to the siren's call of STAIRS.
"Come up! Come up!" she called.

We just went out to get some pizza and based on Koda's track record of good behavior, we continued to let him have the entire downstairs floor to roam around as he pleased. We just barricaded the staircase. He had never seemed interested, nor tried to jump up on the baby gates to get a look beyond, so we thought we could trust him.

We were wrong.

When we came home, we were greeted by a happy 3-legged hippity-hoppity dog! O.M.G.!!! What happened?!?! Even his first day after surgery, he was not hiking his leg up like this - refusing to place ANY weight at all on the re-hab'ing leg.

I was completely distraught. The only explanation was that he got bored and without watchful eyes around, attempted to jump the barricade and climb the stairs. What if he'd fallen on the stairs?!? What if he damaged the still-healing bone?!? What if? What if?

I had to call the surgeon on his cell phone at 9pm, the night before Easter! He told me to ice pack Koda's leg and he'd call in a prescription for Rimadyl (anti-inflammatory) for us to pick up in the morning. He assured me that unless there was bruising on the leg, probably no major damage was done - that this would only be a set-back for Koda's recovery.

On Sunday, we decided to play it safe and locked Koda up in his kennel while we went to church. He sometimes sleeps in it, but never with the gate in place. So this would be new for him (at home). At the boarding camp he goes to, he sleeps in a kennel, so this whole experience should not be unfamiliar to him. Knowing he would be out of trouble for a few hours, we could have some peace. Being confined would also restrict his activity, allowing his injured leg (and still-good leg) to rest.

Lesson learned: Huskies are not completely trust-worthy. Ha!