I wrote a post all about this kind of injury in case you are blissfully ignorant (as I was) of one of the most common orthopedic conditions in dogs.
Thanks to everyone who sent get well wishes for my moose. He seems completely fine now. So I guess whatever the trouble was has passed! I think he knew I was worried so just to show me he was ok and 100% back to normal he decided to open the pantry and pull some people foods out while I was out today. I had suspected that he could open the door but it is now official... The pantry is not safe. The stuff he pulled out must not have seemed interesting (uncooked pasta and such) because he did not open the packages. The good stuff is way up high since I had a feeling he could get in there (it is a bi-fold type door so I think he can nudge it and it pops open!). 
I am posting these pics to show how my boy is sitting these days.... His back right leg still sticks out to the side (after his knee surgery). His Buddy Parker just posted his sitting (& Birthday!) picture and he seems to be recovering a bit faster. He had the surgery a week or two after my moose but he is a young pup of 4 compared to my 7 1/2 year old Man! Aside from sitting sloppy, my Moose has to be bribed to stay in the seated position because I think he is more comfortable standing or lying down so that is why you see a treat in the first pic and a "Woofel!" face (i.e. gimme the treat already). He has the funniest snaggle toothed face in that one so I could not resist posting. Anywho... as you can see he appears to be back to his normal Mooses self!
ALL CLEAR! (to gradually resume all normal activities)! Yea! Moose got his last (baring any unusual problems) checkup and x-rays from the Ortho doc and he said he looks great and the surgery site is fully healed! I guess I was sort of expecting that but as I was talking to him it sunk in and when he said 'walks' I had to keep myself from crying I was so happy. I think it is still sinking in that I can now take my dog for a walk! Granted it won't be a long one yet but he can start to be a normal guy again!
like he was wondering "really? we are going this way?" at least that is what it looked like. He was also entirely engrossed in the new sights, smells and sounds. The sounds included lots of dogs going totally nuts when he walked by... lots of woofing and flinging themselves at windows. I am pretty sure they were just welcoming him to the neighborhood ;-). I have to include a pic of him peeing (he is mortified) because since he has been confined to the back yard he has not been marking things and lifting his leg so that is back to normal. Plus he is standing on his TPLO leg which he has been doing from the start but since he was not lifting his leg to pee I wondered if it was partly out of fatigue or discomfort. Apparently not! Just no need to mark his own yard.
As for the details for fellow ortho-dogs... We are 90 days post op and he has been using his leg fine for at least a month although he still does not put full weight on it when he is standing still. Doc says that will continue to improve. For the past few weeks I have let him out in the back yard unleashed when I am out there and that has been fine except he overdid it on Saturday and was limping but that was all better by Monday (phew!).
Why not just take him for x-rays to keep an eye on things you ask? Well, it was a most unpleasant event. Aside from the major let-down of un-healed bone there is the cost $280 AND the absolute worst part is the fact that they feel they need to give my Moose enough sedative to sedate... well... a Moose! They cleared him to go home pretty quickly because they knew I was waiting (due to the 70 mile drive to the doc) but that led to a totally whacked out Moose while I was talking to the doc- he was shivering and crying and could barely stand then he tried to poo in the office and we tried to make it outside but left quite a trail of moose droppings! Then he spent the next 12 hours crying and drooling (note the dazed look and drool in the pic). It was so awful! All night he was acting like in the video below (note the drool) and was not even distracted from the crying while I made his dinner. He would stand by the door and cry then we would go out and he would stand there and cry. He was not even that bad after surgery! Next time I am going to insist that they go lighter on the sedative and have a little patience with him. The x-rays are digital so it is not like films are wasted. Sheesh! Anywho I think I will take him in mid-feb just to give more time for healing and hopefully will have some better news to report!
We hit the 7 week post-op mark this past weekend! Keeping Moose contained before the move was a little challenging (or so I thought) but post-move it has been nearly impossible. The move completely messed up our routine and started this slippery slope to more and more freedom that is something akin to senior-itis or a' 7 year itch' (ok, week in our case) since the first phase of his recovery is hopefully drawing to a close (at 8 weeks)! This weekend I really sealed the deal by packing up his pen and crate! I decided this was ok because my new office has a door directly to the outside so I can close him in there when I leave and when I come home walk right into that room. It has a french door too so he actually likes it in there b/c he can lie on his bed AND look out the window! At night I bring him into my room and close the door so I don't find him on the couch when I get up in the morning and I have also left my mattress 
on the floor instead of putting my bed together and he loves having easy access to the bed and has been treating it like it is his own bed! So it is more freedom but his activity is still a little restricted...
victim to it. It can happen to dogs young or old (more common in middle-age), large or small (more common in larger dogs) and any breed mixed or pure though studies exist that suggest a greater frequency in certain breeds such as Rotties and Labs. However it is difficult to separate the popularity of the breed with the frequency of injury. More CCL patients may be labs but it is the most common breed!
I can't believe it has been 4 weeks + since surgery! Moose seems to be healing well, his incision is visible but has healed very nicely and his fur is starting to grow back. He sometimes walks with no limp at all but definitely still a little slow when he sits down and stands up and he seems to have days that he is more sore than others. He is incredibly cooperative about being in his pen. He has re-learned to ring the bell when he needs a potty outing and can remind me that it is dinner time from inside the pen but every now and then he just looks at me as if to say "Can I come out now, I'll be good" and makes me feel so sad that he might be wondering why he isn't allowed to be out with me anymore. So sad for my boy. I spend time in the evening lying on the floor with him in his pen but aside from that he mostly seems bored. So I try to find new things to keep him busy and today we finished one bag of kibble so I left about 5 pieces in the bag and gave it to him to try to get them out. Pretty entertaining for both of us really!
Moose and I watched a show called 'Fat Pets' on Animal Planet and saw the saddest story about a woman in Britain who is loving her dog Bodell to death! She has a rottweiler named Bodell who she has fattened up to the horrifying weight of 203lbs! This poor dog looks like a pig and the owner thinks she is perfectly healthy because she gets "checkups at the vet". It is really easy to be angry at the owner but I think she has some emotional problems and could use a little help herself. Sad all around. She thinks Bodell is happy but I have known a few overweight dogs that lost weight and went from lethargic dogs to perky energetic dogs and to me that is when they are happy. There was also another Rottweiler on there who weighed in at 150lbs and not so surprisingly, was headed off to have 
his knee surgically repaired (probably a ruptured CCl!) due to his weight. At least those owners felt horrible and were committed to getting his weight down.
I have started using ice and heat to try to help my Moose heal faster. After melting my last microwaveable heat pack I had to get a new one and found this 'Wrapz' thing at Walgreens. The little pouch makes it so much easier to keep it where it needs to be on a pretty reluctant Mooses! I am just getting started with this but the plan is to put heat on the joint for several minutes then do PROM (Passive Range of 
Motion) exercises which is basically taking his leg through a series of bicycling motions while he is lying down, Then we ice the joint. It is supposed to help circulation and prevent scar tissue from building up in a way that would limit his range of motion. Every step of this routine requires bribery and distraction in the form of a stuffed Kong. Lots of hard work, especially since (as his doc pointed out) he "is not a willing participant in his recovery". But given how much therapy he has given me, I figure it is the least I can do for him!
Moose went off to the vet for his 2 week check today. This is the first time in about 11 days that he has been out the front door of the house, so even the front yard on the way to the car was a sniff-fest! I imagine his brain was in sensory overload! He loves going anywhere, vet included but today I could really tell he was in doggie happy land! He had to stop and sniff everything and I let him because he has not been allowed to 'stop and sniff the roses' in awhile! It was nice (and a little sad) to see him be his normal full of life self for the first time since surgery. I just want him to be a doggie every day of his life but this is the only way to make that happen. I wish I could explain that to him but he 
does not seem to hold it against me too much.
I brought Moose home from hospital a week ago and he has been in his pen except when he is taken on a leash to the back yard for less than 5 minutes 3 or 4 times a day. He has not really protested except for the past two nights when he barked a lot while I was making his dinner. I guess he is worried that I will mess up the recipe if he is not right there to supervise! I am glad he is not overly restless but worry that he is a little depressed. He used to love to be outside and would play with his toys on his own all the time. Now when I take him out in the back yard he does his business and pulls me back toward the door to go inside, especially odd given the lovely cool weather that usually makes him frisky. The first few times he did this he would pull me toward the front door, obviously wanting to go for a walk, but doesn't do that anymore. He also seems to have lost all interest in his toys. I can't get him to play with them for more than a minute and he definitely doesn't play on his own. Poor boy! I am going to get him a new toy like a tug-a-jug since he will still get excited about food. I have been training some things that he can learn while laying down and he likes that because treats 
are involved. Still he just does not seem to be himself and we have a long road ahead! We will have a 2 week checkup next Friday but pretty sure he will still not be allowed to increase his activity until week 8, and I think that, even more than confinement is to blame for his melancholy.
Tonight I ventured out to the grocery store (the first time he was left alone since the surgery) and I was pretty worried he would try to get out of his pen and possibly hurt himself but did not want to restrict him to his crate while he is wearing his cone. Things were fine until I came home and he was beside himself excited and pushed up against one side of his pen which caused it to move and tip over his water bowl on the other side of his pen! Aside from that it was hard to keep him from hopping around he was so excited! Normally I love this welcome home but for now it is a real problem. I am going to try putting him in his crate next time I leave since he can't jump in there and when I let him out I will be right there to keep him from hopping around.
A few days before Moose's surgery I found a discussion group called Orthodogs and it has been soooo helpful and reassuring through this that I thought I would share. If you or anyone you know is going through an orthopedic injury with their dog it is definitely worth checking out!
will hold it completely off the ground occasionally every now and then. As youcan see in the video he will actually stand on his bad leg and lift the good one to pee which he could not do before the surgery. For the next two weeks he can only come out for a leashed walk in the back yard only long enough for him to potty then it is back in so I think he is pretty bored. I am giving him his kibble in smaller amounts throughout the day and it is stuffed into a Kong that takes him about 20min to get out so he has a few of those to look forward to too. It is hard to see him cooped up but he is doing so well that I need to fight the urge to let him do more!
Well we made it home safely (the scary part was getting him out of the car but thanks to the ramp and rolled up sweatshirt (used as a sling of sorts) I single handedly wrangled my Moose into his new Ex-pen! I had to move some furniture to fit it into my place which is especially crowded owing to the stacks of moving boxes... Oh the chaos! I had to lie in there with him for awhile and he seemed really anxious but I finally figured out he needed a potty break. He was a little better after that and I gave him a stuffed Kong but he was still whimpering while he was chewing it. Still it was a little better and his clumsiness with the kong showed me 
that he is still a little out of it and he took breaks instead of just finishing it like normal. Right now he is sleeping and I want him to do as much of that as possible! The whimpering when he is awake is upsetting to hear. Other than the crying he does not show other signs of pain so the doc was pretty sure it was an anaesthesia hangover so I am not worried that he is in terrible pain though I am sure he is uncomfortable which is upsetting but inevitable I am afraid.
