Moving up to 25 minute walks has been more of a struggle than when we moved to 20 minute walks. We started by just changing the time on one walk, and after a few days we did two longer walks and then after a few days we did all three walks at 25 minutes. After a day or two of that, Winston was really sore and limpy so we dropped back down.
Last Wednesday was 10 weeks after surgery and two weeks after we found out that the bones hadn't fully healed, and it was the earliest that the surgeon wanted us to give Winston some more stair privileges. Up to this point, he's only been allowed to do the half-flight when one of us is with him. We decided not to push the healing, so we didn't just take the baby-gate down all the time, but starting this past weekend, we've been taking it down for limited amounts of times. Sometimes after we come back in from a walk or going potty, Winston wants to lie down in "his room". Now we can start letting him stay down there and come upstairs or go downstairs on his own. We still leave the gate up overnight, and if I expect someone, or think he might run down the stairs, I put the gate up. So far he's been very good about going up and down at a reasonable speed, but he has definitely been doing more stairs than he has in months.
Monday was a sore day so Tuesday we dropped back down to 20 minutes each walk. On Wednesday Winston seemed better so I thought we'd try for at least one 25 minute walk and the morning was nice (sunny and pretty warm), so we went for our long walk then. He seemed like he felt fine and was enjoying life.
At lunch Winston was really slow to get up when we went out for a potty break, and seemed really subdued. When he got up for our afternoon walk, he struggled to stand up and once he was standing, he had his head hung down like he thought he was in trouble. I thought it was weird, but didn't really put two and two together. We got about 3 houses down the street before I realized that he still had his head hung down near the ground and it wasn't because he was sniffing. I think he was trying to keep as much weight off his back legs as he could. We turned around and headed back home and I gave him some Tramadol. By dinnertime three hours later he seemed better and was no longer hanging his head down. He wanted to go for a walk, so we tried again and went for a 20 minute walk. I am sooooo STOOOOOPID!
I think the pain pills started wearing off or he just got that much more sore that by 9pm he was panting and pacing and was really a very unhappy camper, so I gave him 4 more Tramadol. An hour later he was still pacing and panting and was velcroed to me so that if I tried to hide in the bedroom, he stood outside the door panting and whining. I thought I'd have to take him into the emergency clinic. When he was getting Tramadol after surgery he was getting up to 8 pills at a time (yep, he's a big boy), so I figured I'd give him 4 more so that he would have a full dose and then we'd decide whether to head to the emergency clinic. Within an hour the rest of the pills kicked in and he seemed comfortable and we both got to go to sleep.
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