December 9, 2009: 7 days post-TPLO

Yesterday Winston was walking almost normally when we went out for potty breaks, and I thought it seemed almost too good to be true.  Today he's limping again, but hey, it was 16 degrees below zero this morning so even Josie said that her feet were freezing off.  She ran out and peed and ran back to the door and hopped from foot to foot saying HURRY HURRY HURRY to us.  Winston, on the other hand, stretched the time out as long as he could because he is bored in his pen.  He peed then went to the far corner of the yard to think about pooping.  Then got distracted.  Then started to wander so I told him we were going to go back inside which put him back into the, "oh but I have to poop" mode.  So he searched again for just the perfect spot and started to circle.  Then got distracted again.  We headed back toward the house 3 times before he finally found the perfect spot and assumed the position.

I'm doing range of motion and "bicycling" exercises with his leg.  He's not overly happy about them, but at the same time, doesn't seem too concerned about them either.  His leg feels pretty stiff when I try to stretch it out.  I'll have to do some more work on that.

I think that Winston has also permanently graduated from the cone of shame to the donut e-collar.  Yesterday Don put the donut on him after he went out at 7pm  for a potty break.  Winston went to sleep and stayed asleep longer than I expected.  I woke him at 10pm to give him his antibiotics and then at 11pm to give him his tramadol.  He woke me up at 3:30 this morning needing to go out.  After we got back inside, I attempted to put the cone on him (seems like it would be more comfortable to sleep in than the donut) but he kept ducking his head to avoid it.  I put the donut back on and we all went back to sleep until 6am.  The donut makes me a little nervous because I know that he can still get to his incisions if he really wanted to, but so far he hasn't showed the slightest interest.  I spend each day working down here so that he can have company and no e-collar, and he's never even sniffed at his leg.

Today we were out for our afternoon potty break and I saw how Josie was with Winston, I realized that the really sad part in all of this is that all the animals seem to think this is normal: every few months Winston has some kind of surgery and we all have to do/not do these things or act this way....

I sure can't wait for the day that this isn't normal and it's all some distant memory for all of us.  I have a good feeling about this surgery.  It's the same good feeling that I had with the last TPLO.