Tplo Surgery Recovery

[labadore]

As a follow on to thread in this link, I am outlining details of my 7 year old Lab boy's recovery from his TPLO surgery on Tuesday and hopefully those of you who have been thru this can share your experiences and your dog's outcome :)

My Lab boy's CCL Injury backstory

David Lidbetter rang me early afternoon on Tuesday after my boy's surgery to advise it had gone very well but he did have a meniscal tear (this happens to approx 50% dogs with a torn/ruptured CCL) so he had to do a full medial meniscectomy to remove the torn meniscus.

I picked him up yesterday morning and met with David first to discuss the discharge instructions and go through all the important stuff including the exercise plan. He advised that with the meniscectomy, the recovery will be a bit slower, but he expects him to have an excellent long term outcome and he was already doing very well.

My boy's recovery thus far:

Peeing and pooping on 1st day home yesterday Poor bugger had an extra extra long pee within about an hour of bringing him home, suspect he hadn't peed since the morning I took him in. Bit of a pain with the toilet breaks throughout day with the heavy rain we had both on the day I took him for his surgery and day I picked him up as had to use plastic bags and gladwrap on his bandaged leg and foot to keep it dry, but got it down to a fine art pretty quickly. Once rain cleared, didn't need to use any more gladwrap just the snaplock plastic bag on foot with a rubber band to hold in place to keep bandage on foot dry as grass is saturated from the heavy rain.

Eating ravenously (as per normal :laugh: ) which makes it easy to pop his medication (antibiotic, carprofen and tramadol) into his food and I did add a 1 x tblspn of olive oil to his dinner to help with any constipation from anaesthesia, so that may have helped him poop.

I slept on couch to be closeby as crate is in family room and I have also setup the family room area, which is quite large, with the good old Bunnings wire compost bin panels :laugh: that I had when my Lab youngster was a pup, I knew they would come in handy again at some point. :) During the day when I can monitor him, I have been leaving one of the crate doors open to encourage him to come out of the crate when he wants to and walk around a bit which is what David advised I can do. I have used the wire panels to block off any tiled areas that I haven't been able to fully cover with a mishmash of mats :laugh: as well as areas I don't want him to venture to where I can't keep an eye on him and he is very good with the barriers. He will at times come out of the crate and meander around calmly and stretch his legs and then lower himself carefully onto one of the large thick rugs closer to where I am sitting and he has a snooze. I put him in the crate and lock the doors when I can't keep an eye on him and of course when I need to go out which at this stage will mainly be to take my other boy for his walk/outing.

He has been such a trooper through all of this, such a stoic boy and a wonderful and co-operative, non complaining patient thus far. This boy is such a sweetheart and I love him dearly.

My other Lab boy ( 5 year old) has been so good with him, he has been very calm around him and I am very proud of my youngster and his caring attitude towards him. Quite often my youngster lies on the large mat next to the crate and they lick each other through the open crate door or they will lie closeby on the large rugs and I just make sure they are not lying too closely together to ensure my recovering boy has plenty of space to stretch out and change positions when he needs to and my other boy can get up easily without touching/knocking into him.

TPLO recovery and Exercise Plan/Regime

I really like David's recommended recovery process and exercise plan based on his wealth of experience with TPLO's as he has recommended encouraging my boy to slowly move/walkaround inside the house and place his foot on the ground as much as he can withstand rather than be locked up in the crate continuously and only let out for toileting, until he officially starts on the scheduled leash walks. Of course I have to be careful that he doesn't overdo it, but I am fortunate that that my boy is mature and sensible and not a crazy Lab youngster :laugh: so it makes things easier with allowing him monitored out of crate time to move around freely inside. :)

He has advised that I can commence the short leash walks at the weekend rather than wait for a week after surgery, providing my boy is doing ok at this point. Rather than launch straight into the Week 1 schedule of 10-15mins twice daily, we are to start slowly with say 5 mins and then building up to 10-15 mins over the week. David is a strong advocate of move, move, move, sooner rather than later, which I totally agree with, having been thru a similar philosphy with treatment of my back issues. :)

So far so good. I have to remove the bandage tomorrow and will be interesting to see if he attempts to lick the leg/incision and if he does then collar will be promptly placed on him and when I cannot monitor him, he will be wearing a collar. He doesn't currently need to wear the collar because bandage is still on. I have purchased a Procone soft collar and will be testing how he goes with this as it will be more comfortable for him and can be folded back for eating and drinking and allow easy access to his ears for the special ear solution Dermatologist makes up which I have to put in every 2nd day as preventative maintenance for ear infection (part of his allergy treatment). However, I have read that some dogs can manipulate soft collars and lick their incision site, so whenever I am out/can't monitor him, he will wear the plastic collar and soft collar when I can monitor.

Here are some pics of the patient and one of his carers :)

[persephone]

What a good boy he is , and I love that your other boy is also calm and caring :) Great update!