10 wks

Amber is doing very well at this point. I can tell that her leg still bothers her though after getting up from sleeping. She is slow to get up. Once she is up she does great. At this point I'm still not allowing any jumping or playing. We are up to about two 25 minute walks each day which she does well at. She goes outside now without a leash for potty breaks. She is using her leg more and more and during our walks there is hardly any limp at all. She will still 3 legg it though once in a while if she trys to hurry up while walking. She was outside the other day and I called her and she ran to me and ran up the steps using all four leggs. My heart went to my stomach but she did fine and looked at me like "what?" I am going to start doing some muscle building excercises with her next week.(see exercise post) I am NOT going to allow her to jump any time soon. Our vet did not really give me a timeline on that but I want to be sure she is totally healed before allowing that kind of activity. Also no playing fetch this summer at all. There will be plenty of time next summer for that when I think I'll feel more comfortable with heavy running and jumping.

week 6

Amber is continuing to heal. We see little baby improvements every week. She is going outside now without a leash to take potty breaks. She still limps a little and only 3 leggs it when she is in a hurry to get somewhere. Her fur is starting to grow back so the chicken leg doesn't look as bad anymore.

5 week post op

Amber went to the vet today for her 5 week check up. Everything looks great and the vet is very happy with her recovery. There was a slight clicking noise but since there was no pain associated with the clicking he was not to concerned. He thought it might be the fiber tape making the noise.
We can now let Amber outside to go to the bathroom without a leash. We still need to watch her though since he does not want her running or jumping yet. Amber is now taking 2 walks a day for about 22 minutes each. We are to continue those and increase them as she can tolerate. He said by the end of the summer she should be just about back to normal.

3 weeks post op

Today is 3 weeks since Ambers Tightrope surgery. She is doing great and enjoying being able to move around the house again. We are up to walking 15 minutes twice a day which she really enjoys. It is hard to keep her at a slow pace. Yesterday she did not want to come home from her walk. She saw the house and put on the breaks. I did not want to pull her to hard for fear that I might make her lose her balance. There we sat in the middle of the road. It was quite the site and a neighbor who drove past got quite the chuckle and thought I might have to carry her home.We have to walk slow so she will put pressure on the leg and not just 3 leg it. She is still on restricted activity and not allowed outside unless on a leash, even for potty breaks. I do take her up the stairs at night with her harness so that I can sleep in my bed. The pull out couch was causing havic with me. Amber is starting to look better also since her hair is now growing back on her leg and back.

2nd week check up

Today was Ambers 2 week check up. After yesterdays Gymnastic events I was worried going into it. The vet checked her out and said everything is looking great!! She did not do any damage to the repair on her knee. She is now out of confinement and can follow me around the house. She is still restricted from doing steps and needs to be on leash outside yet. We are starting her rehab this week. Rehab consists of two 10 minute walks each day. As she gets stronger I'll increase those 2 minutes as she can tolerate. Her next check up is in 3 weeks. I now have a sedative to give her when there are storms.

2 weeks post op

Well just when things were getting better!
Today Amber did not have a good day. It's been 2 weeks to the day that she had her surgery.
Amber was healing great and starting to put pressure on her leg when outside. I started getting the house ready for her lifted confinement. I bought some carpet runners to put in our kitchen so she would not slip on the floor. I had to leave for a few hours to help my oldest son paint the inside of the house he just bought. During this time we had a few thunder rumbles go through. Nothing major just a few rumbles on and off. Amber is terrified of storms and I wondered how she was doing. well my youngest son called me when he got home to tell me amber had jumped over the gate we had blocking her in the computer room. He said she looked fine and greeted him at the door wagging her tail. I quickly cleaned up and headed home. Now she is still to be on very restricted activity only outside on leash for potty breaks. No jumping, running, or getting excited!!
I know for a fact that once she broke loose she ran in the living room as our phone was knocked over which means she probably jumped on the couch! Who knows if she ran up the stairs looking for me too. She has a doctor appointment tomorrow for a 2 wk check up so I'll find out then if she did any damage. Oh yea she also left me a huge "present" in the computer room!! needless to say I was not very happy and she knew it. I'm pretty worried though and pray that she did not undo the repair.

off to the vet - I'm not having fun anymore mom!!

Well after my last post amber was worse. She threw up outside and had bloody stools. The vet wanted to see her. We saw a different vet today since the one that did the surgery is on vacation this week. They did a stool sample and found out that Amber has a Clostridium infection. He has switched our meds around and added a new one. He is discontinuing the vetprofen (anti-inflammatory), and Cephalexin (antibiotic) until the stools are back to normal. I found out that the tramadol prescription dose was WRONG on her pain med bottle. They had written 2 pills a day for 5 days. I thought it was strange since they had dispersed 30 pills!
I asked about it today and the doctor looked and said it should have been 2 pills a day 3 times a day for 5 days! Wow poor Amber was not getting all the pain meds she should have. I have to say though she never really acted like she was in alot of pain so that is good.
He wants me to start giving her the Tramadol 3 times a day now for 2-3 days. I have to feed her a bland diet of canned food (EN Gastroenteric) that they gave me for 2-3 days to help her stomach. They added Metronidazole for the infection and she will be on that for 10 days. He said the red spot could be an irritation form the clipping that she is licking. He said the incision looked great and that the flexibility in the knee also looked great. He wants me to collar her so she can't get to the sore. They had the "no bite" collars there so I purchased one. Amber freaked out when I tried to put an E collar on her a few days ago so I knew I could not use that. She seems to be tolerating this one better. Hopefully in a few days we will see an improvement.

1 week post op

Well today marks the 1 week mark with Ambers surgery. Up till now she has been doing very well. Eating normal, bathroom breaks good, and attitude well as good as can be expected. Today I've notice a few different things going on. Last night she did not sleep well and I had to repeatedly tell her to lay down. This morning she did not want to eat before going outside. Not like her at all.
I noticed she had a little diarrhea and when she came in still did not want to eat. I'm thinking this is from the antibiotic maybe causing havoc in her stomach. I tried to give her the meds with peanut butter (which has been working like a charm) and she refused them. I finally had to force them in which I don't like to do. I made up some gravy to put in her food and she ate some of that now. She is also developing a red spot on her leg. I have not noticed her licking that area but will have to watch it so it does not turn into a hot spot. Hopefully our 2nd week won't turn into the bad week.
Here is a picture of her leg and red spot.

4 days post op

Today is our 4th day since surgery. Amber is actually doing pretty well. Our biggest hurdle has been the thunderstorms the past few days. She is terrified of them and it has been hard to keep her calm. The incision is looking pretty good and has minimal bruising. She is still not putting any weight on the leg. I'm going to start giving her some pumpkin in her food to help with a little bit of constipation that she has. This is normal due to all the meds she is currently taking. Here is a picture of her in her recovery room. She still needs to be confined to a kennel or small room.

first night

Amber had a bad night last night. The main problem is she is used to sleeping with me!
Since the day we adopted her she never liked being alone. I slept on the pullout last night since it was close to the computer room where we have her confined. She whined and cried and was getting upset that she was locked up so I knew that was not going to work. At 12:30 I decided to pull the aero bed into the computer room and sleep on it so we would be in the same room. That helped a little until the thunder and lightening started. She is terrified of storms and I knew this was not going to be good. I could not let her get hyper as she normally does with storms. I turned on the light and just sat with her and talked which seemed to help a little bit. Luckily the storm was short and not bad. She still whined all night though so she must have been in pain.

Day 8

Time to come home. I picked up Amber at the vets. Wow she looked like she had gone through a war zone!! Her back leg was shaved, she had a patch shaved off her back where they put the epidural, and also a patch shaved off her leg where they had the IV. She looked like a patchwork quilt. She walked in still hobbling on 3 legs. she had a very large incision on her leg. We came home with a few different meds. a pain killer, an anti-inflammatory, Glucosamine, and an antiobotic. She is on restricted activity and is to be kept in her kennel or a small room for 14 days. She can go outside on a leash only to do her duties. No stairs, no running, or playing for the next 14 days.
She came home and actually slept most of the day. She did eat her dinner which made me feel good.

Day 7

One week after the accident Amber went into surgery. The surgery went well but the vet found that there was more damage then expected. Amber had not only torn her ligament she also tore the meniscus which had to be removed also. The vet said if I had opted to do the surgery where the joint was not opened up and cleaned out it would have been disastrous. She was resting at the vets and I would be able to pick her up the next day.

day 4

After a few days on the anti-inflammatory Amber was still not putting any weight on the leg.
I called our vet to talk about surgery. He suggested a surgery he does which stabilizes the knee.
He does not open the joint to clean out the area. I was not sure if this was the right choice so opted to see a orthopedic vet for a second opinion. I was able to see this vet the same day. After the exam which included x-rays he confirmed it was a cranial cruciate ligament tear. he suggested 3 different types of surgery. TPLO, extracapsular, and Tightrope. I opted for the tightrope surgery for a few reasons. I hate to say it but price was a factor. The tplo would cost me 3,000.00 , the extracapsular about 1,800.00 and the tightrope about 2,000.00. The TPLO seemed a little more invasive then I liked and would have required a specialist to come and do the surgery. Tightrope is a newer version of extracapsular type and has had good reports. The reason I'm writting this blog is that I would like to share my experience with others who might not know about this procedure.
The surgery was scheduled.

The Injury

The day started out like any other Day. Amber loves to play fetch. She takes off like a rocket and runs at record speed to retrieve balls. It's her favorite thing to do besides swim. While running to catch the ball she made a quick turn and went down. My son heard her yell and she just stood there not moving. He ran out to her and brought her in the house. I immediately took her to the vet who examined her found that she had a torn Cruciate Ligament. He put her on an anti-inflammatory and sent us home to see if that would help although he told us surgery was inevitable .

Cruciate Ligament tear

Hi,
This blog is about my Golden Retriever Amber. She tore her Cruciate Ligament a week ago and had the tightrope surgery yesterday. I am starting this blog so I can help others who may have a dog with this same injury.