one year plus

Hi ,
This will probably be my last post here unless anything new happens. Let's hope not :-)
It's been over a year now and Amber is doing wonderful. We continue with our walks when possible and sometimes when it's very cold outside (winter in WI) she will start to limp at the end of the walk. The only other thing I have noticed is that she sometimes has trouble jumping up on my bed which is pretty high. Our vet said she would have a 95% recovery so I guess she is doing as well as expected. She back to playing fetch and takes off like a rocket and runs full force like she always has. This still makes me nervous but I'm trying not to worry as much. She takes her Cosequin DS supplement everyday. All in all I would say the surgery was a success and worth doing. Thanks for following my blog and take care of those fur babies!!
Karen

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.