So I have decided to type up a few little things I have learned from the past few days since
her double ACL surgery.
How to prepare before surgery:
There isn't much you can do to prepare except buy some things you will need. My baby girl sleeps on my king size bed and obviously she won't be able to get on the bed herself, so I needed to buy her a bed. My FAVORITE dog beds are these at Orvis: Memory Foam Bolster Dog Bed. They are incredibly soft (memory foam) but have a boarder for support but it can also be laid on like a pillow. I have two and love them and so do my dogs. The cover is removable and easily washed and not complicated to take on and off.Your dog will get board laying around allll day. So buy them toys to keep them occupied from time to time. Kong's filled with peanut butter, rope toys, or whatever your dog likes. Baby likes squeaky toys and frozen Kong's with peanut butter so that is what we have been doing.
Ginger-Lead: I will talk more about this later in relevance to using the restroom but I think this would be more useful for dogs that have only once ACL repaired at a time. Because Baby had two knees done, she had absolutely no weight put on the back of her body for the first few days and this wasn't designed to elevate the entire body.
Comfy Cone: I have not had to use this on her yet because the meds pretty much knock her out, but I have a feeling that when we start to ween off the meds and she is alert more, I think we will have a problem with her licking her stitches and we have this standing by. We have used this comfy cone for other dogs and it is wonderful. It serves its purpose without being a huge piece of uncomfortable plastic around their neck.
Letting the drugs set in before surgery :)
Prepare your house:
If you have other dogs you will want to try to keep everyone as quiet and calm as possible so they don't either trample your dog or get your dog excited about chasing the mailman or squirrels. So we have closed all our blinds in the front of our house so they can't see any body walking by or any squirrels crossing the street.
We also have either the television or some version of music playing (John Mayer, Adele or Michael Buble are our favorites) along with a box fan to create some white noise so they can't hear the UPS man drop off boxes on the front porch and go crazy.
Also on that note, we placed a note on our front door that kindly asks people not to ring the doorbell or knock on the door to help keep things quite and calm.
It is best to schedule surgery later in the week or as close to the weekend as possible so that you can be home with them and monitor them.
We did our surgery on a Wednesday and I took off work on Friday. So since then we have just been binging on Netflix and keeping her calm and comfortable, as well as all the other dogs too. If we are calm, they are calm.
Immediately post surgery:
So I didn't understand if she would be able to walk at all? Some? None? The vet seemed to be so used to these surgeries he wasn't concerned at all. So we went to pick her up expecting them to bring her out in a stretcher I mean after all, her back legs just had surgery....if a human had two knee surgeries at the same time they would come out in a wheelchair,,,,,right?
No.
They had us go get her from back in post-op (because she is aggressive to people she doesn't know) and thank goodness we had a Ginger-Lead with us because I don't know what we would have done. Even with the Ginger-Lead it was extremely difficult. She was drugged, scared, confused and in pain. So somehow I had to figure out how to slip the Ginger-Lead under her and then lift her limp back half off the vet floor and walk her (what seemed like a mile) out to the car.
TAKE SOMEONE WITH YOU TO PICK UP YOUR DOG! I was so glad my mom was with me to help coax her to walk, to carry my purse and extra leashes, paperwork, open doors, etc. But then also to help me lift her into the car. She is 62 pounds and we have a tall Jeep Wrangler. My mom lifted her front half and I lifted her back half and we "successfully" placed her in the car.
When you go to pick up your baby from the vet, bring the dog bed with you and lay it out in the back of your car. She was very nervous, confused and crying a lot just from coming off the anesthesia (lol I cry after any use of anesthesia too). So I was glad my mom came to drive us and I laid out in the back of the car in her dog bed with her holding her in my arms.
How will your dog use the bathroom after double knee surgery:
I searched high and low trying to find the answer to this! Again the vet just talked like it was just "going to happen" but how? She had no use of her back legs? When? After 24 hours of her not using the restroom I began to get concerned.
The vet talked that it would take a bit for her system to get back to normal after surgery, but she was eating and drinking so I knew it needed to go somewhere.
She couldn't stand on her own, and I had to use the Ginger-Lead to get her up and around, and I knew she wasn't going to use the bathroom while she had a huge belt under her belly. But after about 30 hours post surgery she looked at me with pee-filled eyes and I knew. So I got my dad to help me carry her outside without her Ginger-Lead and place her in the yard and she went!!! Then she sort of collapsed on the ground so we carried her back in and put her in her bed.
So, when the vet just acted like it would happen, I guess he was right because it just did. She never stood on her own for days, but when I would ask her "need to go out side?" (which is our phrase we use, so she knew what I meant) and she started to get excited, I knew and we carried her outside, placed her on the ground to do her business and then picked her back up and went inside.
Overall activities, expectations and realities:
So we are about 96 hours post surgery and she is doing so well! Just last night she actually lifted herself up to stand all by herself and then walked to the back door.
Until that moment, she has just been lying in her bed pretty much 24/7. The meds knock her out and she gets some of those every 8 hours and some every 12. So yes, I do have to set my alarm and give her pills in the middle of the night. I don't want her in any pain if I can help it.
Today is the first day she walked by herself in from the backyard back to her bed by the fireplace, so that is HUGE!
I will probably use the Ginger-Lead this coming week to help get her up and around a bit for some physical therapy on her knees. The vet said she needs to only put about 30% of her body weight on her back legs. Since her knees have been so bad for the past few months, she has actually learned how to walk with most of her body weight on her front two legs so her walking around by herself isn't putting as much weight on her knees as you would think.
I can tell she is feeling better already!
Until yesterday, she didn't hardly move her body at all. She couldn't switch her hips to lay differently, or anything, and now she is kicking her covers off if she is hot, and almost rolling upside down (which is her favorite way to sleep..)
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