Hip Hip for Eo’s Hips
It’s been a month and change now since Eo’s last hip surgery. With the wonderfully warm weather that we’ve had this weekend, I decided to take her off the Tramadol (painkiller, opiate) that she’s been on since the surgery. She seems to still get around fine, and the pretty consistent movement as I’ve worked in the garden has helped her greatly. She’s not back to 100% yet, of course, but for seven weeks post-op she sure isn’t doing bad.
Eo was so helpful this weekend when I was potting plants.
By the way, I should point out again for people who don’t know me — I’m not a vet, but I’m very involved with my dogs’ medical care and I know as much as possible about the different drugs, treatments, needs, and the background to the behavioral modifications we’re trying to make. Don’t take anything I say about medicine or veterinary stuff as gospel.
One thing that’s apparent is that a month of inactivity leading up to the surgery and a month of inactivity recovering from the surgery has left her with some remarkable atrophy in her rear legs. Her favorite position is sitting down with most of her weight on her front legs; she’s built like a bodybuilder on the front half but has nothing but loose bone and sinew on the rear. We’ve been walking nightly in an effort to rebuild this, but haven’t been putting any serious distance on. This weekend, I started working in the yard on my garden, and I’ve been letting her pick how much she moves and putting her away when she gets crabby or frantic.
The other thing that’s been rather obvious since the surgery is that she’s MUCH less crabby. She hasn’t gone after Henry with the intent to cause serious harm in a while. (Yes, this used to be a big problem. And it’s the reason she was inactive for a month before the surgery and the reason we did it so soon after the first one.) To Henry’s credit, he’s learned how not to provoke her, and he’s even been initiating play recently by bowing and pawing at her — she’s seemed to enjoy playing with him when she’s in the mood, but I’ve been stopping it before it’s really gotten “started” in puppy terms because I know that she’ll hurt herself if I don’t.
I haven’t been posting much about her because “Yeah, she’s on crate rest… still on crate rest… in her crate” makes for boring blog entries. It’s nice to have some progress to report. Indications are good that she’ll make a full recovery and will go on to boss everyone around the house for many more years.