Days Five & Six (Saturday 15th & Sunday 16th February)

Saturday morning started with a very happy short five minute walk first thing & a breakthrough! Dizzy finally pooped!  You know you're a devoted dog "parent" when you call your other half to report on your pooches toilet routine but I really was so worried that it was 5 days with no movement at all! It was such a relief (probably for him too!) and seeing him so eager to get out of the house for a wander was lovely. He even cocked his leg to pee, standing on his poorly leg. My instant reaction to that was panic - should he be doing that? What if he's hurting himself? But there was no way of stopping him without making him jump and probably causing more harm that way, and then I remembered the nurse at the vets telling us to trust Dizzy, that he knew better than anyone what he could and couldn't do.

Here he is on this mornings, using his leg a lot more today (although still hopping a bit):

The rest of Saturday was pretty uneventful - Dizzy should now be moving around a bit more, rather than being confined to the crate when supervised (although still strictly NO jumping on or off anything) but he is still a bit reluctant to venture too far out of his crate, for too long. He's quite happy to stroll across the room for a drink, maybe stopping for a quick fuss on his way back to bed but not much more than that. With frequent but short on lead pee breaks, his confidence should grow.

Saturday ended quite late, with Matt arriving back from a night away at around 1am. Dizzy was so happy to see his Dad I had to restrain him from launching off the sofa and across the room to get to him and one point he did attempt to stand on his hind legs and put his paws on Matt's shoulders, bless!

Lucky me got to sleep in my bed tonight, for the first time since the op, as Matt offered to do the sofa shift (he's not mean, he just wakes up really early for work every weekday). I feel brilliant this morning, amazing what a good nights rest will do! I am aware that in reality, Dizzy probably is fine to be left alone downstairs, crated & wearing his Buster Collar, but to be honest, I'd probably have a worse nights sleep upstairs, lying awake in bed wondering if he was okay than I do on the sofa. Once the stitches come out and he can stop wearing his "cone" to bed, Dizzy will come upstairs and sleep in a slightly smaller crate next to the bed at night - I cannot wait for that!

So on to today (Sunday) and while I was having a little lie in, Matt took Dizzy out for his first pee break of the day. They went for a bit more of a walk than we've done so far - just up and down our road but a bit farther than I've braved. Dizzy loved it and coped really well, although I think he is a little stiff now. The vet told us that it would be a learning curve and we should take our lead from him - if he's walking well, using his leg than increase the walks slightly but if he's a bit stiff after then he probably did a bit too much. The rest of the day today will be short stops in the garden and straight back in and we'll see how he is tomorrow.

Once I'd woken up this  morning, we decided it was time to take the gauze bandage off Dizzy's leg. The vets said this could come off after 3-5 days and that we could do it ourselves, only needing a vet visit if we had any concerns. We also knew that some blood or discharge would be normal. I fussed Dizzy's head while Matt carefully pealed off the bandage and it didn't seem to cause any discomfort. Once it was off though, Dizzy started to shake quite a bit and went extremely tense if you touched near his back leg. Every few seconds he was whipping his head around to try and get at the six big stitches running down his knee. Once he'd calmed down a bit, we put his "cone" back on and let him have a bit of a snooze in the crate, which did the trick - he's been back on the sofa with me for the past hour and hasn't bothered the stitches once. 

When I first saw the stitches, I was a little surprised as it doesn't look very nice, although in the picture it doesn't look too bad. The wound is clean with minimal swelling though, so looks to be healing well: