A great deal of the past month has been taken up with the aftermath of Walter's knee surgery. I knew joint surgeries were a real possibility when I picked a Newfoundland for a breed, but I hoped the bit of research we had done would play the odds to our favor.
Walter's breeder provided us test results from generations of his ancestors showing their hips and elbows were excellent. They were clear of cisterna, heart maladies and a host of other genetic woe. We played with his parents several times and were amazed with their fluidity of movement, especially for such large animals. But it did not take long to see as Walter grew that we were in for some problems.
Getting up from a down position became a longer and longer process. A 'sit' might take twenty seconds or more to complete as the his rear legs would not bend. This initiated a complicated gymnastic routine. Walt would shift most to all of his weight to his front legs and then slowly swing his rear half underneath him. It really is like watching a large bridge or crane move. More hair and farting is involved but it is still a marvel.
The winner in the impressive gymnastic showcase, however, was reserved for walking down the steps first thing in the morning. After hours of not moving, the back end seemed to turn into painful, cemented stumps. To get down the steps he often would just ignore the back end, shift all of the weight forward and walk down on two legs. Remember this is 150 pounds of dog doing this.
We attempted to mitigate the problems with drugs and that did buy us a year. However, by the end of last year it was obvious something needed to be done. So off to the clinic we went.
The main cause of failure was Walt's left knee where the cranial cruciate ligament (analogous to the human's ACL) was completely severed. His right knee's ligament was working about an 30% effectiveness. The surgeons and vets that we took him to would show this problem by being able to move the half of his leg below the knee in a circular motion without moving above the knee. Not by a little, mind you. By a quarter of an inch or more. This, my friends, is sickening to watch.
After going through the options we settled on the TPLO surgery where they change the angle of the knee joint such that the ligament is no longer needed to make the joint function. As this procedure only modifies bone, it is very quick to heal, as we would soon see.
As it was early January when we made the decision to go ahead with the surgery, we decided that waiting until most of the snow was gone probably made the most sense. Trudging about in the winter wonderland with all of your might used to hold up the faltering end of a big dog, no, that is not an experience about which I have bright fantasies. A postponement to a time slightly less snowy led us to March 11 being Knee-D-Day. (Apologies to all but somewhere in my dank soul there is a newspaper headline writer attempting to get out and I want to help him leave.)
We dropped him off in the morning and his surgery was performed in the afternoon. We then picked him up at around 8:30 that evening. Yes, just a couple hours after his surgery. I was a bit wary of this as, you know, they are hacking a bone that, to this point at least, has proven to be fairly firmly affixed, rotating it and then bolting it in a new place using glorified wood screws. Seems a bit invasive for a couple hours of rest and throw 'em out the door. But I needn't have worried.
Kris is handling the paperwork with the lady at the desk and I hear a loud pounding and a voice from the back exclaim “Walter!”. You see, Walt has found in his three years on this Earth that his head is a very useful object. What is it used for mostly? Eating and throwing slobber in such graceful arcs that cinematographers everywhere beg for an audience. But coming close in the list is hammering. What does one hammer? Oh, everything in the reach but favorite of all is hammering doors. He has found this act often leads him to be able to go places when he wants, before those dithering humans decide to move. Into the waiting room comes Walter with a klang, pulling a couple of ladies. Yes, he's limping but he's walking and that was amazing to me.
Now, how do you get a big dog into a car when he can't jump up? This was a real problem that we worked on during the planning of this ordeal. Ramps seemed to be the most obvious and so we purchased a few.
As with everything else in the dog accoutrement world, if your dog is not a pug or a Labrador retriever, you are in for a crafts project. The most impressive dog ramp on the market is made for a 100 pound dog at the very most. Oh sure, I know they talk of “can hold 400 pounds” and I'm sure it can, but dogs don't like bouncy things to walk on. And a piece of plastic bounces with alarming amplitude when a Newfoundland clods up it. Unfortunately my work with Walt made him wary of any ramp going into the car no matter how reinforced. I put anything next to the car and he went and stood near the door to go inside. He is not dumb. That lead to the plan.
The seats in my minivan can be arranged in such a way that a nice, progressive set of steps leads you into the very back bay. It can be a bit circuitous but, with a bit of work with Walt, we were able to overcome it.
In the parking lot of the surgeon's office I am explaining this complex path to the two little lady vet techs. They listen to me and my labyrinthine plan, look at each other, and then just ask if they can pick him up and put him in the back. Uh, sure? So I open the back of the van up and these two little—really, 5 foot small-digits tall ladies—pick up Walt like he's nothing and put him in the back.
Maybe my experience with big dogs is odd but after they are about three or four months old they don't get picked up. Walt came to us at ten weeks and he was already twenty pounds. From there he put on about four pounds a week. It wasn't long before he was too big to pick up. This means that whenever you do decide to play the part of the puppy hoist, the dog really has no idea what fool plan you have but he is firmly convinced that getting away from you is his best plan. And, again, there are other factors. If you are out some place, like just back from a walk, and have to pick up a 50 or 60 pound Newfy to put in the car, well, you're going to come face to face with about a gallon of gelatinous slobber. Makes you teach him to jump into places that much quicker.
The two diminutive vet techs, on the other hand, had a much better plan. If two people pick a big dog up, one grabbing just the front legs and the other for the rear legs, he really has no place to squirm. He just stays bolt upright and you place him wherever you wish. The wife and I have since repeated the process and it works. Highly recommended.
The next hurdle was getting him up the three stairs into the house. They do make slings for such purposes but upon purchasing a bunch of them, again, we found none of the extra large versions to be close to the right size. So we took a couple apart and fashioned a gigantic one that seemed to work. That is until we tried to use it when he actually needed help.
After a couple trips up and down the stairs with me holding his rear half in a sling, I came to the realization that I was harming his progress much more than helping it. No, it wasn't the smoothest gait I have ever seen up and down stairs but it sure was better than the odd Dick Van Dyke routine we had going.
It has now been a little over four weeks since his surgery and he is doing really well. Unfortunately the unrepaired side does seem to be going downhill quickly but it was always the plan to get both knees operated upon as soon as possible. So watch this space for news of the next adventure in veterinary surgery.
