Home Set Up Post-Surgery

Home Set Up Post-Surgery

/ Care Professionals

A Place to Rest:

Having a safe place to rest and recover is so important! I love using an exercise pen for my dogs. It gives them a little more space than a crate, but it is still restrictive enough to really limit their movement. If you have the funds, it is helpful to have several of these to set up in different rooms. I just have one pen, so it moved with me as I moved around the house. Not a big deal, just not as convenient. It can be helpful to build a frame for the base of the pen for reinforcement if your dog likes to push them around. I used my elevated Kuranda beds, which worked super well at adding reinforcement while also giving her a supportive place to rest.
Post surgery our dogs need to stay quiet and not bounce, jump, pull, or run while they recuperate. Since Quin had knee surgery, so also needs non-slip surfaces where ever she walks while she recovers. We bought rubber-backed rugs and runners to cover our laminate and slippery floors. Yoga mats are also great for this. I also added a non-slip bed and mats to her bed. Kuranda has a sherpa pad that snuggly fits on top of the bed, which was great.
 
It is also important to physically keep her from moving too fast. She is always on-leash with that leash attached to us as she recovers. We also have been very diligent at keeping our other dog from having access to her, even as she feels better. It is just too tempting for the two of them to try playing together or for Quin to want to run where Crosby is and see what he is doing. That has been difficult, but it has been worth it. The most time consuming aspect has been keeping them separated while we moved her exercise pen back and forth or moving her from room to room. That requires us to put Crosby behind a closed door or baby gate before moving her pen or her.

Medications:

As she recovers we used a combination of medication + brain drain + confinement to keep her from injuring her knee. The hard part of confinement is our dogs tend to get pretty bored. They need brain drain like frozen food puzzles, stuffed kongs, chews, etc. to help put their brain to work when their bodies need to stay quiet.
 
Medication has been extremely helpful at keeping her calmer and more content. From her first day home to many weeks later, even the sight of her leash got Quin all sorts of bouncy and overexcited. We tried to take a break from medications at around week 2, but we found that it wasn’t worth the potential risk of her re-injuring herself and added medications back in again.
 
We are also big fans of using weekly pill dividers. We use them personally and we also often use them in our pet sitting business. I have two big reasons for using these. 1) ￼You can ensure that they got their meds with a quick visual check￼, and 2) You only have to think about which medications they get when just once per week. This definitely helps reduce errors and it saves a ton of time! I bought these off of Amazon. Each dog has two containers in their own color, one for AM meds and PM meds. I have also seen people do this very successfully with ice cube trays!

Other Considerations:

 
It is also important to physically keep her from moving too fast. She is always on-leash with that leash attached to us as she recovers. We also have been very diligent at keeping our
other dog from having access to her, even as she feels better. It is just too tempting for the two of them to try playing together or for Quin to want to run where Crosby is and see what he is doing. That has been difficult, but it has been worth it. The most time consuming aspect has been keeping them separated while we moved her exercise pen back and forth or moving her from room to room. That requires us to put Crosby behind a closed door or baby gate before moving her pen or her.
 
We definitely don’t want to have to do this again, so we are doing our best to follow the vet’s orders as much as possible.
 
Lastly, I took a photo of her knee and incision as soon as we got home so I can compare her healing or any backsliding as we go. The plan is to continue documenting her progress as we go. It is always helpful to have a baseline and reference points!

The Take Away:

Like anything else in life, you can prepare and prepare but your “boots on the ground” version will always need some flexibility and some deviation from the plan. That is the hardest part! We need to keep our minds open to how our plans might need to shift as the situation shifts. It is even harder to do that proactively instead of reactively!