# TPLO surgery



## potspot (Aug 27, 2021)

This is something that's close to my heart right now. We are in the rehabilitation stage after tplo surgery and ix week in cage rest is too long. I'm following my vet's rehab do's and don'ts: TPLO Restriction & Recommendation | TPLO Nashville. haring to all future fur parents who will undergo this surgery.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

potspot said:


> This is something that's close to my heart right now. We are in the rehabilitation stage after tplo surgery and ix week in cage rest is too long. I'm following my vet's rehab do's and don'ts: TPLO Restriction & Recommendation | TPLO Nashville. haring to all future fur parents who will undergo this surgery.


Not sure you are aware that you were responding to a 9 year old post…

Welcome to the forum, and hope your little one recovers quickly!


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## Melissa Brill (Feb 22, 2017)

potspot said:


> This is something that's close to my heart right now. We are in the rehabilitation stage after tplo surgery and ix week in cage rest is too long. I'm following my vet's rehab do's and don'ts: TPLO Restriction & Recommendation | TPLO Nashville. haring to all future fur parents who will undergo this surgery.


Perry has had numerous bouts of crate rest - 2 (8 weeks each) for a CCL tear then about 12 weeks for the surgery to fix it (would have been 8 but we couldn't get to the vet for a check at that time so the vet kept him on restriction til we could do his check). This year it was 2+ weeks following a biopsy of lesions on his spine and then 12+ weeks (we're still in this one) following corrective surgery of a twisted leg (we have a whole thread on that). Crate rest/ restriction is hard but necessary.


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## EvaE1izabeth (Nov 14, 2017)

Is he crate trained? 

Once he’s past the strictest part of crate rest you’ll have to adapt for a little while based on his personality, but it’s easier than it seems if you control the environment, IMO. If you don’t use an expen regularly, maybe try to borrow one or buy an inexpensive wire one from Amazon or something. It’s helpful to have something to use as a partition to prevent him from accessing stairs, etc. Something I had to do after my Havanese was injured was block off the long hallway, where the temptation to run is too great and I couldn’t easily stop him. It was much easier to block off the hall than to stop him from running. Same with furniture and stairs.

The vet told us that he’d self restrict, which I was skeptical of. He did in some situations but he would impulsively run and then immediately sit down and it was obvious he was hurting. However, he adapted quickly once we set up the gates better, and it didn’t feel restrictive anymore. We played a lot of the training games from when he was a puppy for playtime on our bed, which kept him from running and burnt off energy when he started feeling better. 

I’m so glad we didn’t have to do long crate rest like Melissa and others! But I also think it’s not as miserable for them as it would be for us. Not fun, but not as awful as we imagine, especially if we take care to engage them in quiet ways often. Hopefully yours will feel better long term and it will resolve his pain!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

I think a vet saying a dog (or any animal) will “self restrict” appropriately after an injury is just ridiculous. An animal CAN’T know that something they are about to do MIGHT hurt them. They will only stop if they are already in enough pain that something stops them. They are EXTREMELY likely to re-injure themselves, over and over, until they turn an acute injury into a chronic one Without a human making the call for them.


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## EvaE1izabeth (Nov 14, 2017)

I have heard stories of other vets saying the same thing since and have often wondered why they believe this. I brought this up with our usual vet at Sundance’s well visit a while ago because the emergency vet said that the injury he suspected can be recurring. Our vet specifically said if we suspected recurrence to limit his activity and bring him in. 

I imagine there are a few dogs that self restrict, but they have to be the exception. I’d be a little worried about a dog that learns so quickly from a single painful experience. The problem for Sundance is that it took several times running and then hurting to “self restricted, and that’s not preventative. It’s a good point that it’s not really self limiting if he’s already hurting.


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## Heather's (Jun 18, 2012)

potspot said:


> This is something that's close to my heart right now. We are in the rehabilitation stage after tplo surgery and ix week in cage rest is too long. I'm following my vet's rehab do's and don'ts: TPLO Restriction & Recommendation | TPLO Nashville. haring to all future fur parents who will undergo this surgery.


 Scout had 16 weeks of crate rest or sitting next to us on a short leash after two ACL surgeries. He had one week of freedom between surgeries. I quickly learned not to drop his leash when taking him out to potty. He would try to run even though he was in pain. We had to constantly watch him because he definitely would not self restrict... He was given sedatives to keep him calm. It was a difficult time because he was not crate trained. 😬 Always makes me happy to see him jump and run!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Heather's said:


> Scout had 16 weeks of crate rest or sitting next to us on a short leash after two ACL surgeries. He had one week of freedom between surgeries. I quickly learned not to drop his leash when taking him out to potty. He would try to run even though he was in pain. We had to constantly watch him because he definitely would not self restrict... He was given sedatives to keep him calm. It was a difficult time because he was not crate trained. 😬 Always makes me happy to see him jump and run!
> View attachment 175686


Even though it was not surgery, Kodi’s nine months of rehab after his shoulder injury taught me that he has NO instinct to protect himself. If his shoulder was actually HURTING he would not go down the stairs and would wait to be carried. But if he had drugs on board, WATCH OUT! He’d go flying, if you didn’t stop him… and then he’d scream and be hopping on three legs at the bottom.

Even now, when according to the vet, even when she manipulates it, she cannot elicit an “ouch” from him, there are times when he will play too rough with the others out in the yard, I’ll hear a scream and he will be on three legs. But it seems, at this point, to be short lived, a “catch” of some sort, (maybe scar tissue? We don’t know for sure, except that nothing shows on xrays), that he is able to walk out of, and then he’s OK again. So we DO restrict jumping (and he DOES ask for help on and off the bed, but that is trained, and took almost a year of being on leash on the bed!) and make sure he is never crowded on stairs. He is also only allowed to do carpeted stairs, and if he asks for help, we help him immediately. 

But most of the time, these days, he’s pretty much fine. But no more of the sports that we both have loved. Sometimes I take him to class, just because he wants to go so badly, or out to our ring (or down to the training room) and diddle around with him a bit, asking him to do really easy things, just so he feels like he’s training too. He feels SO puffed up when he gets a turn, and can so easily do what the others are just learning!


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## Melissa Brill (Feb 22, 2017)

Heather's said:


> Scout had 16 weeks of crate rest or sitting next to us on a short leash after two ACL surgeries. He had one week of freedom between surgeries. I quickly learned not to drop his leash when taking him out to potty. He would try to run even though he was in pain. We had to constantly watch him because he definitely would not self restrict... He was given sedatives to keep him calm. It was a difficult time because he was not crate trained. 😬 Always makes me happy to see him jump and run!
> View attachment 175686





krandall said:


> Even though it was not surgery, Kodi’s nine months of rehab after his shoulder injury taught me that he has NO instinct to protect himself. If his shoulder was actually HURTING he would not go down the stairs and would wait to be carried. But if he had drugs on board, WATCH OUT! He’d go flying, if you didn’t stop him… and then he’d scream and be hopping on three legs at the bottom.


My experience is the same - they do NOT self restrict. Almost as soon as Perry was no longer screaming from pain for this leg surgery he was considering (aka trying except I had him on a very tight leash) jumping off the bed! 

After his CCL surgery even a short leash was no guarantee that he wouldn't try to jump. At around 10 weeks I had to let him off leash in the house because he'd try to jump on the couch if we got within a couple of feet of it - even though the leash was held at about 4 feet long - which ended up being more dangerous because eiuther he'd hit the end of the leash OR I'd end up pulling him back instinctively which could have caused more damage than the jumping.

At this point, while I still don't trust him off leash with it, he will list to the "stop" command at the bottom of the stairs and will stop and wait for me to pick him up. I definitely would NOT trust him off leash on the bed - but we're working on him coming to me to get off instead of contemplating jumping - maybe after a year I will be able to trust that training, but definitely not yet after 3 months!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Melissa Brill said:


> At this point, while I still don't trust him off leash with it, he will list to the "stop" command at the bottom of the stairs and will stop and wait for me to pick him up. I definitely would NOT trust him off leash on the bed - but we're working on him coming to me to get off instead of contemplating jumping - maybe after a year I will be able to trust that training, but definitely not yet after 3 months!


Yes!!! Even now, come time that Kodi decides he needs to go into HIS bed, he gets up, heads toward the end of our bed. There is a chest there now, so that IF he forgets, he DOES have a safe way down. (It got put there for Panda while she was pregnant, but he occasionally uses it now) USUALLY he will slow down, turn and look at me. If he doesn't, I remind him, and he stops and waits for me to get up and get him. The funny thing is taht I really don't want Ducky jumping off the bed either, and HE is learning this routine from Kodi. He doesn't technically HAVE to go to bed when Kodi does, but I figure that the routine is good training. So when Kodi gets up, they both wait at the end of the bed. I pick up Kodi. put him on the floor and get out the cookies. I pick up Ducky and put him into his crate (which is on top of Kodi's, he can't get into it on his own), and Kodi trots into his. He gets his cookies too, and I shut their doors. Then Panda and I have our "Mommy and Me" time until Dave and Pixel come upstairs!


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