As you know Coda had to have surgery on his leg because he had a partial tear in his ACL (knee). Since these ligaments don’t heal, you have to do something about it. So Coda had what is called a TPLO (tibial plateau leveling osteotomy). Basically they cut a piece of Bone and slide it back and screw/plate it in there. That way the knee can’t slide off and doesn’t need the ligament. Coda still has a lot of his ligament intact, so they don’t get rid of that, but the surgery solves the problem.
It was a real stress/worry for me at first, but it wasn’t quite as difficult as I thought. Basically coda has been closed in to some extent for the past 9 weeks… typically in our living room with every chair turned, stairwell blocked, and couch covered so that he couldn’t do anything but lay on the floor. The recovery process takes about 3 months to fully heal, and 6 months to get back to full strength.
Well we got good news in his checkup today (9 weeks post-op). Coda is not only healing well, but he’s ahead of schedule. His leg looks closer to the 12 week point in the healing process, and Coda shows no symptoms of any trouble. He can start to return to normal (off-leash) activity in about 3 weeks. You start slow (say just our small backyard) and over the next couple months warm him back up to full go-crazy at the dog park health.
So here are his x-rays. Before Op, just after Op, and 9 weeks post Op.
