There is a couple out there more powerful than Brangelina. Ladies and gentlemen: Pada. 

It has been a while since I wrote about crazy pet shenanigans. A few days ago I got some sunflowers thinking it would look cute to have sunflowers on our kitchen table since we live on Sunflower Street. Paco took an immediate liking to them and Bob and I caught him occasionally nibbling on them and we were quick to squirt him with the water bottle. 

I got home from work today and found this:

The bite marks are from that of a certain Paco McTaco. After scoping out the house I was unable to turn up the heads of the flowers anywhere. Paco is much too small to eat 5 or 6 sunflower heads so that is where Coda got in on the trouble. He ate them! No trace of my flowers anywhere. This may have to be a flowerless marriage.

They do this stuff all the time. Paco makes a mess, and Coda helps hide the evidence. I have never seen two pets more in cahoots than they are. 

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.

We had some visitors this weekend- Bob’s friend Paul (former 5th Street Band dude), Paul’s girlfriend Sarah, and their friend Nick. We had them over for some grilled chicken and steaks, drank some beer and wine and played some Wii games. It was nice having company for a bit. 

Bob and I saw the new Pixar movie Wall-E tonight. We thought it was great- very cute and funny. We were that couple that stayed through the credits because we met a guy that works at Pixar studios and we wanted to see his name on the screen. 

Also, we’re excited to add Paco to our home in mid-August. Until then, my sister is going to watch him and take care of him and teach him how to walk on a leash just like Lola so we can still go on family walks. He’s about 6 weeks old now. Here is Aunt Amanda taking care of him: 

Coda is getting excited to have someone new to play with. He is lonely since he doesn’t have Lola to sniff and harass her when she sets foot in the living room.