Ozzie's Story, pt. 3; Recovery

As of today, we are one month out from Ozzie's surgery to correct his Osteochondrosis (OCD). Pardon me while I do a happy dance. His surgery itself was a perfect success, and so far the recovery is going very well. However, "well" does not equate to "easy" in this situation. Still, we prepared and were able to put certain measures in place to help make things a little less cumbersome, and I am so glad we had the foresight we did. Our surgeon has also been accessible and fantastic in working with us to find solutions to accommodate Ozzie's personality while keeping his recovery on track. One of my beliefs that goes hand in hand with my cardinal rule of Know Thy Dog is using professionals (vets, trainers, etc.) that will work with you to meet your dog's specific needs, rather than squeezing you into a one-size-fits-all solution.

He looks so innocent, doesn't he?

I knew from the beginning recovery was going to be a challenge. During the procedure, the surgeon removed the cartilage flaps in Ozzie's shoulders and ground down the lesions on his bones to get rid of the decalcified, unhealthy areas. This meant that not only would Ozzie have to heal from the surgery itself, but his body also had to repair the once-defective areas. OCD occurs when there is an inadequate blood supply to the top of the bone. Consequently, that area is only fed by joint fluid. The bone starts to deteriorate and decalcify. In an effort to protect the bone, the body produces cartilage flaps, but unfortunately they just make things more uncomfortable. By grinding down the defective bone area to the healthy bone, blood flow is restored. Little clots form, and from there the bone is able to regrow and repair itself. Healthy cartilage then forms, and voila, problem solved. As I mentioned before, there is an increased chance of osteoarthritis, and we have to be careful to limit high impact activity, but Ozzie is no longer lame and in constant pain.

Because his body has so much rebuilding to do, being meticulous in the management of his recovery is imperative. His shoulders need to be given the opportunity to regenerate in a healthy way. If they aren't able to do that, we would basically be back at square zero. No pressure, right?

Funny to think something sooo little can cause soooo much work!

Ozzie's recovery has a few stages, broken into two two-week blocks and one four-week block. I'm calling this last one the Home Stretch! That's a total of eight weeks, assuming everything goes according to plan. As the surgeon said, "I take care of the technical part, but the hard part really falls on you." It is incredibly intimidating initially, but now that we're halfway through, I can say it's ultimately very doable.

Weeks 1 and 2 Ozzie was on bed rest. He could be taken out to do his business, but that was the only activity allowed. Running, jumping, and basically all of his favorite activities are completely forbidden. We also had to limit his propensity for doing burnouts on the hardwood floors. Steven carried Oz from his crate to the grass and back when he was home, but I had to settle for walking him through the house, carrying him down the steps, the carrying him back up the steps and walking him back to his crate. Fifty pounds of wriggly muscle covered by loose puppy skin was too much for me handle other than for short periods. Ozzie had to wear his cone of shame whenever he was unsupervised. We found that it stressed him out too much to take it on and off, so we ended up just leaving it on him. We iced his shoulders 3 or 4 times a day for the first few days, and we were able to remove his bandages on the third day. Fortunately, during this period he was also on painkillers as well as an anti-anxiety medication, which kept him fairly mellow. Unfortunately, he was still too excitable to do one of his physical therapy exercises without injuring him.

Aerial view of Ozzie's haircut. I call it a Halfsies Backhawk.

Weeks 3 and 4 we graduated to letting him walk through the house every time he went out, allowing him to walk up and down the ramp we built from the back porch, and taking him for short leash walks around the back yard. He was able to come off of his pain medication and anti-inflammatory medications; for the first time since a week after bringing him home, he was off of Rimadyl! At the recheck he got his stitches out, and again I thanked my lucky stars that we went the arthroscopic route  because the healing was so quick and easy. We also were able to teach him a puppy push-up to get his extension movement we were lacking in his exercises. A puppy push-up is a great way to build muscle, stability, and flexibility for all dogs, not just those recovering from surgery! And it's super easy. Have your dog sit. Have your dog lay down. Have him sit again. That's it, easy peasy! We first learned about them when working on initial training with Brugge and trying to wear her out.

In this last phase, weeks 5 through 8, we're increasing his leash walks gradually up to 20 minutes, increasing the amount of puppy pushups, and reintroducing steps and steep inclines. In one month's time he should be back to doing everything a normal dog would do, just on-leash. At his final recheck, we will hopefully gain permission to finally "cut the cord" and let him do whatever he wants! We'll still have to gradually increase his activity and not let him overdo it at first, but he will hopefully be in the clear as far as disrupting his healed shoulders!

We all can't wait for more of this!!!

Like I said, it hasn't been easy, but this process has been 100% worth it. Two months of having to problem solve and work hard is nothing compared to a lifetime of comfort for Oz. I would even venture to say that it has been helpful in some ways. I've been forced to become more patient, which is one of my biggest flaws. Our household is on a great routine that was set up when we were giving Ozzie pills four times a day at specific times for those first two weeks.

Now you know the general guidelines for Ozzie's recovery, but I mentioned we had taken measures to make his recovery easier prior to his surgery. We all know I'm a little long-winded, so I'm wrapping it up here. I'll reveal my methods for preparing him for as smooth a recovery as possible, as well as things I wish I'd done in advance, in my next post!