Rambo Gets Knee Surgery
If your dog needs knee surgery, specifically meniscus repair then read on, our senior dog really benefited from this surgery and lived to 16 years old. He sadly passed away from kidney illness and old age. He had this surgery age 12 and it allowed him to enjoy 4 more quality years playing bally, running and going on adventures.
*post contains graphic images of a dog’s leg with stitches after meniscus surgery
Our dog Rambo, a 70 year old man trapped inside the body of a 12yr old Silky Terrier started limping after one of his crazy zoom episodes. We thought it was a sprain or maybe something stuck in his paw.
A quick trip to the vets revealed all. He had a torn meniscus in his knee! We were so worried as he is such an active little dog but the surgery was booked for the next week. Torn cartilage in the knee area is common with footballers, my Dad had a meniscus repair a few years ago, so we were kind of familiar with it. The vet thinks that it’s been a gradual thing and it just finally went on him.
Luckily at 12 years old he was in good shape for the anaesthetic and our vet assured us that it was the right thing to do, otherwise he could get a weak, painful leg and wouldn’t have a good quality of life.
When we went to pick him up, Rambo was already trying to put weight on his bad leg, which is just like him. The vet completely removed the meniscus rather than trim it. It depends on the damage whether the meniscus will be repaired or removed. This operation allowed Rambo to enjoy playing bally in his old age.
This is why I warned you at the start of the post. Here’s a pic of Rambo’s leg 2 days after surgery.
The first few nights were difficult as he wouldn’t rest and kept knocking his stitches with the cone. The best thing to do if your dog is a bit hyper after this surgery is to section off the room so they can’t go too far or jump on any furniture. I found this out the hard way, when I nipped to the toilet and 2 minutes later found him standing on the foot puffy about to jump down.
Here’s his little leg 12 days after surgery, still a little inflammation but overall looking better. At this point he was cone free and enjoyed some short walks. He just couldn’t wait to get out of the house.
So we nursed him back to health. He’s a heavy little thing, 7 kilos in fact, so anytime he wanted to pee or get fresh air I would carry him up 2 flights of stairs to our roof garden and back down again. You should see my arm muscles now, I’m ripped. Haha. Once he could do the stairs, it got a bit easier and we progressed onto walks in the street but it’s worth investing in some pee pads for the first part of recovery and those sleepy days especially if you have a senior dog.
His energy, positive mindset and determination really helped with the healing process, so that was actually a plus. Rambo began to do his own physiotherapy too, it came naturally to him to do some yoga stretches after he’d been laying down for a while and really giving his back legs a good stretch out.
Our vet was very pleased with his progress and even gave him the nickname Tank because of how well he recovered.
Here he is 2 months and 6 days after his surgery. 😀
Rambo is a little love, but during recovery he was a bit grumpy and jealous (probably frustrated too), so it was very hard for us to keep him calm, especially with the other dog in our building! But, we did it and I’m happy to say he’s now being very spoilt with chicken legs and the best ham.
Thanks for reading,
Vikki 🦊