Knees revisited

For those checking in here from time to time to keep track of what happens on canine knee operations, or tplo, we had a new development today. It is week 14 of the right knee operation and week three of the left knee. Everything has been going as planned until yesterday.

Three times yesterday Riley let out a painful yelp as he got up and sprinted to hide behind me. The best way to describe what happened is to see the reaction of a dog shocked with an e collar on high and the dog not knowing where the pain came from so he runs to your side for protection. The pain was obviously of short duration but man was Riley shaking afterwards.

  I took Riley in to the vet and we took some xrays to make sure the knees and plates were okay and everything was positive. Dr. Stoehner did mention a small tear in the meniscus of the left knee which he repaired along with the tplo but didn't feel that there was anything else wrong as far as he could see. I remember feeling sharp and quick pains in my knee when I had a torn meniscus that always subsided quickly. That is how Riley reacted yesterday. All we can do now is watch it and hope it doesn't happen anymore. It possibly might just be some of the soft tissue healing. I'm hopeful that is the problem. If not it's a matter of going back in to try and find the problem. Hopefully arthroscopically.

 The big problem I see ahead is knowing which knee might be the problem, since they both have been operated on. I'm hoping that this is the last of this issue and knee two continues to heal as well as knee one did. If so we'll be on the mtn. pestering chukars by October.