Our last trip to the beach for a while until Brogan can show off his new knee.
Emma's big brother, Brogan, already had his first TPLO (what I simplify by calling a knee replacement) surgery this past March. Three months of restricted movement, the first month being either crated or tied to furniture: this was not an experience either one of us wanted to repeat. When he started stiffening up when the weather turned cold, I figured it was arthritis or just age (he will be seven in next month). But when I saw the tell-tale limping after he spent a few hours on slippery concrete at a recent adoption fair with Miss Emma, I made an appointment with his orthopedic surgeon just to be sure.
Which is how I found myself picking up one seriously groggy dog from an overnight surgery stay on New Year's Eve. This is our second time around (my third as my pit bull also had the operation seven years ago), so I thought I had everything planned. However, I picked up Brogan five hours earlier than last time because of the holiday. Can you say "Stoned out of his gourd"? Poor baby. The combo of morphine, propofol, neurontin and a score of other heavy-duty pharmaceuticals did him in.
While the nice techs at the surgery loaded him INTO the car, I was wondering how I was going to keep him from falling like a puddle of fur when getting him out of the car. Talk about worrying about the wrong thing. Just when I had him all set and was getting ready to gently coax him out of the car and support his non-functional backside, he LEAPT over me, landed like a three-legged gazelle over my shoulder and proceeded to run down the sidewalk. This is the effect of an overabundance of good drugs on even canine judgement. Thank goodness for training, because when shouted "Brogan, WAIT!" he stopped in his tracks until I could catch up.
Realizing he was headed AWAY from home, once I turned him in the right direction he put his head down and charged like a bull towards the front door, literally dragging me behind him. Somewhere in his drug-addled mind he remembered the routine, because when I steered him into the bedroom and he saw his crate he headed straight to it. Whew!
As the drugs wore off, he became easier to manage. Because he's still on a boatload of painkillers he's still got that tinge of drunken sailor to him, but he's getting around alright and has accepted being stuck in bed or in his crate.
Drugged but comfy with new buddy Shamu,
another large mammal who understands captivity.
Miss Emma, however, is not so quick to forgive. I took her with us to drop him off for his surgery and while Brogan happily had his butt scratched by everyone in the vicinity, Emma cast the evil eye around the surgery. "Nothing good is going to come of this," was easy to read on her tiny face. Now that I have broken her best buddy and favorite toy, no amount of bribery or superfluous walks seems to be able to coax me back into her favor. She has taken up the mantle of guard dog, barking at the mail man and other possible intruders, while Brogan lays nearby placidly. She walks over to him and gives him kisses and then shoots me a look that seems to say, "Fix him, then will talk!".
Emma's oddball mothering seems to make Brogan happy, so I can't complain. And on a solo trip to the dog park today when Emma was assaulted by a trio of bullying pugs (who knew such a thing existed?) and I came to her quick rescue, I could see her beginning to thaw. Turns out I'm not ALL that bad in a pinch.
As for Brogan's sailing through the air with the greatest of ease, we'll only know if it damaged his new knee next week during the first post-op x-rays. I'm keeping fingers crossed and until then taking very good care of the big boy, with the help of my chiwah-wah-wah nursing staff!
Emma and Brogan show off their daytime positions:
he's tethered to the couch and she's on alert for him.
Squirrels, mailmen or dogwalkers... she's on top of it!
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