Poor Tara has not had a good weekend of it. On Thursday evening her operated on knee swelled up and she stopped using the leg. It looked like it had picked up an infection and the fluid leak (knee fluid) became a lot worse.
Graham took her to the vets who checked that the stitches and knee cap were all still keeping the knee in place (they are). It would appear that she has picked up an infection in the wound and is now on antibiotics and they are not taking the stitches out today as planned. Tomorrow (Tuesday is check up day to see how the antibiotics are working).
The big problem is that between the two stitches on the bendiest point of the knee the wound is refusing to close up and looks quite nasty. This is where the knee fluid is leaking from. It starts to heal up and then Tara squats to pee, gets up to eat etc and we have a sudden gush of fluid (mainly clear with a bit of blood in sometimes). I think that it is also happening when she is asleep as I keep finding damp patches on her quilt as well. It is winding poor Tara up something chronic and I am so worried about her. I hate to see her hopping around refusing to use the leg when we had seen such great progress before. She also seems constantly restless and won't settle, which is winding herself and us up as well.
She is also quite stressed by the fact that it gets in her fur (mainly on her side) and is constantly trying to clean it off. Tara loves to be clean and hasn't been able to get in the bath since her first operation. If I see it leaking I get a hankie and catch the fluid under the wound but I am not around all the time. We are also brushing her every day but that doesn't really get rid of the small.
Healing thoughts from all of us here, tell Tara her pals are missing her and want her back too chase them along the beach. All the very best and keep positive Claire. Nora
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"YOU OWE IT TO YOUR DOG TO BE WORTHY OF IT,S DEVOTION".
Poor Tara, she's really going through it at the moment. Hope you had some good news from the vet yesterday.
The vet has decided to leave the stitches in for a bit longer and give her another course of antibiotics, so we will be back to see them next Tuesday. She is healing but much slower than they hoped, which is a shame as we should have been 2 weeks into the physiotherapy by now.
Times a great healer they say,but Tara must be getting a bit fed up with not being able to do all the things a big dog does,hope things speed up a bit for her.
Tara was at the vet today and did have the stitches removed this time. She is still on the antibiotics but we can now start gradually increasing the length of her walks and getting her to do some sit walk on exercises to build the muscle back up. So it looks like we can eventually start making progress towards getting her mobile again.