Well it’s only 4 days out from surgery, but I feel like this morning Maisy turned a corner.

She had been toe-touching a little bit with the leg on Friday and Saturday, then on Sunday (yesterday) morning she woke up and she was back to carrying her leg. After a minor freak out I saw that her hock (not knee) was a little swollen. I think she had slept curled up too much, it was floppy fluid accumulation rather than firm tissue swelling. A little massage, a couple hours in a light compression bandage, and it was much much better. This morning she will take 3-4 tentative steps at a time on the leg before toe touching or picking it up again. Her mood is much jollier, and she’s sleeping in more normal positions. She and the other dogs are still separated by baby gates so they won’t try to roughhouse, and she is taken outside separately on a leash so she won’t run. But she is more engaged and interested in what’s going on, sniffing around more outside, normal Maisy stuff. She’s still sleeping a lot, but who can blame her?

We got a little outside time yesterday which seemed to perk up her spirits quite a bit. She loves sunbathing outside, and we had an unusually warm fall day yesterday.

We also started doing some gentle passive range of motion exercises with the leg yesterday, which she is not a huge fan of. I’m glad in the written instructions we took home it specifies that this will be “hard at first and get easier” because that is exactly what is happening. She’s so tolerant and such a champ, though.

Our cat Solo has apparently taken on the role of self-appointedbodyguard; he’s always loved the dogs but he is really sticking close to her over the past few days. (In the pictures where she’s on the couch, never fear: I lifted her up there.)

All in all things are going quite well. If all goes as planned she will have her sutures out in about a week and a half, and then she can start seeing the physical therapist. She’ll be restricted to on-leash only for about 8 weeks before getting some freedom, although she can go on gradually longer walks and do the underwater treadmill throughout that time. So far she’s been a model patient and I’m sure she’ll continue to do great. She’s just such an amazing little dog.