Walking Ddog following his surgery ideas ...

[Madzhouse]

Ddog had surgery last week following a dog fight. He'd got a broken elbow, puncture wounds on neck, lacerations and scratches on his shoulder. Hes a 20 month old German Shepherd.

Hes supposed to be incapacitated, unable to bear weight on his heavily bandaged front leg and generally be feeling sorry for himself.

He is none of those things! This morning on taking him out for his 3 minute toilet time in the garden he .... pawed his bad leg at the door whilst I unlocked it, smashed his bad leg into the door on his way out, leapt onto the 3ft garden wall as we walked around the perimeter for him to wee, went into a play pose when he saw the horses, and somehow whilst pooing got his back leg tangled in the plastic bag which is keeping his bandaged front leg dry whilst out and fell over onto his injured side before jumping back up and completing his walk with a perfect heel!

He's not even on all the originally planned painkillers as he was sick after having metacam so vet advised to discontinue it.

Hes being an absolute angel inside ... hes just snoozing in the playpen which has been set up for him but hes so excited when he sees the lead hes practically vibrating. He does walk nicely on the lead (barring today's wall incident which was my fault) but I'm concerned a) about the damage he'll have done to his leg today and b) how we are going to manage longer term as he starts to feel even better and the restricted exercise goes on longer.

Anyone got any genius suggestions?

I was told to walk my very bouncy dog on the lead even in the garden for the first bit post surgery, as your dog heals you can then start to let him out as normal. I really sympathise as it was exactly the same with mine, but as soon as I opened the back door he was off like nothing was amiss. I was fortunate that it was the summer and so not so bad as I can imagine it is very cold first thing in the morning and late at night.

Hope your dog heals up quickly

I've never had a dog but I've done plenty of bored over excited horse rehab after surgery before.
I would definitely have him on a short lead walking in straight lines.
I assume that like horses dogs can do brain training too, lots of quiet thinking work in a safe environment to make him less bored.
In the short term, get sedatives from the vet.
On a horse, I'd walk it in a bridle. So I guess the dog equivalent is some kind of control halter lead? Even if it's not something you normally use it may well be much kinder than more treatment and enforced rest.