Day 4

Zane is quite a bit perkier today. He is occasionally eating canned food and Nature's Balance dog food rolls. He really likes those dog food rolls. They are like a dry summer sausage. They seem to be the easiest for him to chew. He still seems pretty uncoordinated with chewing and getting food out of a bowl. Zane likes for me to spoon feed him his canned food so I willingly oblige him!

My biggest concern for him right now is his back left knee. He is favoring it and it creates problems for him when he is turning or getting up from a down position. Just a few days before his surgery, he fell down while barking. When he got back up, he held up his leg. I was concerned and called his surgeon but he was off for the day. The tech recommended upping his tramadol and felt that he was probably just sore from the fall. She reassured me that there is not much he could do to really mess things up from just falling over on his leg.

Zane spent a good part of the afternoon laying in the shade on the back deck. Our back deck has all day sun so we bought a huge umbrella to shade part of the deck for the dogs. It's 11 feet across and sways with the breeze. The dogs seem to love it. We throw a few beds out there and close off the gates so everyone can take an afternoon nap.

Zane's highlight of the evening was drinking fresh water from the bathroom faucet. I was surprised that he could comfortably move his neck that way but it clearly did not bother him. He was so happy with his fresh water that he repeatedly went to the faucet during the night for us to turn it on!