It should not be a surprise to Kojak Nation that our beloved Kojak tore a ligament in his knee and is facing knee surgery on July 27th (less than a week away). He doesn’t even really realize anything is wrong with his knee and we’ve been keeping him on restrictions for the past few weeks. He’s not supposed to run (which he loves to do, more about this in a minute) or do stairs or get up on the furniture – in short anything that would put additional strain on that knee. Although from a medical perspective the ligament is “torn” it is still “connected” in that there aren’t any loose ends flopping around – the ligament is still in one piece and still doing it’s job, but a misstep by Kojak (who weighs well over 100 pounds) could complete the tear and leave him hobbling on three legs.
We do notice at times he’s favoring that leg, keeping the weight off of it while standing still for instance. You can see he’s doing what the vet describes as “toe touching” where just the tips of his toes touch the floor. It gets worse if he is very active – for instance he was out (unsupervised) and just running zoomies in the yard. He LOVED it and loves to run, trot, gallop all over our 2 acre yard. He came trotting in, tongue happily lolling out of the side of his mouth, drank a bunch of water then happily flopped down on the floor for a well deserved rest (I think he fell asleep too).
The problem came when he woke up and went to stand up. He had a bit of trouble getting to his feet and we could tell he was hobbling (although since he’s a Rottweiler, he didn’t complain or whine or anything he just accepted it and moved on). When we went to bed that night, I had to use a strap under his hind legs to assist him up the stairs and on to his bed in the bedroom. The next morning he was able to get down the stairs on his own, but he did spend a couple of days kind of lying around conserving energy and only moving when necessary. Since then we have been very diligent in only letting him out on a leash (good practice for us too since he’ll have to be walked for about a month before we can turn him loose again) and he’s only burst through the door on his own a time or two.
For those Kojak admirers that wonder what “TPLO” stands for, here’s a short discussion:
TPLO (Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy) is a surgical procedure that stabilizes a dog’s knee after a cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) rupture, allowing most dogs to regain normal function and reduce long-term joint damage. TPLO surgery is designed to stabilize the knee joint by altering the angle of the tibial plateau (top of the shin bone) so that the cranial cruciate ligament is no longer required for stability
A dog has two bones that meet each other in his knee, just like you and me. In this surgery the ends of the bones will be exposed and will be rotated a bit (different for each dog and really each leg) so they align correctly, then screwed in place using plates and screws similar to what would be used on you if you broke a bone. The total recovery time is about 3-4 months of gradually returning to normal activities.
As mentioned in a previous post, this is extremely common in Rottweilers because of their size, strength and activity level. There is also the genetic factor and I don’t know anyone that has a Rottie that hasn’t had at least one knee done. Both Cooper and Xena (our previous Rottweilers) needed both knees done (poor Xena needed both done at the same time!). After their surgery and recovery, they were both 100% active (running around the yard, jumping off the deck, fetching the ball and whatnot) until their final day. Kojak is going to the surgeon that did both Cooper and Xena’s surgeries and we have a high degree of confidence in her.
We’ve been TRYING to follow the surgeon’s recommendation about keeping him off the furniture, somewhat unsuccessfully as you can see. We’re not monitoring him 24 x 7 (yet) and he feels his PLACE is on the couch. We’re going to have trouble after the surgery which is where his pen will come in handy. He’s also going to have to wear the “cone of shame” to keep him from licking and pulling his surgical site open. It’s going to be hard and we’ll probably lose some sleep trying to keep him from licking – he is a VERY determined dog!
We’ve been walking Kojak in our yard with just his normal collar and it sometimes feels like he’s trying to pull your arm off. We STILL haven’t broken him from leash pulling on walks – hopefully walking him for the next 4 months will give us time to work on it. BUT the tug of war on his collar is rough on his neck and he occasionally will have a small cough in protest. Reading up on it, it’s not good to be yanking on a dog’s neck. We have a regular back strap harness for him but he hates it – it’s kind of comical to see him run and hide when I pick up the harness! Both Cooper and Xena (and our prior Rottie mix Keiko) loved the harness because it usually meant they were going for a ride!
As an Amazon associate Kojak earns from qualified purchases
I’ve ordered a “no pull” harness that doesn’t have a strap across the throat AND has a leash clip in the middle of the chest. Hopefully he will like it better and the front clip across the chest is supposed to allow you to “redirect” the pull to turn the dog back towards you instead of rewarding hin for his constant pulling. It’s supposed to arrive in the next few days so I’ll let you know how it goes. Below are some “no pull” harnesses but they don’t include the one I ordered; if I get some legal clearance I’ll update this post with the actual one I ordered.
As an Amazon associate Kojak earns from qualified purchases
I did buy one of the SloTon harness and he didn’t hate it – it was way easier to put on than the backstrap harness, just over the head and one strap around his torso behind his front legs. It worked well except I needed to tighten it so it doesn’t rotate around his torso when we got into a tug-of-war. But somehow we lost it so I ordered another one (different brand) which will get the workout likely after surgery.
Our next step is to move his pen up from the basement to the first floor since when he comes home for surgery he isn’t supposed to do stairs. He’ll be living on one floor for a while, just like I did when I had MY knees done! It won’t be too bad since the deck is just off where we’re going to move his pen and we can block the deck steps with a baby gate (he doesn’t know he can just break through the baby gate) and let him relax and catch some rays on the deck. We also have to try his swim gear on him – THAT should be interesting and I’ll try and film some of it for your amusement.
