Saturday, October 13, 2007

Day 4 of Crate Rest

Katie seems to be doing well. The left leg is moving forward quite a bit, but it moves diagonally and crosses underneath her body instead of tracking straight. But it is moving. And I was messing with her toes and I could feel her tensing them up, so I think its just a matter of time before everything is working the way it should.
Today, we got up about 6:30 AM. Katie was sort of panting and shaking, so I wasn't sure if it was hunger related or bathroom related. She's definitely getting a little high strung with no exercise. We usually feed the dogs and then turn them out, but just in case I took her outside first. It was obvious she was more anxious about eating. I think she worries about not being in her usual place and missing out.... she hasn't noticed she's actually getting more Kongs and chewies as well as the usual meals in the ex pen. We decided to go back to bed after the dogs were fed and pottied. I crawled into her ex pen and planned to nap for an hour. About 3 hours later, I woke up :-). I think I sleep better in the ex pen.
Stephen and I snuck out the other 4 greyhounds and took them hiking..... we decided it was stupid to go separately and each take 2 dogs. He had to run an errand, so I turned the dogs out back, Stephen went out the front door, and then loaded everyone in the van from the backyard. About 30 minutes later, I gave her a Kong and left the house to meet up with Stephen. When we got back, I took her outside to sun while he brought the dogs in. Hopefully she never knew they went anywhere.
This afternoon we moved her to the computer room so she could hang out with me while I worked. She normally hangs out in this room by choice.

Overall, I think she's doing great. Her biggest problem seems to be not picking the left foot high enough and once it is dragging and knuckled over... she doesn't seem to know it. But if you do support some of her weight in the rear, she can walk for a few steps on a smooth flat surface with the left working like it should. She definitely can stand up on her own (although I don't think the left helps with that) and she can remain standing with weight on the left hind. If she turns around though, she sometimes falls down because the left leg gets kind of hung up. But I think overall, she is making great progress from what I have heard. I'm kind of wondering what sort of tissue damage the left leg has. It seems to be too flexible now..... a question for the vet next week.