Oh no, I broke my poodle

Two weeks before Thanksgiving my wife and the poodle went on a long run. The poodle did about 5 miles. My wife dropped him off and went a little further.

He clambered up onto the couch which he was never supposed to get on and panted and smiled until he had cooled down enough for a nap.

For an almost 11 year old dog, with chronic health issues, he is mighty. He seemed unfazed by the long run.

When he stirred from his nap he slinked off the couch in his way. He steps two front paws down onto the floor, then raises his hindquarters up into an exaggerated downward facing dog yoga pose and then sort of floats his back half down to the floor.

I saw him limp, just for a bit, on his right back leg. He stretched it out the way he does - toes pointed backwards while leaning forward. His long thin poodle-body becoming an elongated arrow toe to nose.

Ok. Noted.

I vowed to take him on short walks and keep an eye on that leg.

The week passed without incident. On the following Saturday I returned home from grocery shopping to a happy bouncy dog. I let him into the back yard to relieve himself. He returned to greet me with his bouncy, clock-wise pirouettes.

And then he stopped. He held his right hind leg off the ground, toes clenched, tail down. He gave me a sad-eyed look.

I scooped all 57 pounds of him up and hauled him up the back steps, through the back door, and back to his green couch.

I called the local emergency vet. On the phone, I was greeted by a terrible AI voice-assistant which I had to cajole and convince into connecting me to a real human person.

I explained the situation, requesting advice. Got some wisdom. Luckily we had gabapentin and trazodone on hand from previous puppy mishaps. I relocated his bed to the living room and gave him some medication to ease pain and keep him calm. I texted my wife. We began canceling plans. We couldn’t give last-minute symphony tickets to anyone.

We got in to see our vet on Tuesday, had x-rays read on a Wednesday. The radiologist confirmed what our vet suspected. Our poodle tore his cranial cruciate ligament. He would need surgery.

Our vet gave us some codeine for his pain and a list of vets in the area who do orthopedic surgery.

I started making phone calls. Reached back out to the same emergency vet, which is also a regular vet, where they performs the required surgery. I wrestled with the AI operator again and finally got to talk to a human and got a consultation scheduled, only to find out that they had no openings for surgery until January.

I reached out to a friend who is engaged to a veterinarian, and she was nice enough to recommend some surgeons and to steer us away from the most expensive places.

I made some more calls and got an appointment in Vancouver, Washington.

I cancelled work meetings, and then called back the terrible AI robot to cancel our consultation. I was assured my prepayment would be fully refunded.

I was consulted by an appropriately serious animal doc who reconfirmed the reading of the x-rays and walked me through the procedure - a TPLO - this would create a stable platform for his knee by reshaping the top of the tibia.

Friends reassured me. Their dogs had the same operation and fully recovered.

We got lucky, this doc had a cancellation and could get our pup in for surgery the following day, the day before Thanksgiving.

I dropped the pup off in the morning. I had gotten accustomed to picking him and hauling him upstairs. But squeezing him into the back of my tiny Prius with only three working legs was a challenge. I met the vet tech, went over the details and handed off my poodle and crossed my fingers. On the way into the parking lot, the Apple AirTag on his collar alerted me: “Jonah has been left behind”.

I collected our dog first thing the next day. he was drugged and confused with a Frankenstein scar on the inside of his leg. The vet tech held his hindquarters up with a special padded sling. They held him while I pulled the car around. I hefted him up, sling and all into the back of the car. They handed me a paper bag full of medication. We have a small puppy pharmacy collecting on our kitchen counter.

They handed me yet another plastic cone-collar. Our 4th. We have a stack of cones in our basement. I noticed on my bill that this piece of plastic with velcro tape cost me $35 dollars.

We arrived home and I hoisted him out of the back of the car and tried to let him walk and find a spot to pee while holding his back-end up with our brand new sling. The idea is to let the dog assume the pee position and pull the sling away. I failed. The sling went right into the washing machine. We got inside and began the recommended regimen of medication and bed rest.

The prescribed trazodone is supposed to make dogs calm and sleepy. It makes our dog agitated and loopy. He doesn’t really rest. It destroys his motor control so he peed his bed. I took the cover off the bed and washed that and the soiled blanket. I picked him up and placed him on the couch next to me, and we watched Star Trek II and III together. I slept downstairs on the couch that night.

In his bewildered, drugged state, our pup refused to stay put on his bed. He desperately wanted up on his green couch. I relented and placed him carefully on his favorite spot. He relaxed and went to sleep. I slept with one eye open, startling awake periodically to make sure he didn’t roll off the couch. He was completely stationary through the night until morning. I was puttering in the kitchen when I saw him start to groggily roll over and right off the couch. I shot across the house at super-human speed and caught him before he hit the floor.

Sufficiently chastened, I pulled the hide-a-bed out of the couch half way so that it was no longer an inviting place to sit. I buried the other couch in furniture to make it unusable. I rearranged rugs from all over the house to create a high-traction path from bed to bowl to door and back.

By now we have given up on the trazodone, opting for codeine and gabapentin. This did the trick. The poodle was both calm and resting. But we were almost out of codeine.

This is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. We call the vet who performed the surgery (our normal vet is closed), and beg for a codeine prescription. We get promises and no call back. We’re worried. This vet doesn’t stock codeine. Codeine is tightly controlled and rarely available at regular human pharmacies. My wife called around to find a one with a supply on hand. We call again and again and stress that it is a holiday weekend and everything is closing early. Finally we get a prescription. I drive back to Vancouver to collect a hand-signed paper prescription and run it to a Fred Meyer where I received enough codeine to kill a man and his horse. We had asked for five 30mg tablets.

After the disaster of the holiday weekend passed, our pup made a fast recovery. Not even two weeks out from his surgery he was walking more or less normally.

His incision was practically invisible and we never even used that stupid cone.

Our biggest challenge now is keeping our pup from running and playing. His energy has returned and he’s even learning to handle steps again. I’m still doing lots of poodle presses and poodle squats, but he is stronger every day.

Some time in February he should be ready to run, jump, and play again.