Peat: 3 months post surgery

Our pup Peat, the adorable Scottish Terrier, had surgery back in mid-August to remove a suspicious lump on his rear leg.

Luckily the lump turned out to be benign, but it was still a long road to recovery. With not very much skin around his ankle joint it took a really long time for things to heal. He endured regular bandage changes, lots of visits to the vet and his surgeon, and a lot of time wearing the cone of shame.

There was even talk that if his leg didn’t progress faster he may have to go through a second surgery to help speed things up. Luckily a week or two after that conversation it seemed like he was healing a lot faster.

Finally at the end of October his leg had healed and the bandages could come off. A few days after that he finally lost the urge to continuously lick his leg and he was able to bid goodbye to the cone of shame.

A couple of weeks after the surgery he stopped walking on his poor leg and would hop around on three legs instead. That threw his hips out of alignment and his left leg grew weak. We talked to his surgeon about it, but it just seemed like he was babying the leg and we’d address it if it continued on for longer. I’ve been massaging his hip joints and now that the bandages are off he uses his leg more and more every day.

He’s been a trooper through this whole experience, although you could tell the cone was bumming him out near the end. He also started to sleep in rather than be his usual self where he would be chipper and excited to start the day at 5:30 am every morning.

Then finally this week (on Tuesday, the day I had off from work) I heard the old familiar yips of excitement from Peat at 5:30 am as he scrambled out of bed. I’m sure he was super excited to don his puffy coat and head out for his walk in the frigid temperatures (yeah right).