For many years, post surgical care in veterinary medicine happened between the anesthetic being turned off and the pet leaving the hospital, after that, pet owners were on their own, left to deal with open drains, keeping a determined pet away from sutures, or dealing with a large heavy dog that cannot walk.
Thankfully things have somewhat changed, but people taking their dogs home after knee surgeries, pelvic surgeries, or rear leg amputations, or even dealing with dogs of advanced years with rear limb weakness, are still often given nothing more than a towel to help the dog get about. This means leading the dog from the rear, something easier said than done.
Even in Tucson, which has a first class surgical rehab center in P.A.W.S. Tucson, and several board certified surgeons, you will still see people trying to walk a great dane from behind, with a towel supporting half the dog's weight, and the dog looking in bewilderment over his shoulder wondering why his owner is insisting on following him around.
Into this peculiar world of muti-thousand dollar surgeries going home with three dollar towels, walked Barry Rubinstein. His lovely golden retriever puppy, Ginger, needed a complex pelvic surgery at six months of age due to hip dysplasia, and along with a ranbunctious, not altogether well balanced young dog with a rebuilt hip, Mr Rubinstein was handed a towel.
"We assumed for the cost of the surgery, a device would be provided to aid in the recovery, but they only suggested we use a towel." Mr. Rubinstein said, but as many dog owners know, he was wrong.
Interestingly, veterinarians are often unwilling to tack what they feel are incidentals onto very expensive surgeries, not realizing that owners are unlikely to notice a hundred dollar difference here or there, but will notice that they are handed a towel (or worse yet, given a suggestion to use one of their own towels).
Go ahead, put a towel under the abdomen of your most enthusiastic dog, lift the dog so neither hind foot touches the ground and try to acheive anything but chaos. Add to that a very legitimate fear that the healing dog, in its enthusiasm could reinjure itself, and you have the makings of a freaked out owner.
Modern pain protocols, a long road from the old veterinary adage that pain will keep the pet quiet, have not helped matters in the regard, it's hard to tell a pet that even though it feels great, it should cool it for a while (this is by no means an endorsement of the old way of doing things which was dreadful).
Ginger recovered, and went on about her life, but a recurrent limp ended up with her back on the surgical table, this time for knee surgery. This time, instead of a towel, Mr. Rubinstein was handed a purpose built sling, essentially a canvas towel with handles.
Ginger was now older, but as anyone who has ever owned a golden can attest, older just means a stronger, bigger puppy. Ginger still wanted to race around and act like a happy golden, and Mr. Rubinstein was frightened that she would injure herself.
"We knew the towel wasn't the answer," says Mr. Rubinstein,"so we created what became the GingerLead prototype." The lead, which combines a sling with a leash, allows the owner to actually retain some level of control of the dog.
Surgery isn't the end of the story, but the beginning, more and more veterinarians are recognizing this, and making useful suggestions to help owners with bandage care, avoid slipping (baby socks with grippy feet work well for this on slippery floors, as does picking up small mobile rugs), and new and better pain medications to keep dogs away from suture sites.
The GingerLead is available online starting at $39.95, and is certainly worth a try for post surgical dogs, and old arthritic dogs with declining rear leg function. They offer a ten day money back guarantee, so if for some reason it doesn't work out, you can always go back to the towel.
Thank you for reading. Please join the conversation on Facebook. You can also hit the subscribe link to ensure that you receive future articles in this series.
Comments