Kota, my little man

So about two weeks ago or so, I had Kota out at the barn to play some agility.  He was excited to be out and be there and gave me his usual snarl to say ‘let’s go!’ as we took off. I sent him into the tunnel and up the dogwalk. On the down side of the dog walk, he fell off to the right. Mildred, who was there with me, said he began holding up his left hind leg, just past halfway on the dog walk, so he must have lost his balance by the down ramp and that’s why he fell off.  I rushed over to him and he wouldn’t stand up. He wouldn’t even attempt to stand on his right leg, his initially bad leg.  When he did eventually stand up, he would not put any weight on the left leg at all.

The next day we took him to the vet and she diagnosed a torn ligament in his knee.  On Tuesday the 13th, we took him to Oregon State University teaching hospital to see their Orthopedic vet.  She confirmed the diagnosis, the xray showed a very unstable knee and so Kota had surgery on the 14th.  We picked him up the 16th and brought home a very tired, very drugged and very much not-using-his-leg little man.

He slept most of the day on Friday and most of the evening as well. At bedtime we put him in the bedroom with access to just half the room and he banged around for a while with his cone of shame on until we tranq’d him so we too could sleep.  He did not want to go into his crate today and has been vocal about the restriction. I did take him outside today while I iced his leg so he could have some free time.  In the x-pen he has his e-collar on to keep him from licking his leg.  We also increased the size of the pen so he can more easily turn around and I removed the big green bed because he had a hard time balancing on it. I did put in a folded crate pad and he has yet to lay on it, so I think he prefers the rug to a bed.  Not surprising as he has never been much on the cushy beds and has always preferred the floors.  Especially cool tile or wood floors.

I sure hope the next two weeks go by fast so we can eliminate the e-collar at least. He has 6 to 8 weeks of crate rest coming and the little punk is going to drive us batty, or he’s going to injure that leg again… we may have to sedate him for a long time in order to keep him from doing any damage to the knee.  He has yet to attempt to use it though… but I think that will take a day or two. It’s not a pretty site, the way he holds it, like it’s broken from the knee down almost.  *shudders*

Here he is on Friday, zonked out.

This is from when we first got him home. Notice the leg is not even touching the ground.

This is today, outside for a spell in the nice weather, icing his leg.