Vid

Here's a quick video of Tai doing his ladder. He is loving doing it again, even if it is quite disjointed looking!



Ladder work 3.5 mths after accident from Ali Barnett on Vimeo.

3.5 months post injury

Here's some pics of what Tai's been up to and how he's doing...

He still doesn't like to put his leg straight down when standing still but eventually it will drop. He is really good at walking on it now but he is restricted to walking only on lead and so controlled and slow. If he wasn't on lead he certainly wouldn't be going slow and would be hopping round 3-legged.

Standing still with his leg down OMG!!

Doing some ab work outs

Tai has been doing the ladder now and has build up from 1-2 reps to 4. Here is a sequence - you can see he is actually doing it 4-legged!!!

Concentrating hard!!!

The rat leg is still there, albeit a bit hairier, and the photo below shows how much less muscle it has. Sean reckons his leg and shoulder muscles feel a big bigger but its not even been two weeks since everything came off. He still has the sutures in his elbow which are healing nicely and not looking infected (thank god!) so they should come out this weekend. In a few weeks he'll be able to start his hydrotherapy which should make a huge difference.

The rat leg

Typical pose - holding the rat leg up... wish he'd bloody put it down already!

We are still doing the exercises his physio has prescribed and he gets to go for 1-2 walks a day for ~10min. We've been going to the park and also walking down the street. I've been impressed by how focused he is at the park, even when there are other dogs walking by or chasing a tennis ball. He has got to meet some children (who he loves!) and sniff smelly things.

We're off to the beach this weekend so I might drive him down so he can walk along the sand. Will make sure he gets to go on the harder sand as I don't think his leg is up to walking on soft sand just yet. We will be at the beach for 2 weeks over Christmas/New Year so hopefully by then he will be able to walk for longer and also have a workout walking through softer sand.

Anyway Tai is loving not been restricted to his crate and toileting on-lead now. Best of all he is still pretty tired after his exercises!!!

13 weeks post injury

Tai cuddling up to Wilson (as always!) while Wilson pretends he's not really there...

On Saturday we x-rayed Tai again. The difference since the last x-rays 2.5 wks previous was huge - you couldn't see the fracture line clearly only a jumble of stuff (the callus). Steve unscrewed the left-in ex. fix. pins so the only hardware Tai has is the pin down the ulna. He is allowed to weightbare and begin slow walks!!!!!! Yay!!!

There is still quite a bit of healing to go so only slow and gentle exercises for the next month.

Unfortuantly the splint has caused a friction-rub wound on the tip of his elbow. This didn't show up as the discharge and blood was caught under the splint! It was deep enough to see the tip of the ulna pin sticking out - ouch! Steve sutured it up so hopefully that heals ok...

Tai saw his physio today (Kirsten) and he is allowed to go for slow short walks (if he walks slowly he does weightbare nicely), do ladder work (starting with 1 or 2 reps and building up) and balancing exercises (lifting up right front paw and/or back paw) beginning with a few seconds building up to longer. I will also continue to do some gentle shaping involving his left paw touching a target. He was quite sore (like normal) so Kirsten worked on him for quite a while and also used the laser. He looked loads better afterwards.

Hopefully in a little while we will get him swimming!! He will love that! Just need to buy and set up the pool...

Things are looking better for him now. The totally best thing is, because he is now getting some exercise/ stimulation he is tired!!!!!!!! For the last couple of weeks he had begun to lose it and go a bit crazy, so this new exercise stuff is zonking him out before he goes too mental.

Tai showing off his Bay of Plenty rugby colours :)

29 October - 10 weeks post injury

Steve took the two top pins out as they had become loose - he thought within the last 4-5 days. When they come loose they create larger holes as the pin moves with possibility of causing a fracture!!! Lucky he took them out when he did. It was expected that the pins would eventually come loose and it is good they lasted the 5 weeks. He has left the two bottom pins in as they are fine and we may need to use them later. He won't put any more holes in the radius as it literally has holes the whole way down it. There is some union in the radius but at the back of the bone - against the ulna - it hasn't completely healed and you can still see the fracture line quite clearly. I can't remember what he said about the ulna healing... He's put it in a splint and dressing which will stay for the next 10-14 days or as long as we can leave it. Will then x-ray again when he takes the splint off and if need be will re-splint for another couple of weeks or he can put a pin into the ulna and connect it to the radius pins as an ex fix apparatus. After being dopey yesterday Tai is mad mad mad today!!! Not good when I am trying to cram my study in for exams.

21 October - 9 weeks post injury

The ex. fix has been on for 4.5 weeks now and he has some hair growing back on his skinny rat leg!! It makes it look slightly less ugly...

1 October - 6 weeks post injury

These pics show how is leg is healing - still some swelling around his wrist area. He still doesn't want to weightbear which I guess if fair enough considering whats gone on with his leg over the last two weeks and the pain from the infection.

26 September - 6 weeks post injury

Just changed his dressing - OMG it took over half an hour... geez. Things got stuck together a lot with blood and discharge. Couldn't really see much around the pins because the bar is so close! But it looked quite clean I think, I hope.

He is being such an amazing patient and quite happy to sit/stand for the time it takes me to prod around his leg. There isn't loads of discharge but what does come out is super sticky - it looks like honey and has the same consistency - so its a pain to get off the bars and clamps.

Poor Tai does really want to lick the crap outta his leg when doing a dressing change but is happy to have someone hold is head so he can't.

You can see that his carpal area is quite swollen too.

24 September

On the 13th Sept Tai managed to pull the ends of an internal suture that was sticking out the external incision. This caused the internal incision to rupture and infection to set in. He was a very quiet and miserable dog over the weekend!! We x-rayed him then to check the hardware and it all looked ok. So he went on antibiotics which helped the swelling go down (it had blown up at least twice in size over Sat night!!). He didn't weightbear at all last week after making great progress with his physio up till then.

On Thursday the decision was made to remove the plate and put an external fixator on. This sugery happened on Sunday. The surgery went well but upon opening up Steve saw that a screwhead had cracked - this is where something happens to the screwhead, in Tai's case it had bent, causing the surrounding bone to fracture. I'm not sure what Tai did to cause that one! He now has four pins in his radius and the pin still in the ulna. He has bounced back from surgery and is coping well. Not sure how long the external fixator will stay in but initially it was thought only 3 to 4 weeks but now possibly longer.

I've got some baby cot bumpers to put around his crate to stop the fixator getting caught or banging into the wires. It looks very cosy in there.

The pic attached I took not long after I took him home on Sunday following surgery so he looks pretty dopy still. He is back to his happy self now although he is going to be sooo naughty when he is finally allowed to do stuff as I am too scared to do any training or shaping tricks with him until the fixator comes off.

So all this for a freaken broken bone... make sure you doggies don't break anything! It is bloody expensive too.

12 September - 3.5 weeks post op

Tai's incisions are healing well. There is the tail-ends of an internal suture sticking through the external incision but the vet said it is the dissolving kind and should disappear in the next 10 weeks. These pics show how bowed his leg is. Quite amazing really!

30 August - 12 days post op

Tai had his staples out today. He has to wear an elizabethan collar for a while to stop the licking!! Here are some pics of Space Cadet Tai.
One of the staples bled hence he still has to wear a dressing for a few days still.

1st week post op

Tai is back to his crazy self. I took him out to the toilet lunch time and he promptly ran over and picked up a ball and dropped it at my feet! I took it off him so he went and got the munched-up bucket. He really doesn't think he should be taking things slowly... what a surprise. I crated him outside on the deck this arvo so he could get some fresh air while I took apart the weaves and put his jumps and bumps away.

He is still pretty tired and he's currently curled up in his crate on the wheat bag so obviously liking the warmth. He has been licking at his shaved spots though and they are already turning red. I've used some Miracle Mist and also arnica which he likes to lick off!! I might get some cooling-type gel to put on to see if that helps relieve the itchiness.

Tai got his dressing changed today and now has a more manly blue colour. The wounds are nice and clean but there is quite some swelling down the bottom of his leg. He was a very good patient and let Steve flex his wrist and toes to push the fluid back up, which Steve was surprised he allowed him to do. Its makes it soooo much easier and less stressful to have a dog which is trusting and well tempered. I'm going to change the dressing again in 4 days and then the staples will come out Saturday week.

He is also putting some weight in it sometimes like when he is cocking his leg!! or just standing/sitting so I'm hopeful once the staples are out that he will begin to weight bare straight away, even if its only slightly.

Tai saw an osteopath 4 days after the operation which was timely as it was booked a month ago!!

2 days after - post op

Steve McGill operated yesterday (Monday) where he stabilised the break using a plate on the radius (8 screws) and a pin down the ulna. He said it was a bit tricky because during the break a chunk of bone was knocked out, this wasn't shown up in the original radiograph. This means he will probably have a slight bow in his bone but the joints are still in line and so it will not make a difference. It's been dressed in a beautiful purple vet wrap which we'll change on Thursday (I'll try get a more manly colour!!!). He will remove the staples in 10-14 days where following he can have 2x day short very slow lead walks of 5 - 10min, building up as he begins to weight bare on it.

Due to the chunk of bone missing it will take longer to completely heal - probably up to 3 months. After its healed Steve will take the plate and pin out which will be another month of recovery. But we will x-ray in 6 to 8 weeks to see how its healing. Hopefully after about 2 months he can go to off-lead exercise and after a month is allowed to swim. Basically he won't be doing any jumping or contact training until after the plate & pin are out and the screw holes have filled in. So, hopefully he will completely healed and able to begin getting back to fitness in about 4 months which brings us into 2009.

Tai's first 18 months

Here is Tai's first 18 months! Its been full on with lots of changes and lots of laughs.


Tai's first 18 months from Ali Barnett on Vimeo.