Recheck with Surgeon July 10th

I wrote down what I could remember right after Spice's appointment with the surgeon on July 10th and I am posting it today (more than a month later - sorry).

The surgeon was pleased with Spice's progress. He said that his range of motion had improved. Spice was not as
sensitive when he touched his elbow as before. 70-80% weight bearing on his right front leg. Did not protest when he held up his other leg so that he had to put weight on his right leg. Muscle tone was good - no atrophy compared with the other leg.

He mentioned swimming again as a good exercise. I should increase the length and frequency of his walks. (Hard to do when it is hot out).

We should keep Spice from jumping right now and preventing him from doing stairs (not sure if it was 2 more weeks or longer). Again going down is the worst. If he goes down carefully two front feet at a time it isn't as bad. His cartilage still needs time to form/heal. He mentioned 20 weeks (was this how long the cartilage needed and/or how
long until he improved as much as he is going to?). Sometime dogs will plateau before continuing to improve.

In two weeks could try some running.

Can keep icing especially after activity.

By (the end of?) August we likely will have seen as much improvement as we will see. Again this could be the 20 weeks he was mentioning.

If you try something and he is sore, give him a couple days rest and then try the same thing again. Don't need to revert back to something easier unless it repeats.

He thought teeter would be okay and weaves. I think that the teeter might be too jarring for him. Depends on how he does it. Weaves may also be jarring if he tries to do them fast (two footed). Maybe I should use pylons to try to get the weaving motion without jarring.

He said that his elbow may always get sore due to the arthritis.

He felt the soft tissue swelling spot. I said that it was getting better. He didn't seem concerned since it was getting smaller. I could hardly feel it today when showed it to the surgeon.

I explained the types of exercises he was doing (ladder, fit disks, bosu - half ball) etc. He said that I was doing really well - gold star. Especially compared with other owners (dogs are usually overweight and not active - owners don't know about the exercises).