Hi there...and welcome. It's great your boss let you work from home to be with your dog. I took three vacation days when Cadence had her surgery. We had our friend's 18 year old son and cousin to come watch her on the fourth day, then my husband was home with her on the 5th day. It was the weekend after that, and then Monday we were back to work and left her alone with the cone of shame . 

Options you might have are having a trusted friend/neighbor come watch him if you need to run out, or maybe doing grocery orders through Peapod which is a grocery home delivery service. Also if you have a large crate, you could put him in that too for a short period of time while you stepped out. We had Cadence quarantined to our living room (basically only carpeted area in the downstairs) because we didn't have a crate large enough for her to turn around in with the cone of shame on. 

I think the time you leave your tripawd alone depends on the dog and the person. I am a type A and need to watch and monitor everything so I was not able to leave Cadence alone by herself until that week was up and I saw that the healing was going along well. Plus if your tripawd is like mine, they will want to try everything all by themselves, including stairs *GASP*  while it is still too early in their healing process, and need to be monitored so they don't do too much. With the meds, sometimes they feel real good and think they can do more than what their body will allow. 

Definitely try to spend some time getting out, even if it's for a few minutes outside on your porch sitting with a lemonade and getting fresh air. It is important to take care of yourself as well and try to find some relaxation. 

Cadence's Mom

The first time we left Chico alone after his surgery was one week later.  We had to drive to another city for my college-aged daughter's recital and were gone about 7 hours.  He greeted us at the door with a toy in his mouth!  We had blocked off the doggie door so he couldn't go through it and hurt himself, but he had no problem with that and as soon as we got home, we took him outside and he came back in through the doggie door and didn't hurt himself at all.  We were worried for nothing!

We get Jack's staples out tomorrow, which makes me so excited. 🙂

But!  I was extremely, extremely fortunate at the timing of Jack's surgery...hate to say it, but it seemed like a good sign. 😉   Anyway, Jack's surgery was the Thursday before Memorial weekend.  He stayed Thursday night at vet's, and I got to pick him up on Friday, when I was done with work.  Had that three-day weekend to stay home, and my work was so wonderful to let me off an additional two days.  I left Jack alone after that, separate from the other dogs.

I actually put him in the master's bathroom in our house - it was big enough to have his bed, his bowl of water, room to lay on the cool tile, and a walk-in closet where he could go if he wanted to lay on carpet.  Worked out extremely well.  We had no problems with this arrangement until he tore his shirt off (and into ribbons) two days ago.  Since then, he's had the shirt while I'm here, the cone of shame when I'm gone.  I'll be happy to not have to worry about either.  I never realized Jack didn't care for shirts. 😉

I'm sure it depends on every dog, but I think after the first few days, it's ok to leave them alone.  I think Jack probably would have been ok after the 3rd day, honestly, but he was living life as a tripawd (the fourth leg was baggage the last few months) before the surgery.