Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat

I'm posting this here because I'm pretty sure you guys are the only ones that will understand why I pretty much threw a freakin' parade of joy in the backyard... He. pooped.  My boy is just such an advanced booger.  Day 2.  That's my little ravenous monster.  Eating all his food and totally acing this digestion thing.

Also, he's picking up on the hopping stuff pretty quickly.  I'm worried we're in a honeymoon phase here before the hospital wonder drugs wear off (they said probably tomorrow) but so far he's kicking ass.  Stay tuned for weekend weather.

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So far Day 3 has gone alright.  I do think the hospital meds are wearing off and he's a little uncomfortable.  He was lying on the incision before and now he kept starting to lie on that side and then pops back up and has to try to figure out how to lie on the other side.  (Apparently circling counter-clockwise is a very difficult concept.)

Otherwise though...  He is rarin' to go.  To the point where I might need to up the trazodone (I was told 1-2 pills every 8 hrs).  But he's definitely not sedated.  Tried to chase a rabbit in the yard this morning.  (He was on leash so just gave me a jolt.)  Then started butt-wiggle-wagging his tail and tried to pull me to the fence to say hi to the neighbor.  And the whole of today seems utterly dismayed I just keep sitting on the mattress in the living room.  But every time I get up he tries to follow me and get involved in whatever I'm doing.  (He's really just no help in the kitchen at all, frankly.)

So.

So it goes.

Thanks for the suggestion!  R has a snuffle mat.  He loves it.  He's been eating out of it since the day we got back.  This morning we also tried a puzzle game I saw online (I was googling this issue last night).  Muffin tin with little bits of food/treats hidden under tennis balls.  I think I need to see if I have a deeper muffin tin though because he found that one pretty easy.  Now he's chewing on one of the tennis balls.  I'm probably going to have to refuse to throw it at some point here, but he does also like chewing on them until they pop.  (Bad for his teeth, I understand, but at this point, whatever.)

Woke up at like four this morning to find R just standing in the middle of the living room, perfectly still, just staring into space.  Think it was a solid fifteen minutes after I was awake before he actually went to lie down somewhere.  Kinda weirded me out.  Now he's doing kinda the same thing, just lying in one place with the tennis ball in his mouth, staring at ME this time.  Drugs make him a creepster, apparently.  At least, I assume that's what's going on.  

I'm trying to let him have more cone-free time now too, since I'm basically living in the living room.  He'll have to wear it this afternoon for shower and laundry, but it does seem to be his great nemesis.  Opinion question: Can I leave him alone in the house, coned, after week 1?  Just wondering if I can steal back a couple hours a day for gym time in the garage.  It's a ranch house (no stairs), and there's no furniture to jump on in the living room or kitchen.  I'm still worried he'd manage to jump over a dog bed and have his first fall or something while I was gone.

I think I might start going out to the garage Monday.  I was worried because he likes to sit by the garage door if I go out there and the floor is hard in there, but I had to do some cooking today and he sat on the hard floor in the kitchen for a couple hours and didn't seem any worse for it.  I can check in halfway through my sets, so he'll only go about an hour alone at a time.  He's not happy about lying around, but he seems to be putting up with it reluctantly.

Do people think it's suuuuuuuuuper bad if I play our injury version of 'fetch'?  It's where R stands right up against the bed and drops the ball on the blanket and I 'throw' it so he literally can just catch it without really moving.  He's very good at catching it mid-air like that.  He ends up standing for twenty or so minutes at a time and I suppose he must use fast twitch muscles to make the catches. But minimal overall motion. Trying to keep him sane. Ish.