*The following post is written by Scarlett’s dad, Dave.
“Hello Tripawd community, I am Scarlett’s dad and despite what other’s in the family believe…I am her favorite…at least I like to think so! My wife and I have not been able to post to Scarlett’s recovery blog because we were out of town all last week when the surgery took place and upon her return home, putting the weight of the world of Scarlett’s recovery squarely on the shoulders…they have done a miraculous job! But enough about them, this is about our favorite child…Scarlett. 🙂
When we returned Sunday and saw Scarlett for the first time we were very excited to see our baby girl (not Brandie…Scarlett) and felt we were prepared for what we were about to see. I can honestly say, despite being happy to see her it was so strange seeing her as a tripawd. You see Scarlett was a very active dog that loved playing basketball with her teenage brothers and bringing in the newspaper for mom and dad in morning, which is one reason she may have gained so much weight…lots of treats for doing good things. After a few hours at home with her the initial shock had disappeared and a great sense of happiness overtook us as we began to see her hop around fairly easily. As Brandie mentioned, slippery floors are not good and will break your heart as you watch your baby stumble, slide, and fall as they work so hard to adapt. Needless to say, we now have carpets of all shapes, sizes, and colors throughout the house to provide her with a little more traction. After a long day of giving our pup mucho love it was now time to head upstairs for bed.
Well almost, we made it to the first step and we stood there, and we stood there, and we stood there a little more. My wife on the third or forth step and Scarlett and I on the bottom. Scarlett looked up at my wife and just stared (if you could read her mind it would have went like this; “there is no friken way I’m climbing those things and you must be a crazy woman to even think I’m going to try this). Then, after one failed attempt that made us almost cry, the kangaroo dog hopped up the stairs like they were nothing. She hopped to her bed, located next to ours, and after much loving, hugging, and kissing Scarlett settled down for the night (at least we thought).
At 2:47 a.m. our entire family was awoken buy a sound one would never expect to come from any animal. It was a screaming, almost shreaking noise that was so loud it made us all jump out of bed and nearly gave me a heart attack. As I wrestled for dear life with the covers and struggled to turn on the light my cat like wife pounced out of bed to comfort Scarlett before I could get the night light turned on. So I ask this wonderful community….what the heck was that noise? Is it normal and has anyone else experienced this near death experience?”
Ohhh, sorry to hear you’re having that already. Sounds like phantom limb pain. Some vets will try to tell you dogs don’t get it, but vets who believe they do usually prescribe gabapentin and everyone I’ve read about on Tripawds who has tried has reported success with that. My Yoda had it an it got worse over a few days, then seemed to dissipate. But, those were a very long few days, so if your vet is on board with trying to treat it with gabapentin or something else, I’d highly recommend trying it and not waiting. The recovery is stressful enough without those phantom limb pain attacks. If you search the forums at Tripawds.com for “phantom limb” and “gabapentin”, you’ll find lots of posts with more info.
Regarding stairs, I found treats for the dog to focus on rather than the stairs helped both the tripawds I’ve had FLYup the stairs. When they were thinking about where their feet were and going slow, they had a harder time. Though for Scarlett it certainly may just be too early and she’s got to build her endurance and new muscle for that.
Oh my, how horrible! We did not experience anything like that but the first thing that pops to mind is phantom pain…I think it is easily controlled with gabapentin. I’d suggest posting a question on the forum, they get a lot more visibility and people more informed than me will answer. The blogs disappear as people blog after you but the forum questions stay up longer.
Scarlett is adorable!
just being home, it might be that moving in her sleep caused scarlett to pull something in her sleep that tugged on her surgery site…maybe the pain meds were wearing off by then too. could be phantom pain too, gabapentin is a good drug for that, like jan said… hope you don’t have anymore ‘scares’…but then, it’s all scary at this point.
charon & spirit gayle
What a beautiful pup – and a beautiful family! I’m so glad you had such wonderful children to take care of her while you were away. As Others have shared, hard to tell what her screech may have been – it is scary. My guess would be phantom limb pain – our Sam had a few episodes. We were able to tell the difference with how quickly we could comfort him. With the phantom, we could get him calmed down pretty quickly. Good luck – she will be her old self before you know it! Xo Sue
I’m going to second what Jan and Charon have suggested. Could be phantom pain, or maybe the pain meds wore off. Was Scarlett in her bed when your wife got to her? Is it possible she slipped and fell on the incision site? Our Max never had phanton pain, but he did manage to bump his incision site a couple times, and that did cause some crying. Additionally, he got some charley horses in his hind legs a couple times that also caused crying; we handled those with a hot water bottle and massages. Post these questions in the forums too, they’ll see a lot more traffic there. Good luck, sending Scarlett healing wishes!
Although it could have been soreness of the incision site, my guess would be phantom pain. Zeus only had it once – the first time he rolled onto his surgery side it freaked him out a bit and he immediately tried to stand up. You could see the “oh crap” look come across his face and then it changed to a look of absolute terror. I was sitting next to him and saw it happening, so I was able to immediately grab him and help him finish getting up then immediately held him very close to calm him, so the “cry” never made it to a shriek. But, based on the look on his face I guarantee he was about to scream. Fortunately, it never happened again. Unfortunately, he refused to lay on the surgery side again until one month after his Amp. Not sure if it was b/c the incident freaked him out or if it was b/c he tweaked his back about a week after surgery. Nonetheless, it did pass.
Fair warning, this will likely not be the first time she scares the daylights out of you, for one reason or another. Please know that it will get better. Good luck and keep us posted!!
Scarlop is a awesome dog and I am here to tell you some facts about are tripod. Her favorite band is 3 leg blind. Her favorite song by them is hopper. Her favorite show is dogs gone wild. Her favorite brother is me (jake Benoit). Her favroite sister is Luke Benoit hahahahahahah lol :)… Her favorite color is gold. Her favorite movie is cats vs. dog. Her favorite meal is frog legs with fries. She farts alot, and snores also. She is a fast hopper. She has good mouth-eye coordination. Right now she is watching the titanic.
Do not let your tripods watch to sad for them to handle.
I don’t have anything new to offer, but I was going to say maybe it was phantom pain- poor girl 🙁 Hope that it doesn’t come back to her again.
Jenna & Spirit Chili Dawg