Deep Pain Senstation is Returning

Cody's post-opt check-up yesterday at the University of Minnesota went awesome! The doctor who did Cody's surgery was very pleased with his progress. He is starting to get some of his deep pain sensation back. Given that, the doctor said she was confident he would be walking again. She didn't say WHEN that would be but Adam and I both know that would be an almost impossible question to answer anyway.

We also met with the canine rehabilitation group and they taught us some new range of motion exercises to do at home. Rather continue with rehabilitation therapy down at the U, we opted to do rehab with Sandi McDonough at Flying Cloud Animal Hospital. She's local to us in Eden Prairie and honestly, is older and has more experience. We are hoping to start up right after the Christmas Holiday.

We were sent home with the instructions of getting him into a rehab program as well as to continue with the new exercises we were taught.  Part of Cody's at home exercises includes short walks outside. To help support his back-end while walking we purchased a walk about harness that he dosen't seem to mind one bit. We also use Pawz dog boots to prevent injury to his back paws (since they drag behind him much of the time)

When Cody is not doing his rehab exerises he still needs to be resting in order to continue to heal. Crate rest may be hard for some doxies but we are finding it's not all that difficult for Cody. Pre-injury he used to sleep most of the day anyway. As long as we are in the same room with him he seems pretty content.

Since Cody is one of the first Doxies to try stem cell therapy for IVDD the University of Minnesota wants us to keep them in the loop of his progress as well as meet with them on occasion to do their own follow-up checks. Cody may just make it into one of their famous case studies, wouldn't that be cool!