From ligament repair to total hip replacement, dogs are subject to many of the same orthopedic surgeries as their owners. Nearly all canine orthopedic procedures require weeks of post-operative recovery—often considerably longer, depending on the procedure—during which your dog needs to stay quiet with their movement carefully limited while they heal. To help you prepare for that period, we’ve put together the tips that matter most, from restricting activity to slowly getting them back on their feet.
Follow Your Veterinarian’s Instructions
It’s tempting to take advice from a neighbor or a friend whose dog had surgery recently, but your best source is the veterinary team who operated on your dog. After surgery they’ll give you clear instructions for home care, usually in writing. Follow them precisely, and ask for clarification about anything you’re unsure of. If part of the plan isn’t working once you’re home, call the practice and let them help you troubleshoot rather than improvising.
Do keep every follow-up appointment, too. Recheck visits are how we confirm the repair is holding and that healing is on track, and problems caught early are far easier to deal with.
Restrict Activity
Restricting movement is the single most important thing you’ll do. Your dog won’t be energetic in the first day or two while the anesthetic wears off, but many feel considerably better within a few days—and a dog who feels well will try to behave normally long before the repair can withstand it.
While your dog is recovering, you must keep them from:
- Running
- Jumping, including on and off furniture and in and out of the car
- Going up or down stairs
- Rough play
- Slipping on hard floors
- Licking or chewing the incision
Too much activity too soon risks failing the repair, and revision surgery is a great deal harder on your dog than getting the recovery right the first time.
The most effective approach is confinement to a crate, a playpen, or a small room, with the space made comfortable and quiet. Take your dog out on a short leash for bathroom breaks only—even in a fenced yard, since a squirrel appearing over the fence is all it takes. Put down rugs or runners on slippery floors, and use a ramp or a lift with a towel sling for the car and any unavoidable steps. Block off stair access with a baby gate rather than relying on your dog to remember.
If your dog remains too restless, let us know—we can dispense a sedative or an anti-anxiety medication, and there’s no sense in white-knuckling it when the repair is at stake.
It’s also worth separating your dog from other pets in the household for the recovery period. Another dog won’t understand that this one needs to rest, and one enthusiastic greeting can undo weeks of careful management.
Keeping a Confined Dog Occupied
Confinement is hard on a dog who feels well, and boredom makes restlessness worse. Food puzzles, stuffed Kongs, snuffle mats, lick mats, and short training sessions using only hand signals and treats all give your dog something to do without moving much. Feeding meals out of a puzzle rather than a bowl stretches out the most interesting part of the day.
Pain Management
Part of your discharge conversation will cover pain relief and any other medications your dog needs. Follow the instructions closely, and keep a written log of what you gave and when—it’s remarkably easy to double up when two people in a household are both helping.
Never give your dog human pain medication. Ibuprofen, naproxen, and acetaminophen are all toxic to dogs, and even aspirin can cause serious problems and interact badly with what we’ve prescribed. If you feel your dog’s pain isn’t controlled, call us rather than reaching for anything from your own cabinet—there’s a good deal we can add or adjust.
Cold packs on the surgical site can help reduce swelling and discomfort in the first few days, usually for about ten minutes at a time, a few times daily. Always put a towel between the pack and your dog’s skin. Ask us before you start, though, and ask about timing—after the first few days, we often switch to warm compresses instead, and using the wrong one at the wrong stage doesn’t help.
Caring for the Incision
Your dog will go home wearing an Elizabethan collar—the dreaded “cone of shame”—and it is genuinely essential. Dogs instinctively lick, chew, and scratch at incisions and bandages, and a determined dog can open a surgical wound in seconds. The cone needs to stay on at all times, including overnight, until we tell you otherwise. If your dog hates the rigid plastic version, softer and inflatable alternatives and recovery suits are available; check with us first, since not all of them prevent access to every site.
Check the incision at least twice a day. A little redness and mild swelling in the first few days is normal, as is a small amount of clear or slightly blood-tinged discharge. Keep it dry—no bathing, swimming, or ointments and creams unless we’ve prescribed them—and if your dog is bandaged, keep the bandage dry and covered with a bag for trips outside. Wet bandages slow healing and invite infection, so call us if one gets soaked or slips.
Skin sutures or staples usually come out around 10 to 14 days after surgery, unless we’ve used sutures placed beneath the skin, which dissolve on their own. Either way, the cone stays on for the full period.
Call Us Right Away If You See:
- The incision opening, or a gap appearing between the edges
- Increasing redness, swelling, heat, or pain around the site
- Discharge that is thick, cloudy, yellow, green, or foul-smelling
- Active bleeding, or a swelling that appears suddenly and feels fluid-filled
- Your dog going off their food, becoming lethargic, or running a fever
- Vomiting, particularly if they’re on medication
- Sudden worsening of lameness, or refusing to bear any weight after they had begun to
- A bandage that is wet, slipped, or too tight, or toes that look swollen
Don’t wait for an appointment slot if something looks wrong. Post-operative complications are far easier to manage early, and we would much rather hear from you unnecessarily than late.
Slowly Get Back to Normal
After the confinement period, activity is reintroduced gradually—and the timescale is set by us, not by how well your dog seems. For many orthopedic procedures, the process runs over two to three months, beginning with short, slow leash walks and building up a little at a time. Start with a few minutes on the flat, add distance rather than speed, and stay on leash throughout. Off-leash running, fetch, jumping, and rough play come last, and only with our go-ahead.
Depending on the procedure, we may recommend physical rehabilitation, which can make a real difference to how well and how quickly a dog regains function. It may involve controlled exercises, underwater treadmill work, laser therapy, or massage, and there are veterinary rehabilitation practitioners who specialize in it—we can refer you if it would help.
Weight matters here too. A dog carrying extra pounds puts more load through a healing joint, and a confined dog burns fewer calories than usual, so it’s worth reducing portions during the recovery period. We can advise on how much.
Post-surgical recovery is hard work, particularly with a young dog who feels fine and can’t understand why they’re shut in. But the success of an orthopedic repair depends almost entirely on the recovery being done properly, so it’s worth every bit of the effort. Contact us if you'd like to talk through how to help your dog recover, or if your dog has had surgery and you're worried something isn't right.