After spending the first couple days home mostly asleep, the past three days Kira has been more awake, pretty much like she would be normally. She’s slowly starting to put weight on the surgery leg, first just toe touches, then walking on it for spurts of ten seconds or so. When she goes “fast”, she hops on her back leg and keeps the other one up. But mostly she lies around.

Of course she wants to do more. She doesn’t understand why we won’t let her on the couch, her favorite spot, or the armchair. She doesn’t understand why, when she gets up from the dog bed in the living room, I walk her into the kitchen to lie down under the dining table. I can tell she is getting bored. But she’s a good-natured girl and very smart. I think in some way she comprehends it’s for her own good. Still though it will get worse as she gets better.

We also left her alone on Friday and Saturday. For a little over an hour and half an hour tops the first day; about three hours yesterday. She seemed to do fine. I’m tempted to set up my laptop on the kitchen counter pointed at the bed she’s on and film her the next time I have to run an errand. I’d love to know if she cries or barks and if she tries to move to a different part of the house. If she seems to just chill, we may be able to not have to crate her at all. It will be helpful to know for when I want to leave her to go for a run.

So far, so good! Also she has managed to avoid the Cone of Shame. I let her lick her leg, just not the part where the wound is. She seems to be mostly fine with this arrangement, though I’ve been warned that after a week or so, the wound starts to itch. We will cross that bridge eventually.