Talking puppies

Now that Jinx has his hardware off, he and Luna decided to talk about it.... they were very vocal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0V-bfx3Dwc

T-2 days

Jinx gets the rest of his hardware off Wednesday 3/7. He will no longer be ROBO-pup! After that, 2-3 weeks with a split, and Jinx will be a normal little guy. I use the term "normal" loosely, as he isn't the brightest puppy by any stretch of the imagination. However, what he lacks in intelligence, he more than makes up for with his affection.

Almost there...

We took Xrays yesterday to see how the bones are calcifying. Since we stopped lengthening his leg over a week and a half ago, we now need to wait until they calcify enough to take off the hardware and put him in a basic split. Based on the xrays, so far so good. Perhaps in a few short weeks from now Robo-pup will go back to being Jinx again.

Light at the end of the Tunnel

Only one more day of lengthening Jinx's leg. We have ranged from 1-2 millimeters a day over the last 6 and a half weeks, for a total of ~2-2.5 inches of growth!!! If we hadn't done this surgery, there is no way he could have used his leg in a meaningful way :-) The hardest part has not been keeping him quiet, or isolated away from Luna, but instead keeping his plastic e-collar on at all times. He will lick his bandaged leg whenever he's not walking, eating, playing, or getting attention... so he's stuck with the goofy cone on 23.5 hours a day.

So another 2 weeks with all of the metal pins, rings, motors, and then we'll take some radiographs to see how the bone is healing. He will likely need a total of 4 weeks with the fixator device on before we can remove it safely. All that metal will stabilize his leg and allow the bone to heal.

Hopefully by Spring, he will be running around and playing with Luna in the backyard!!

Incredibly Funny VW "Bark Side" commercial

Wow, this is very amusing. When watching it, Luna hovered over my laptop to watch and listen! Now if we can just get Luna to bark like these professionally trained, German engineered dogs :-) (Or video edited one by one, like these guys are, then compiled into one video)

Jinx's latest radiation experiment

1/18/2012 Xrays

Since Jinx always gets the attention...

I felt obligated to share a picture of Luna begging to be the first picture taken with my new camera. Clearly not the best picture, but as I was playing with all the features of my new camera, Luna was begging to be in the shot.

Up close and personal with all that stainless steel

Curious to learn more about all the hardware on Jinx? Here's the IMEX site talking about their products which are currently bolted onto Jinx :-)  http://www.imexvet.com/products/external-skeletal-fixation/circular-esf-system

I hope by sharing this blog following Jinx's progress, more people will consider this type of surgery for their furry family members. If anyone has questions, we are more than happy to share our experience! 

Xray showing the new bone that is forming!

Check out this xray from last week. You can see where his bone was cut during his surgery, but is now nicely filling in with new bone as we slowly stretch his leg. It will take many weeks and months to fully calcify, but it is neat to see the progress in the last month!

Final Puppy Christmas totals...

Are they really spoiled? They don't seem to think so. A majority of the gifts exchanged in our house were for our furry friends.