My 6 year old had an emergency operation for a prolapsed disc in September, he went lame in his back legs overnight and was in a lot of pain. The left hind leg has fully recovered but he‘s still struggeling with the right, he has physio every week but its slow going.
We borrowed a crate for the first week but it was small and I was worried about him hurting himself even more as he had difficulty turning himself around. I purchases a puppy pen, it‘s made up of 8 sections which fit together, I left two sections out to make it a bit smaller and extended it as he became more mobile. I found it so much easier as unlike a crate, the top is open making it easier to access and keep him clean.
Humphrey had no bowel control for the first few days so I had lots of incontinence pads on the floor and covered them with old towels and sheets etc. We were unfortunate in that Humphrey reacted to the painkillers and had the added problem of a stomach bleed which made things very difficult but that was probably just a one off.
He wasn‘t happy about being confined and a couple of times we allowed him out when we were sitting im the lounge but he kept trying to walk and then he‘d fall over and we decided it was too risky, but the advantage of the puppy run was that I could sit in there and give him a cuddle safely.
You‘ll no doubt be given instructions from the clinic as to post operative care but if there‘s anything at all I can help you with or even if you just want a sounding block
do please pm me. I won‘t pretend it was a picnic, I found the first couple of weeks exhausting both mentally and physically but we were totally unprepared, our vet was on his honeymoon and his stand-in was hopeless so we felt a bit lost but cockers are such brave little fighters, its humbling - and of course the wonderful support I had from my fellow COL‘ers was invaluable!!
Very best of luck, I have everything crossed for Benji, do let me know how it goes!!!
