Thank you very much!

I chose this pen however my dog refused to go into it after the first day! So I also bought this baby gate and I put it in our hallway to keep her in the carpeted side of the house. One of the rooms she was allowed into was my bedroom so I actually used the exercise pen as a barrier around my bed to keep her from trying to get up on the bed, and essentially I slept in the exercise pen instead of her lol. And I used yoga mats in the hallway to create a nonslip path to the yard.

Your vet will probably give you a sling but you might want to have one on hand. I bought one just in case and then I returned it because our vet gave us one to take home.

I was honestly not prepared for how she would look after the surgery - her shaved leg and fresh sutures really freaked me out and getting her in and out of the car was scary. And after a few days her whole leg turned a deep beet purple and that also scared the crap out of me. But the surgeon was very communicative with me and allowed me to send pictures to his personal cell phone of her bruising and videos of her going to the bathroom to make sure that she was in the realm of normal.

I also had to switch her medications a few times. Her first pain medication gave her bloody stool and her tranquilizers really made her too loopy for me to feel comfortable so we went through three or four different kinds of tranquilizers before I decided to stop giving them to her altogether.

So long story still long - my advice would be to make sure you have a way to communicate with your surgeon if you have questions or concerns after you bring your dog home, keep an eye on your dog's poops to make sure she is okay with the meds, and be prepared for a visual shock when she comes out of the vet. And get some yoga mats if there is anywhere your dog will need to walk that could be slippery.

And maybe have someone help you take videos of your dog going to the bathroom so that you can better see the improvement. Being able to compare Day 1 video with Day 6 video made it easier to see that she was in fact healing (verrry slowly).

Sorry for the long post but I was super anxious before the surgery and stressed during the recovery and I wish I had been given more information like this! I am sure that being 11 months old will make for a much easier recovery than being 10. Please let me know if you have any other questions that I could help with, and good luck next month!! Sending best wishes to your girl.

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Edit - I also gave her a bath a few days before the surgery as requested by our surgeon, and I threw the cover of her dog bed into the wash before I brought her home to try to minimize the risk of her getting an infection. And a few months after the surgery she got a little hotspot about an inch away from her incision site so I had to keep her in a cone for a lonngggg time while she was on antibiotics. Recovery sucks but it will be worth it!