# Going in for tightrope surgery this Friday, need advice please



## Kris's momma (Mar 10, 2013)

Hello all, I am new here and have a 12 year old boy that is going in for surgery on his knee on the 15th. We are getting our home prepared and have stairs in our home. We were looking at different support harnesses and wanted to know if anyone has used the AST get a grip harness? My boy is unfortunately overweight and is on Canine Caviar special needs kibble to try to bring the weight down. Anyone that has been through this surgery before? Any support and insight would be greatly appreciated. We love our guy so much and want to make this as easy as possible for him. He has the spirit of a puppy and overall is very healthy. He is retired now but used to be a working dog. He is very well trained and even though he doesn't listen like he used to, he is very well behaved.


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## JeanKBBMMMAAN (May 11, 2005)

Hi - welcome to the forum - weight loss will definitely help with the knee overall!
AST Support Suit Dog Harness Homepage is the harness you are looking at right?

I have never used that one, but have used the Ruffwear Performance Dog Gear | Dog Packs | Dog Boots webmaster harness. I don't know if one would work better for what you need or no. I was able to us that harness to "suitcase" my seniors in and out of the car and up and down steps. The heavier dog was 66# so not so bad. 

I've never had a dog have that surgery - DogAware.com Health: Arthritis in Dogs some good info on surgeries in general, with the tightrope in there as well. 

That orthodgogs group on Yahoo could be helpful to you too! 

Good luck - hopefully others will post!


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## hotrod2448 (Oct 12, 2012)

We did tightrope with our GSD mix a little over a year ago. We were very happy with the results. It seemed like once it was all healed it knocked 4 years off her age.

The recovery is really tough. Keeping them still and from jumping around for that length of time is really hard. They want to start using the leg way before they should be using it. The first few days we had her on a sedative to help keep her still. We ended up using a towel under her belly to support her instead of a harness. We also got a therapy vest from Orvis that would hold an ice pack right on the knee. We were fortunate in that any type of clothing pretty much turned her into a statue.

Good Luck!


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