When Glacier tore her first CCL, I had no idea what a CCL even was.
I grew up with dogs. Glacier had hurt herself before. She was—and still is—the kind of dog who seems to find trouble wherever it exists.
So when she came inside one evening holding up one of her back legs, my first thought wasn't major orthopedic surgery.
I thought maybe she'd strained something.
Within weeks, we'd be sleeping on an air mattress on our living room floor, learning more about canine knees than I'd ever wanted to know, and beginning a recovery that would take over our lives for months.
And just when we thought we'd made it through, we had to do the entire thing again.
This isn't veterinary advice or a TPLO recovery guide. Every dog's injury and recovery is different, and your own veterinary surgeon's instructions should always come first.
This is simply what two TPLO surgeries looked like for us.
First, You Have to Understand Glacier
Glacier is a Shiba Inu, and “high prey drive” doesn't quite capture her relationship with squirrels and rabbits.
She loves to run. She's incredibly fast. And in 2023, one of her favorite places in the world was our backyard.
I worked remotely, so she'd spend huge portions of the day outside. We'd check the fenced yard for animals before letting her out, but inevitably something would occasionally find its way in while she was already there.
She'd lie in wait.
She'd watch.
And if a squirrel or rabbit appeared, she was ready.
One evening, my partner and I were watching a movie with the back door open so Glacier could wander in and out.
Eventually, she came back inside.
She was limping.
That wasn't completely unheard of. Sometimes she'd step on something or overdo it running, and a slight limp would disappear within a few hours.
This wasn't slight.
She wouldn't put her foot down at all.
We took her to the emergency vet, where we heard the words cranial cruciate ligament tear for the first time.
I Thought a Torn Ligament Would Mean Rest
I remember initially thinking a tear sounded almost reassuring.
Nothing was broken. Maybe she'd need anti-inflammatory medication and a few weeks of rest.
Then we started talking to surgeons.
The cranial cruciate ligament, or CCL, helps stabilize a dog's knee. When it ruptures, the joint becomes unstable. TPLO—tibial plateau leveling osteotomy—is one of the surgical procedures commonly used to treat that instability.
And the description of the procedure was slightly horrifying to someone who had never heard of it before.
Rather than repairing the damaged ligament itself, TPLO changes the mechanics of the knee by cutting and rotating the top portion of the tibia. A plate and screws hold the bone in its new position while it heals.
Suddenly, “she hurt her leg” felt very different.
Choosing a Surgeon
We had pet insurance, but our annual coverage was limited and we'd already used some of it. TPLO was expensive.
We looked at different options. We received different quotes. One lower-cost option wasn't being performed by a board-certified surgeon, and ultimately that wasn't something we were comfortable with for a procedure this significant.
We chose Animal Surgical & Orthopedic Center in Shoreline, Washington.
At Glacier's consultation, the surgeon examined her knee and confirmed the injury. We talked through the surgery, recovery and what the next several months would look like.
One of the things we were told was that this wasn't necessarily an emergency surgery that needed to happen that same day.
But watching Glacier hop around on three legs was awful.
We scheduled her TPLO as soon as possible, which ended up being about a week after the injury.
Surgery Day
We dropped Glacier off that morning.
She was terrified.
I felt terrible.
When we returned later that day, the staff brought us into a room without Glacier first, which in hindsight was very smart.
There was a lot to learn.
Medication schedules. Incision care. Movement restrictions. Bathroom breaks. What was normal. What wasn't. What we needed to watch for.
Only after going through everything did they bring her to us.
She looked completely overwhelmed.
They helped us get her recovery sleeve on, and we headed home.
And then Glacier started screaming.
Not whimpering.
Screaming.
We had never heard anything like it.
My partner actually pulled the car over while we called the surgical center because we were convinced something was terribly wrong.
They reassured us that she was okay. Glacier was simply being extremely vocal about what she had just experienced.
If you know Shibas, perhaps this part is less surprising.
It still broke my heart.
Our Living Room Became TPLO Headquarters
My partner had prepared almost everything before surgery.
We had configurable gates to create a small recovery area, pee pads, blankets, her favorite toys and an air mattress so we could sleep inside the enclosure with her.
We thought we were prepared.
I don't think anything really prepares you for those first few days.
Glacier is only around 22 pounds, so we could physically carry her outside. Even then, managing every movement took both of us at times.
When we first got home, we supported her with her harness and gave her an opportunity to pee before bringing her inside.
She couldn't squat.
She just... went.
Apparently she'd been holding it for quite some time.
That was the beginning of what became one of the strangest challenges of her first recovery.
The Things Nobody Can Predict
For the first few days, Glacier wouldn't urinate normally outside.
At times, urine would come out while she was lying down on a pee pad instead. We never got a definitive explanation for why. Medication and everything her body had just been through may have played a role, but even her surgical team wasn't certain.
She also didn't want to drink much, so we'd offer water from our hands to encourage her.
Then there was knuckling.
For the first few days, when we tried to help Glacier stand, her paws would sometimes fold underneath rather than landing normally.
This wasn't something we'd expected.
One of us would support her while the other carefully helped reposition her paws. We stayed in close communication with her surgical team whenever something worried us.
And there were plenty of things that worried us.
That became one of my biggest lessons from the experience: your dog's recovery may not look exactly like the recovery timeline you read online.
Then There Was the Poop
This deserves its own section because I have never cared so much about another living creature pooping in my life.
Glacier wasn't going.
We were carrying her into the backyard several times a day for bathroom breaks, supporting her with her sling and giving her plenty of opportunities to go. But before surgery, Glacier was used to walking before she'd have a bowel movement. Standing in the backyard apparently wasn't enough to convince her.
Days passed.
I called the surgical center. They weren't panicking yet, but we were approaching the point where they wanted her to have a bowel movement. We discussed what we'd do if she didn't, while also wanting to avoid creating diarrhea around a fresh surgical incision.
Day five was Thanksgiving.
I still wanted my partner and me to have something resembling a normal Thanksgiving, so I cooked while Glacier rested in her little living-room setup.
But mostly, I was thinking about poop.
By then I was getting desperate. We'd tried the backyard over and over, and nothing was happening. So I had an idea: what if I could make Glacier think we were going on an actual walk?
Instead of carrying her into the backyard again, I put her in her support sling and took her out front. The change of scenery immediately got her excited. I let her carefully hop along for just long enough to see if it would get things moving.
It did.
Three enormous poops.
I don't think I've ever felt such genuine relief over feces.
Thanksgiving dinner that year was eaten on the living room floor with Glacier.
Recovery Wasn't Just “Keep Her Resting”
That's probably the biggest thing I hadn't understood beforehand.
Keeping an energetic dog from moving for months is work.
Glacier couldn't understand why she couldn't run. She couldn't understand why she couldn't wander around the backyard. As she began feeling better, she certainly couldn't understand why feeling better didn't mean she was allowed to act better.
Everything was controlled.
We sent photos of her incision and videos of her walking to her surgical team so they could monitor her progress.
My partner stayed on top of the massages and exercises we'd been instructed to do.
We watched for toe touching and gradual weight bearing.
We adjusted her position when she was uncomfortable.
We woke up if she was messing with her recovery sleeve.
When she wanted to look out her favorite window, I'd position her there while physically staying close enough to prevent a sudden movement.
I worked from the living room floor beside her.
We slept there too.
That floor became our life for months.
Even Going to the Bathroom Became an Operation
Eventually, Glacier was allowed to begin taking very short controlled walks.
There was just one problem.
Glacier had absolutely no interest in arranging her bathroom schedule around a five- or ten-minute rehabilitation walk.
So we developed a ridiculous routine.
My partner would drive us to one of Glacier's favorite places. We'd transport her carefully so she couldn't bounce around or try to use the recovering leg too much. Then I'd get her out, start the clock, and hope the excitement of being somewhere interesting convinced her to go.
It worked.
So we did it again.
And again.
Every day for months.
Her walks gradually became longer as her surgeon allowed, but even when she could walk for 30 minutes, she remained leashed—including in our fenced backyard.
The goal wasn't simply getting her walking again.
It was preventing one impulsive Glacier moment from undoing months of healing.
Which brings me to the part of this story I still hate.
One Week From the Finish Line
We had been warned that dogs who injure one CCL have a significant risk of eventually injuring the other.
I knew that.
I just didn't think it would happen then.
Glacier was approximately a week away from being fully recovered.
We took her into the backyard on a short lead. As always, we checked for rabbits first.
It was dark.
There was one hiding behind the shed.
Glacier saw it.
She tried to take off.
And there went the other leg.
I can't adequately describe the feeling.
We had just spent months structuring our entire lives around getting this one knee healed. I had worked on the floor. Slept on the floor. Carried her outside. Timed bathroom walks. Monitored every movement.
And now we had to do it all again.
Round Two — During a Bomb Cyclone
We went back to the same surgical center.
Glacier needed another TPLO.
And apparently ordinary timing would have been too easy.
The day before her second surgery, a bomb cyclone hit our area and knocked out power across much of the region.
Our house was freezing.
That first night, the three of us slept in my partner's electric car just to stay warm.
The next morning, we started driving toward the surgical center without even knowing for certain whether they were operating. Phone service was unreliable, but partway there they managed to reach us.
They had backup power.
Glacier's surgery was still on.
So she had her second TPLO, and we brought our freshly operated-on dog back home to a house without electricity.
At least she didn't scream in the car this time.
Small victories.
And We Did It Again
The second recovery wasn't identical.
She didn't have the same urinary issues. She pooped after about three days rather than making Thanksgiving unnecessarily suspenseful.
But otherwise, we knew the drill.
The restricted movement.
The medications.
The incision monitoring.
The controlled walks.
The constant supervision.
The gradual return to normal life.
We moved back onto the floor and started counting the weeks again.
And eventually, both legs healed.
What Two TPLO Recoveries Taught Me
I wouldn't pretend our experience is everyone's.
Glacier had some unusual issues during recovery. She's small enough to carry, which made certain things considerably easier than they would be with a 70-pound dog. We also had two people caring for her and a surgical team we could contact whenever something worried us.
But I understand now why people who have been through TPLO talk about it the way they do.
The surgery happens in a day.
Recovery becomes part of your life.
It's exhausting. Sometimes scary. Occasionally absurd. Progress can feel painfully slow until one day you realize your dog is using the leg you once thought she'd never comfortably stand on again.
And then, if you're Glacier, you do the other one for good measure.
Today, seeing her run around on two healed knees makes those months on the living room floor feel very far away.
Almost.
The Part of TPLO That Followed Us
There was another consequence of all those months spent trying to keep an extremely energetic dog occupied without letting her actually do very much.
We had to find other ways to give Glacier something to do.
During that first recovery, she got her first lick mat.
At the time, it was simply something that could keep her occupied while her body needed to stay still.
I had no idea it was introducing me to an entire world of dog enrichment—or that enrichment would eventually become part of the direction of Glacier’s Goodies.
But that's another story.