Kuna’s TPLO: Wolfdog Ownership Stories
There are some challenges that we go through in life that teach us an unbelievable amount and give us a completely new perspective on different aspects of our life. My experience recovering Kuna through her bilateral TPLO was one of those things. This monumental phase of my life happened in February 2021.
Before Kuna tore her cruciate ligaments in both her knees life was pretty chaotic as my malamute had just been diagnosed with cancer and I was in the midst of recovering my tripod Irish Wolfhound from knee surgery on his only back leg. Take a moment and let that sink in for a minute. He is a GIANT breed dog, with only 1 back leg, and that back leg could not weight bare. Little did I know that Kuna was about to put me through an even bigger challenge and that life as a whole was about to get much, much worse with the death of my beloved malamute (Rest in Peace Skooky, I miss you so much) and shortly afterwards the traumatic death of our coydog, Rango.
Back to Kuna’s story….She had been limping on and off a bit throughout the past couple of months but as a senior and active wolfdog I made the wrong assumption that she was dealing with arthritic pain. Well one day, in the middle of winter on a -25C day we found Kuna laying in a wolf ball in a somewhat odd spot in her enclosure. Odd in the sense that I know she NEVER sleeps there as it’s literally in the middle of the enclosure with no real vantage points or plant cover. If you know wolfdogs, they have their carefully chosen sleeping spots. Within minutes we knew something was wrong as Kuna wasn’t getting up, there was evidence in the snow that she had been trying to get up, and even as the rest of her pack moved about around her she was not moving. It became clear very quickly that she had been laying there a while, that she was very cold, and that something was seriously wrong. I could feel the fear and panic rise inside me as Kuna is the love of my life and the thought of something being seriously wrong with her tore through me. Kuna trusts me explicitly but because she was cold, scared and in pain she would not let me touch her or even get near enough to her to help. Again, a sign that something major was wrong. With the help of my partner Joel we dealt with the snapping and snarling and managed to get her to the house and inside where it was warm. I don’t remember all the specifics as I was in total shock and essentially survival mode, but after some time in the house warming up, it became evident her mobility issues were due to her back legs. This gave me the smallest sense of relief because at least it became a problem I could understand and not something neurological or internal that I couldn’t figure out. After talking back and forth with my vet on the phone and sending videos, we determined it was likely a torn cruciate ligament in both her knees. So we booked her in for a physical exam and x-rays to find out for sure. At this point, Kuna had warmed up, rested and recovered a bit and could start moving around on her own, but it was clear she was in pain. The emergency had subsided. I knew what we were dealing with and I knew it was something that could be “fixed”. It wouldn’t be easy (and I didn’t realize how difficult it would truly be) but at least it was a problem that could be solved and she could return to a good quality of life.
This is a video I took a couple of days before Kuna’s surgery. This was after 2 weeks of house rest. You can see how weak and painful her knees are and how unhappy she is about her confinement so far.
The next few weeks of appointments, vet consults, and planning were a bit of a blur but we made a decision to do a bilateral TPLO on Kuna, a high content wolfdog. Again, I had just finished recovering my Irish Wolfhound from knee surgery so I had at least a small idea of what type of recovery I was in for. However, I learned very quickly recovering a complacent indoor dog was a LOT easier than recovering an unhappy, restless wolfdog that wanted to MOVE and be outside with her pack. I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. In fact, let me back up a bit and share some other important details of this story.
Growing up Kuna spent a lot of time indoors, around my domestic dogs, and was quite good on a collar and leash and even being transported in a vehicle. However, after moving to our current location Kuna went through a huge change in her surroundings and her life in general. She was no longer comfortable indoors in a new house and because we had enough space to go for walks on our own land, being on a collar and leash, and travelling in a vehicle was no longer a necessity of life. As some of you may know, if you don’t keep practicing a skill it becomes lost. So when it came time to get Kuna to the vet, it became clear very quickly what a mistake not practicing those skills was. Granted she was in pain and had been confined indoors against her will for a day or two at this point, but when I approached her with a collar and leash, I was confronted with a lot of snarling and snapping and it took Joel and I risking our fingers to get that collar and leash on and get her in the vehicle. Luckily, those skills come back fast so within a couple of weeks of practice it became a non-issue. In hindsight, I wish I would have kept up that practice so when it really mattered, I could have gotten her leashed up and in the vehicle without so much resistance.
Throughout all the pre-surgical vet visits I had to make the decision whether I wanted to tackle one knee at a time or if I would do both knees at the same time. The vast majority of the time, vets will recommend doing one leg at a time as the recovery is a bit easier as you still have one somewhat good leg to work with while the other is healing. Not only were both Kuna’s knees completely compromised but the thought of doing a 3-month recovery with all the post-surgical vet appointments twice for a total of 6 or more months was completely unreasonable. Hence the decision was made to only do this once and perform a TPLO on both Kuna’s knees all in one go. The initial recovery would be much harder and she would need a lot of mobility help from me, but in the long run it would be easier on Kuna and therefore on me.
I’m going to skip over the next couple of weeks that preceded her surgery date and let you use your imagination on what the struggle of confining a high content wolfdog indoors, against her will in a house with 8 other domestic dogs looked like. The important bit included getting everything prepped for her recovery. Thanks to my Irish Wolfhound’s knee surgery, we already had ramps for all our stairs and rugs on all our hardwood floors. We had already ditched our bed frame and were sleeping with our mattress right on the floor (we still sleep on the floor to this day as it’s just easier for our dogs!) and I had all the cones, slings, and baby gates set up. Fun side note, Kuna and one of my female house dogs absolutely hate each other and so we had to constantly juggle them between rooms and behind baby gates so they wouldn’t try to kill each other. In preparation of her confinement we even sectioned off a small part of our yard outside out front door for any quick potty breaks or anything else we might need her to be outside for.
Fast forward to her surgery day. Her morning drop off, sedation and surgery all went according to plan, and we decided to wake her in the back of the truck so we didn’t have to worry about trying to load her immediately post op without the use of her back legs.
Those first 3 days were absolute hell. As prepared as I thought I was, I realized very quickly that nothing could have prepared me for the emotional rollercoaster I was about to embark on. Still to this day I struggle truly being able to put into words all the emotions and psychological anguish I went through. Perhaps a part of me hasn’t even processed it all as the universe delivered blow after blow for the following 2 months. In order to just get by, I ended up dissociating from my emotions for a while and whatever I couldn’t get away from I managed to suppress deep inside. It was truly one of the most trying times of my life but I have done my best to not allow this to colour the information I detail below regarding Kuna’s recovery specifically.
As I said, those first few days were extremely challenging. One of the hardest parts of dealing with animals is that we cannot communicate the things that are about to happen to them and prepare them for that. So in Kuna’s case, all she knew was that one day she could limp around the house and get by, to the next day, where both her tibia’s were cut in half, put back together in a different formation with metal plates and screws and probably felt completely different. Not only that but she woke up in a cone and sling and required me (a human!) to help her get up to go the bathroom. I try not to anthropomorphize, but I know deep down this is something I know she was not happy about. Perhaps in a way it was harder on me seeing my incredibly strong and independent wolfdog that had barely every shown me a crack of vulnerability, so helpless and truly needing me in order to get through her day. I get emotional just thinking about it. The first week of her recovery I slept on a dog bed in the living room in her X-pen with her. I wanted to be there for her if she woke up during the night and needed help. Those were some very uncomfortable and sleepless nights! However to recap, those first few days her complete lack of comprehension, lack of mobility, and just sheer vulnerability were by far the hardest to deal with.
I have to interject here quickly and tell you about my biggest daily frustration, which was giving Kuna her meds! She needed to be on Metacam, Gabapentin (both of these are pain management medications) and Clavaseptin (an antibiotic) for almost 2 weeks. Kuna is one of those wolfdogs that is not a big foodie and she also thinks that any pill I ever try to give her is poison. Getting 3 pills into her twice a day, and liquid Metacam once a day would prove to be a battle of wits between Kuna and I, every. single. day. Then to make matters even worse, Kuna developed stomach ulcers (likely either due to the stress of being confined indoors or from the Metacam), and then required 3 different medications (1 liquid and 2 pills) twice a day for months on end. Over this time period, I trialed so many different methods and food options, it would blow your mind. Whenever I figured something out that would actually work, it lasted for maybe a week at most and then she changed her mind. But in case you have a very difficult wolfdog I recommend splitting the pills into really small bits and then hiding them in whatever food they really really like. See my article on Vet Care for Wolfdogs for additional strategies. Again, Kuna changed her mind constantly but the top contenders for success were air fried salmon and crispy salmon skin, cooked stew meat and microwaved bacon. For the metacam, I could syringe some onto her frozen meat patties and got away with that about half the time. I will admit that many days Kuna did not receive her full dosage of medications. As for her liquid ulcer meds, I managed to spray that into her mouth one time, and one time only. If I came anywhere near her with that syringe, I would be faced with many snarls, snaps and other warnings to not even think about it! Side note, her ulcer meds were supposed to be given on an empty stomach, but without using food there was no hope of getting those medications into her. I feel like I broke all the label ‘instructions’, but there really was no alternative. When it came to giving Kuna her meds, there were countless bouts of tears and outbursts of frustration on my part, and a lot of hunger strikes on Kuna’s part. But somehow, we made it through this ordeal with our relationship intact. But back to the main story…
Once we got to about a week in, things started to improve a bit day by day. By this time, she had chewed up her harness/sling thingie that she loathed, which she needed in order for me to help her up and help stabilize her while she squatted to go to the bathroom. With a bit of googling and sowing I kept that harness alive as long as I could. Long enough to get her through her weakest moments. She started sleeping on our bed at night which helped immensely as finally I was able to get a few hours of comfortable sleep in. The problem with the daytime was that with Kuna starting to feel better and becoming more mobile she was becoming more and more restless. She was not too thrilled about becoming a purely indoor wolfdog and being confined to our 1800sq.ft house with literally no freedom or independence. Imagine being an adult and being forced to move back home and have your mom dictate every moment of your life. She was not happy and she did her very best every day to let me know. Once, she became a bit more mobile the pacing was the absolute worst. If you’ve never experienced an animal that paces constantly it might sound odd that this would be so bothersome. If you have experienced then you probably know what I’m talking about. The best way I can explain it is having this constant nervous energy in your vicinity and feeling this need to make it stop, but you are helpless to do so. You don’t realize the feeling until it finally stops. When Kuna would finally relinquish her mindless pacing of the house and she would finally lay down and relax, it was this huge sigh of relief. Like you can finally stop holding your breath and focus on yourself for a moment. Moments she was asleep, no one, and I mean NO ONE was allowed to move or do anything that could disrupt her rest and cause her to wake up. I imagine that’s how parents feel sometimes with sleeping babies!
Another factor was her pack. As the weeks progressed, I could sense the loss of connection between Kuna and her pack. Specifically, between Zeus and Kuna, the dominant pair of the pack, but I could sense a huge shift in the hierarchy of the young female, Ylva. I will discuss this more later. As far as Zeus and Kuna was concerned, they have been a bonded pair for almost their whole lives. Zeus came into Kuna’s life when she was 2 years old and he was 1 year old. They have the most beautiful relationship I have ever seen and truly understand the deepest parts of one another. I was so focused on what I was going through with Kuna that for a while I forgot to think what it must have been like for the rest of the pack. I tried my best to allow them to have some sort of contact together through windows but it just isn’t the same as being able to run with one another and rule their pack together. I have a sunroom in my house that I would let Kuna out on and the amount of whimpering and whining through the windows broke my heart every single time. Kuna was still in no state to be able to have any kind of interaction with her packmates. A quick movement, play bow, or small jump could undo all our healing efforts. Kuna’s bones needed time to heal and become strong again. The only thing I HAD to resort to against the recovery directions of the orthopaedic surgeon was allow Kuna to go outside in the small part of the yard we created. She would pace around in that area for hours on end and probably put too much strain on her healing bones, but there wasn’t an option. It was the only thing she could do to get some of her energy out and help express some of that unhappy energy. Plus, as you may know if you love exercising, movement has a way of making you feel better. I could tell Kuna needed some fresh air and some movement in order to get through each day. Keep in mind, this was all occurring in early winter, so Kuna was also sporting a full winter coat and living inside our house full time! The thermostat was always kept as low as Joel and I could tolerate it, but that was usually still too warm for Kuna.
Moments like this tore at my heart the most. Keeping Kuna away from her pack was a necessary evil.
Back to the pack dynamics and Ylva, the youngest female in the pack. The timing of all this was extremely unfortunate since it happened the winter that Ylva was 1.5 years old. If you know anything about wolves and maturity timelines you probably know how crucial this timeframe is. In the wild, this is the age at which wolves become sexually mature and therefore usually disperse away from their pack to find a mate to create their own pack. Well here was Ylva at 1.5 years old and there is no longer another female in her pack! So day after day while Kuna was busy doing her best healing from her surgery, Ylva was slowly but surely making moves within the pack and changing behaviourally from the submissive youngster she used to be into a pushy, decision making adult. Whenever I would have those pack visits through the glass of my sunroom, Ylva would start stalking Kuna through the glass. Since Kuna knew she was compromised she was extremely uncomfortable with it and would avoid the glass windows whenever Ylva was around. This was essentially a concession to Ylva and gave Ylva the adiditonal fuel to keep it going. If Kuna would have been her usual dominant self and been able to put Ylva back in her place, things would have never progressed from there. So Ylva continued to stalk and intimidate Kuna at every chance she got and continued her advances on Zeus. Interestingly enough, Zeus rejected all her ‘advances’ and had no interest in entertaining the thought of allowing Ylva to be his new bonded partner in life. So instead, Ylva set her sights on Nova, the submissive male of the pack. Nova, being the submissive male, honestly didn’t even realize what was going on. He didn’t have much interest in Ylva’s flirtations, but also didn’t do anything to dissuade her advances either. Nova has too much love and respect for his alpha male, Zeus to ever rock the boat in that regard. Now in order to finish this part of the story I will quickly fast forward for a moment. When it was time to introduce Kuna back to her pack, I was extremely unsure how it would go and if Kuna could regain her place in her pack. I was really hoping Kuna would be able to show Ylva once again who was boss. After weeks and weeks of Ylva chipping away at Kuna’s confidence, in that first meeting between Kuna and Ylva, Kuna showed a major reluctance to be anywhere near Ylva and was literally hiding behind me and using me as a safety net. Ylva began to circle us and when she got the chance lunged forward and grabbed Kuna by the tail. Kuna yelped and hid between my legs. I knew the game had been lost and I had a big problem on my hands. With Joel’s help, we immediately got Kuna back into the house before any more damage to Kuna’s reputation was done. A small part of me was hoping Zeus would come to her defense and put Ylva in her place for Kuna, but that just never happened. We tried it a few more times with different integrating strategies, but essentially similar things would continue to happen. I tried literally whatever I could think of to artificially shift the dominance dynamics back to Kuna, but nothing worked. If anything it may have made things worse. One of the things I did was during the evenings when the Sanctuary was closed to visitors, I would split Zeus away from Ylva and Nova, so that at least Kuna and Zeus could be together. What I didn’t realize at the time is that was playing right into Ylva’s hand. Because now she had Nova all to herself! This strengthened her resolve to be the dominant animal in the pack as Nova is such a submissive guy. I realize now that the only thing keeping Ylva somewhat in check was Zeus’s dominance over her. Once I took that away, things just got worse. Essentially, Ylva turned on Zeus. Keep in mind that both Kuna and Zeus are senior animals and don’t have the agility or spunk they used to have. So Zeus was no match for Ylva, and now Zeus had been thrown from his pedestal and given a major reality check. Just like Kuna, he became afraid of Ylva and showed reluctance and hesitation to be anywhere around her. Ylva thrived on this. So it became evident that it was time for Ylva to go. She had completely destabilized the pack and caused so much havoc and chaos that everyone but Ylva was suffering. I really struggled with this decision because the Yamnuska Pack Ylva was currently in was all that she had ever known. Ylva came in as a puppy and was raised by Kuna, Zeus and Nova. The thought of ripping her away from the only family she has ever known, against her will was awful for me. Making that decision was extremely difficult, but I had to choose Kuna and Zeus’s wellbeing over Ylva’s and that is a decision I would make time and time again. The problem was that Ylva is not one of our wolfdogs that we can approach or catch. She is also one of the smartest wolfdogs I have ever known and so getting her in a small space in order to catch her to move her would be extremely difficult. I won’t go into all the details here but it essentially took weeks and weeks to outsmart her in order to catch her. Eventually we were successful and she is now the proud alpha female of the Rundle pack and she is head over heels in love with her packmate Lark. He seems pretty smitten with her too. So yeah, lots of drama and stress but ultimately things worked out for the best.
Kuna’s first reintroduction to Zeus and Nikki. This was a joyous moment met with lots of whimpers, tail wags, and play bows!
This was the first time we introduced Kuna back to Ylva. You can see Ylva showing a bit too much interest in her, which made Kuna quite uncomfortable. You can see Kuna using Joel and I as a safety net to get space from Ylva. As time went on, Ylva started trying to constantly get behind Kuna and dart at her back end to grab her by the tail or butt. As this escalated, we had to get Kuna out of there as we could tell things were headed in a bad direction, fast.
Back to Kuna’s recovery…honestly there isn’t that much more to go over. As I mentioned, week after week Kuna got stronger, and slowly started acclimatizing to being a house ‘wolf’. She will hate that I share this, but all the silly games I would play with the domestic dogs I would do with her too. She started wearing bandanas, fancy collars, would get her photo taken with a flower on her head, etc. In a small way, I think Kuna enjoyed being part of this domestic family. Animals are so good at living in the present, and although I know she missed her old life, she was starting to enjoy this weird one. I will also mention, since Kuna could literally NEVER be left at home unsupervised, I worked exclusively from the walls of my house and if I ever needed to go anywhere like the grocery store, I had to rely on my partner Joel to watch her for me. Just like Kuna, I became a prisoner of my own house and I think that’s one of the reasons Kuna grew to tolerate her prison, because she put me in one too and we were cell mates! We ended up coming to an agreement of sorts and we would find small ways throughout our days to have some fun together. For her it meant, striking some fear into the minds of the house dogs and ordering them around, and for me it was those moments where I would put a cute bandana on her that matched her Irish Wolfhound brothers. All in all, we made the best of our situation and that time together ended up bringing us closer than ever.
Once she truly started feeling better and we could start doing some leashed walks things really turned around. Now that she was practiced at wearing a collar and leash again and riding in a vehicle, we could really start to do some things together away from our prison (aka the house). I know the confinement and being away from her pack had taken a toll on her as well as her spirit so I wanted to do something really special for Kuna. I wanted to bring Kuna to the place where I know for a fact she is happiest. I wanted to bring her to the mountains where I raised her and where she has always felt the most free. Even though she would need to be on leash the whole time, I knew just being in that forest, in the mountains, along the Bow River, she would feel like her old self and be able to truly breathe and feel free. So I did just that and it was one of the most amazing and impactful days I have ever had. To be able to give her that gift and see her soul and spirit just completely recharge was amazing. I felt her joy and came to an incredible realization. She truly was a part of nature and the juxtaposition between having seen her living in my house like a dog for so long and then getting to see her interact with nature and the forest and watch her be a ‘wolf’ again was mind blowing. It really put it into perspective how much she belongs outside in nature and even though she tolerates being in the house, it was foreign and unnatural. This might sound really ridiculous, but I couldn’t help compare it to the story of Pocahontas! She belongs in the wilderness, not in England, ha ha ha.
Other than that, we went through a few other minor struggles such as the daily struggle and agony of trying to give Kuna her meds every day (she ended up developing stomach ulcers and would throw up her food on a daily basis). Having to keep Kuna and my female Akita separate for 4 months was also pretty exhausting.
But once Kuna was all healed up and ready to reclaim her position in the Yamnuska pack (after Ylva’s departure of course), things slowly went back to normal. It felt like a big loss in my life no longer having Kuna in my house or having to constantly manage her. I also had to start going back to my office for work which was quite an adjustment! With all the other devastating things happening in my life at that time, I didn’t have long to dwell on that. Looking back now there are a lot of moments I had with Kuna that I will cherish forever, and when I went through some of those other emotional traumas during that time, Kuna was always there for me. Ultimately, I think it was all meant to happen as it did. It was a completely pivotal moment in my life and it truly taught me how much I can handle and what things matter in life and what things don’t. As hard as that time was, I gained as much as I lost and I am incredibly grateful for that.
If you’re still with me and reading this I commend you. This article ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated it would be but there was a lot that happened during these 4 months. I’m not sure what the overriding lesson here is, if I’m being honest…. perhaps you were able to get a few valuable snippets from this story, and if not, I hope at least you enjoyed reading about my prison sentence with Kuna, or how Ylva really messed things up for me.
A perfect moment with my most beloved girl.
