Odin, a handsome, small red Golden male, came to AGR in September 2019. He was 13 months of age and had an obvious limp. His owner had lost his job and could not afford the veterinary work-up that was necessary to determine the cause of the limp. Odin needed our standard level of veterinary care: vaccines, tests for valley fever and heartworm, and neutering; he was also treated for an ear infection. One of our foster couples, who had moved to Tucson right about the time we needed a foster for Odin, agreed to foster him. They had recently lost their older red Golden and were not looking for a very young dog, but they knew their AGR boy Stanley needed a buddy. They willingly brought Odin, whom they now call Odie, to Animal Medical & Surgical Center in Scottsdale for his appointments with Dr. Jha. His limping was evaluated in November. Dr. Jha determined from X-rays that Odin’s hips were bad, the left one being worse than the right. So, a total hip replacement was finally done on the left side on March 4th and he went home on the 7th. It would be a challenge keeping this exuberant young boy controlled while he was recuperating from the surgery! The foster reported:

"Odie is doing remarkably well. He is going out on a leash with my husband and all systems are once again working. He is learning how to maneuver with a leg that doesn’t always go where he wants it to go. He is in our family room in a crate during the day so he doesn’t feel so isolated and in his normal crate at night in our bedroom. He is putting weight on the leg. His bruising is starting to fade. He will have his stitches out next Tuesday and then we will see where we are. The only issue we are still having is that he turns into his overly-exuberant self if anyone else besides either of us comes through the door. Trazodone is wonderful, LOL."

After his 4-week follow-up visit to AMSC, she said: "Odie thinks he is just ducky, which of course he isn’t. We have been doing really gentle stretching with him, but wanted to wait until he saw the vets today to see how the prosthesis looks and when we could stark cranking with the passive range of motion. He is not going to like this, but he will thank me later. In the meantime he is on a dog food strike and is getting the tough love treatment at the moment. He has always been an extremely picky eater and we were pretty much past that until his surgery, so now we are starting all over again. Keeping him calm is always an issue. He is out of the crate more now but only with strict supervision. We’ll see how the PT goes."

They were careful, and Odie healed up nicely. Then we got the best news after his last visit to Dr. Jha – the right hip does not need to be done! After hearing that, the fosters made the adoption official. We gave them an addendum for surgery on both hips, but we are all very happy that Odie will not now need the right hip replaced. Happy new life, Odie!