Our oak floors went in when the house was built in 1948, and they have a sound. Hank's nails on them at full speed sound like someone dropping a drawer of silverware. For the next eight weeks his surgeon wants zero full speed, zero slipping and zero stairs, which meant the living room had to change before he came home from Blaine.
We had five days between the consult and surgery day to set it up, and most of it happened the Tuesday night before, with Caleb in the garage building a car ramp and me on the living room floor with a tape measure. Here's what the room looks like now, a week into strict rest.
The pen
The center of everything is an exercise pen, about four feet by four feet, set up along the long side of the gray sofa where the coffee table used to be. A coworker lent it to us. Her own dog went through a knee surgery a while back, and she said she'd been waiting for someone to pass it on to. It's big enough for Hank to stand, turn around and lie flat on his side, and small enough that he can't take more than a step or two. That's the point.
Inside: a flat foam crate pad with a washable cover, a heavy ceramic water bowl he can't tip, and nothing else. His big orthopedic bed, the one he's had since 2023, is too tall to step onto gracefully and too wide to fit, so it's pushed against the wall under the front window. It sits there empty, which looks sadder than it should.
I sit on the end of the sofa nearest the pen so I can rest a hand on his head through the wire. He figured that out on day one and parks himself accordingly.
Floors, gates and the path to the door
The pen sits on our washable 5x8 rug, which helped. The problem was everything between the pen and the back door: about thirty feet of bare oak through the dining room and kitchen. We bought three washable runner rugs with rubber backing at $54 each, $162 in all, and laid them end to end so there's one continuous grippy path from the living room to the mudroom. They are not pretty. They are the most important thing we bought.
The stairs already had a baby gate. We bought a second one for $56 and put it across the wide doorway between the living room and the dining room, so on the rare times he's out of the pen with us, he can't wander off toward the kitchen or decide to trot to the back door on his own.
Getting outside
Every potty trip is on a short leash, even into our own fenced yard. That's the hardest rule for a dog who has spent four years treating the back door as a starting line. The first few days he needed the rear-support sling, a padded strap that goes under his belly with handles on top, which we bought at checkout for $62. I hold the sling and the leash, Caleb handles the doors and the step, and Hank goes out at the pace of a very old man in a hurry.
By Tuesday he was putting enough weight on the leg that we only use the sling on the back step and the icy stretch. Caleb sanded the whole path to the corner of the yard, and the downspout patch where all this started now has an old doormat frozen onto it. Not the worst idea he's had.
The car works the same way: the plywood-and-carpet ramp into the back of the Outback, and no jumping, ever.
Small things that made a big difference
- A basket of towels by the back door, because a dog who isn't allowed to shake off on the step brings in a lot of snow.
- Lick mats and a snuffle mat ($46 for the set) to burn off boredom in the pen.
- A dry-erase board on the fridge with the medication schedule, so nobody doubles up at 6 a.m. because the other person forgot to check a box.
- Plug-in night lights along the runner path for the 2 a.m. trips.
- The white noise machine from his basement fireworks den, now humming next to the pen.
I slept on the sofa the first three nights, and Caleb took the fourth since there was no snow in the forecast. Now we're both back upstairs and Hank is fine, which I'm trying not to take personally.
Your own dog's surgeon or rehab therapist will have rules for the setup, and theirs are the ones that count. These just happen to be ours.
The room looks like a cross between a kennel and a rummage sale. The radiators tick, the runners cover half the oak, and there's a wire pen where the coffee table used to be. Mabel walked the whole runner path the first night, slowly, end to end, like a building inspector. She hasn't filed her report yet.
