Man's Best Friend

Bang-shing-shing-shing-shing. Ca-BANG-shing-shing-shing-shing. It’s 3:30 AM on a Sunday and that is the only sound I’ve been hearing on and off every 10 min for about three hours now. It’s the sound of my wonderful dog, Rochelle Rochelle (yes the one pictured at the end of my first blog post), wanting desperately to get out of her dog crate so she can jump on the couch, or chair, or go upstairs- or just be anywhere but inside there. So banging on the door with her paw is her only option. She’s trying to break me, I know she is- and it’s almost working.

She eventually gives up, for now, and spins in that classic “dog circle” over and over before finally laying back down yet again. It’s an excruciatingly slow descent though as she is recovering from ACL (or technically CCL) surgery that she just had that Friday before. This crate rest is mandatory by the direction of our Vet and is just one difficult part of a potentially long recovery.

Rochelle entered my life after seeing a picture of her as a tiny little puppy curled up in a bed sheet in the laundry room of my now sister-in-law’s home. “Shelly” had been basically left for dead in the hills of Arkansas barely weeks old- a thing that unfortunately is not uncommon in that section of our country. She had what appeared to be bad bite marks on the top of her head, in which the scars still exist today, and a belly bloated full of parasites. But through the love of my sister-in-law and her husband, she was nursed back to health, learned some life skills from their six adoptive brothers and sister dogs in the house, and eventually made it up to Brooklyn to bring joy to my and my wife’s life every day!

Some fun things about Rochelle Rochelle is that her name comes not only from Seinfeld, but also the chocolate “Ferrero Roche”, which was used beautifully as a pun in a “Punderdome” competition we had attended right before her arrival. “La Roche” is actually French for “the rock”, which I didn’t know until right now- she’s not really like Dwayne Johnson, however her spirit can definitely be defined as a rock.

Anyways, she has a quite a repertoire of tricks she can do, most of which are Seinfeld related. Some examples are:

• Handshake = “Man Hands”
• Jump = “Jimmy!”
• Play Dead = “Kenny Bania” (because “I was killing Jerry! Killed!)

Spending her formative years in 1-bedroom apartments in Brooklyn, one thing was made abundantly clear- this dog LOVES to run and be active. Every day we’d go up to Cadman Plaza and she’d fly all around the open space and through the splash pad. When we finally moved to New Jersey she fell in love with going up and down stairs. Chasing squirrels and kicking up sand on the beach tops her list of things to do.

Then came one day in November when we went to Holmdel Park, a large park where plenty of people walk their dogs. Rochelle has always had “Oh I have to stop and pet that dog” looks and that day was no exception. One couple asked us how old she was and they were surprised when we told them she was far from her puppy years. Well, Rochelle must have heard us because she took off like a bat out of hell to prove us wrong. She had the craziest “zoomies” I’ve ever seen from her, darting back and forth, jumping through the leaves. It was probably during that moment that she had the first major tear in her ACL/CCL sadly.

The next few weeks were spent limping around the house, at the Vet multiple times trying to get a full diagnosis, getting X-rays, the works. She kept passing “the drawer test” though, so maybe it was just arthritis? Shortly after though the ACL/CCL completely tore after a Saturday morning walk.

Thankfully we were able to have a very good Animal Hospital as our Vet and they were able to get her into surgery relatively quickly. I’ve been documenting her recovery and will turn it into a YouTube video to help others in the future that have to go through similar situations with their dogs. It is not an easy cakewalk by any means for the dog or for their owner.

Rochelle definitely had a rough first couple of days. The post surgery ride home was one of the toughest things I’ve had to do. Rochelle was in pain, panic thrashing from the cone being on her head, and falling over in the process. When we finally got home, if she had to go out we had to hold up her backside with a towel. And finally, as mentioned at the top, she oh how she desperately wanted to be her old active self right away.

On day two post-surgery, she sprung up and jumped at the window barking at the mailman. Day three saw her trying to run in the snow outside. Day four, she broke down our barrier and hopped upstairs on three legs! Since then we’ve had empty buckets and folding chairs on all our furniture because she won’t stop stealing seats!

Now here we are, two weeks past the surgery date and the good news is that she has been doing great! We’re still limiting her to the first floor of the house but the e-collar’s are off, the stitches are out, and she is using the leg pretty normally now. We go on five minute walks this week and that’ll increase each week. The plan is sometime between weeks 6-8 when we can finally think about running and stairs again.

I want to thank everybody involved who’s helped out- the Vets, friend’s advice, family looking after her, and such. It was a very anxious time for my whole family but we’re glad that the result is looking as positive as it is. Dogs are the best and even though they may be with us a short time relatively speaking, the impacts and smiles they bring to us are forever worth it.

Tap-tap-tap-tap. It’s 11:15 PM and the only sound I hear is that sound of Rochelle’s tail wagging in her sleep next to me.