He Was Getting Better After Disc Surgery and Now He Is Worse. What to Check Before You Call, and What the Surgeon Will Ask

Nobody can tell from the sofa whether this is a second disc, an infection or a bad day, and you do not need to. In a referral hospital's series of 1,723 back operations for disc disease, 113 cases, 6.6 percent of the operations, needed a second scan and a second operation within 90 days. The commonest finding was more disc material. Bleeding, a sterile fluid pocket and a deep infection came next, each in a little over one percent of all the operations.^[3] None of the discharge sheets we read leaves room for a bad day. One says your dog "should show steady, continual improvement" and to call immediately if he is "declining neurologically."^[1] So the job tonight is not to diagnose him. It is to write down eight things, listed below, and to make the call today rather than after one more night.

Worse is not a bad day until tomorrow says so#

For days the direction has been up. He stood, then stepped, then walked to the door. Weeks of that teach a household a habit: read each wobble as noise, because so far every wobble has been followed by a better morning. So when Thursday is worse than Tuesday, the first instinct is to give it until Saturday.

The sheets do not share that instinct. The surgical centre expects "steady, continual improvement" and asks for a call if he is "lethargic, acutely painful, simply not doing well, or declining neurologically," adding that a recheck "may need to be scheduled sooner" if he is "not improving."^[1] A specialist hospital's long-term leaflet puts it in one line: "If you find that your pet is sore and/or they become weaker in their limbs you should contact your vet as soon as possible."^[2] Neither describes a normal dip. We looked for one in every sheet and consensus document we have used in this series and found none.

That leaves you with one honest way to think about a bad day. A bad day is something you can only diagnose the next morning. The only proof that Thursday was a bad day is a better Friday, and the sheets are written so that you do not wait for Friday to find out.

A flat week is different. The Southfields leaflet expects "a more dramatic improvement in the first 2 months after the operation" and "a gradual improvement beyond this time,"^[2] so later in recovery a week that looks like the last one is not by itself a warning. Our page on walking progress and plateaus covers how to tell flat from slow. This page is about the other line on that table: weaker, sorer, newly wobbly, newly knuckling, or not passing urine. That is not a plateau.

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What it turned out to be, when dogs went back#

The largest description we found of what lies behind an early setback comes from a single referral hospital. The paper is about infection, but to find its infections the authors first counted every dog that needed a repeat MRI and a second operation within 90 days of the first, across five years.

Source: To, Cherubini and Caine, 1,723 thoracolumbar decompressive operations, January 2017 to December 2021.^[3] By our count, the causes the results section names add up to 112 of the 113 dogs.

Read it with three limits in mind. It is one hospital. It counts only dogs who had both a second scan and a second operation, so a dog who got worse and recovered with rest, or was treated without surgery, is not in it. And it does not tell us how many of these dogs were improving before they got worse. What it does show is the order of likelihood, and that the commonest answer is the plainest one. The authors write that "recurrent disc herniation is the most frequent cause of early clinical deterioration," and that dogs "exhibiting initial postoperative improvement followed by acute worsening of pain or neurological deficits" need further investigation.^[3]

The second disc: same place early, somewhere else later#

In the first month, it is usually the same disc. The 2022 specialist consensus statement says early recurrence "has been reported within the first month after decompression" and "is almost exclusively caused by extrusion of additional disc material at the site of previous decompression." It recommends fenestration, removing the centre of the disc that burst at the time of surgery, to reduce that risk.^[4] In a small prospective study that scanned 19 chondrodystrophic dogs (the short-legged breeds prone to this disease) again at six weeks, 6 of the 10 operated on without fenestration had more disc material at the site, 3 of them with signs (pain in two, weakness in one), against none of the 9 who were fenestrated.^[5]

A Norwegian case report shows what that looks like from the living room. One dog improved steadily for seven days, stayed the same for three, then got worse. A second went home improved and was clearly worse when it came back for suture removal on day 11. The third had back pain on day 2 and could not walk by day 4, although its disc had been fenestrated. At the second operation, all three had "abundant disc material" at the operated site. All three walked again, the first with lasting weakness and wobble at one year.^[6] Three dogs prove nothing about how often this happens. They do show that the turn can come on day 2 or day 10, after a week of gains or after none, and that it can be first noticed at a routine appointment.

A useful question for the call, and not a reason to panic: was the disc fenestrated? The surgeon knows. The consensus statement notes that "some studies report few early recurrences without fenestration," while most support fenestration as preventing them,^[4] and the third dog above recurred despite it. So it changes the odds; it does not settle anything.

After the first month, it is more likely somewhere else. The Southfields leaflet: "Within the first month of recovery these signs can be related to the initial injury (same disc), and beyond the first month it is more likely that a different disc, or a different problem has developed." It adds that relapse signs "might resemble the first episode, with varying degrees of back/neck pain and inability to use the limbs."^[2] The consensus statement puts later extrusion at a new disc in up to 19% of dogs after surgery, with higher recurrence rates reported for dachshunds (25%) and French bulldogs (44%), and 87.5% of these later recurrences within one or two disc spaces of the first.^[4] The Southfields leaflet gives its own figures: as high as 30% in dachshunds and about 50% in French bulldogs.^[2]

That second sentence of the leaflet is more useful than it looks. You already know what this dog's back pain looks like, because you watched the first episode. Whatever he did that week, the hunch, the trembling, the cry when he was lifted, the refusal to come down a step, is your own description of the sign. If you are seeing it again, say so in those words.

The infection: pain over the spine, mostly without a fever#

The 19 deep infections in the same series had a consistent look. All 19 dogs had pain when the spine was touched. Seven had got worse neurologically. Two had a soft swelling at the surface. The median day of diagnosis was 7, with a range of 2 to 38. And the mean temperature at diagnosis was 37.9 °C, range 36.5 to 39.1; the authors note the absence of fever in the group and suggest the anti-inflammatory drugs these dogs were on may explain it.^[3] All 19 survived to discharge and 14 were walking at discharge. Of the five who were not, the authors write that four "subsequently regained ambulation during short-term follow-up," and one was lost to follow-up. Our incision page covers the wound itself and the daily photograph.

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Why this page will not tell you which one it is#

Look again at the table. A second extrusion, a blood clot and an infection can all arrive as the same two things: a sorer back and weaker legs. The series above told them apart with an MRI and, for the infections, a culture taken at a second operation.^[3] Any page that offers you a home checklist for telling them apart is offering you a reason to wait, and we are not going to write one.

The one thing worth separating at home is not the cause but the speed. A dog who could walk this morning and cannot move his legs tonight goes to the emergency box at the top of this page. A dog who is a little sorer and a little more wobbly than three days ago is a phone call to the surgeon's team today. Neither is a wait.

One more possibility deserves a sentence because owners fear it most. Progressive myelomalacia, the spreading injury in the emergency box, is not what the series describes in a dog who was getting better. In the 51-dog series, 39 dogs had already lost pain perception when they arrived, the first signs of it ranged from present on arrival to 5 days later, and we found no dog in it described as improving first.^[7] That is a reason to put it lower on your list of fears, not a reason to ignore front legs or breathing.

He cannot tell you his back hurts more than on Sunday#

The sign present in every one of those 19 infections is the one a dog reports worst. A different kind of soreness shows how quietly it can sit: in a study that followed 40 dogs for a year after this surgery, some still had measurably heightened sensitivity at the incision at six months, and the authors write that "the owners of these dogs did not report any signs of pain at home."^[10] That was lingering sensitivity in dogs who had recovered, not the sudden pain of an infection or a second disc, and it was not a failure of attention. A back that aches more than it did shows up as a dog who gets up more slowly, sits rather than lies, or moves away from your hand, and every one of those also fits a dog who is simply tired.

“Because your dog can't tell you how much pain he or she is in.”

The eight things the surgeon will ask#

This list is ours. We built it from what the sheets ask owners to watch for and what the published series recorded about dogs who went back. Write the answers on one page before you dial. A call that starts with a date, a count and a video gives the person on the other end something to compare with their own notes from the day he went home.

Then film him. Fifteen seconds walking past you from the side on the same route, and fifteen standing still from behind. Ask whether they can take a video by text or email; a clip of today's gait beside one from last week shows what a description cannot. If you kept the walking record from the toe-scuffing page, bring that too.

Do not test whether he can feel his toes#

There is a test owners read about and want to try: squeeze a toe and see if the leg pulls away. Do not use that to reassure yourself. A veterinary neurology practice puts it plainly: it is "a test best performed by a veterinarian as there are reflexes that can look like this but are not."^[8] The leg can pull back through a reflex loop in the spinal cord below the injury, without the message reaching the brain at all. How much the cord can do on its own is shown by a study of 81 paraplegic dogs whose lesions were judged irreversible and who never regained pain perception: with intensive physiotherapy, 48 of them learned an involuntary "spinal walk," at a median of 75.5 days.^[9]

A leg that pulls away is not proof of a dog who felt it. What you can report honestly is what he does on his own: whether he turns his head to look when something touches his back end, whether he notices you lifting a back foot, whether his tail moves when you come into the room. Leave the squeezing to the person trained to read it.

When you call, and what usually happens next#

Call the team that did the surgery now, with the page in front of you. If their line is closed, use their out-of-hours number or the emergency hospital rather than waiting for the morning. Tell them in the first sentence that he was improving and is now worse, and on which day. That sequence, improvement and then worsening, is the one the infection series singles out as needing investigation.^[3] If they ask you to bring him in, our page on getting a dog who cannot walk to the vet covers the lift, the car and the waiting room.

What follows is the surgeon's to decide: an examination, often a scan, sometimes a second operation. The outcomes we can report are mixed but mostly good. All 19 dogs with deep infections survived to discharge; 14 were walking, and the paper counts 2 as one grade worse after the second scan and operation. All three dogs in the early-recurrence report walked again after a second operation, one with lasting weakness and wobble.^[3][6] We did not find a study that measures how much a day's delay costs in this situation, and we are not going to invent one. These series include only dogs who were re-examined and treated, so they cannot tell you what waiting costs. Nor can they tell you that waiting is safe. The sheets, written by the teams who see the dogs who come back, say call.

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We sell nothing on this page#

Nothing you can buy tonight shortens the time between noticing this and someone examining him. The useful tools are already in the house: a phone that takes video, a pen, and the calendar. If you own a thermometer, use it and report the number; do not go out to buy one before you call. We earn nothing from this page on purpose.

What we could not find#

• A description of a normal dip after disc surgery. No sheet, leaflet or consensus statement we read allows for a worse day as part of normal recovery. That is a gap in what we read, not proof that a dip never happens; it does mean nobody has written down which dips are safe to wait out.
• How often dogs get worse and recover without a second operation. The large series counts only dogs who were scanned and operated on again, so it cannot tell us how common a setback is overall.
• How many of those dogs had been improving first. The 1,723-operation series does not break that down in what we read.
• Any study of how the delay to a recheck changes the outcome of an early setback.
• A validated home test that separates a reflex from feeling in the toes. The practice's advice is to leave it to the vet, and we agree.

What to do this week#

Tonight, take a sheet of paper and answer the eight questions, in that order. Film him from the side and from behind. Then call the surgical team, or the emergency hospital if anything in the box at the top applies, and say the sentence the sheets are listening for: he was getting better, and since this day he is worse.

If you are reading this before anything has gone wrong, put the eight questions on the fridge next to the bladder times now, while the record is still a record of improvement. The day it is needed is the day it is hardest to write.

The founder of this site lost months to signs she read as age. The delay here is measured in days, and it usually starts in the same reasonable place: the hope that tomorrow will be better, because it always has been. The rest of this recovery is covered on our pages on the weekly walking record, the six-week recheck, the nights and disc disease itself.

Sources#

1. Veterinary Surgical Centers. "Post-Operative Instructions: Intervertebral Disc Disease." Owner discharge sheet. vscdsurgerycenters.com. Read in full 23 October 2026: "Your pet should show steady, continual improvement. If he/she seems lethargic, acutely painful, simply not doing well, or declining neurologically please call us immediately"; "monitor your pet carefully to ensure he/she is urinating at least once every 24 hours. Please seek immediate care if your pet is not urinating"; "If your pet is having any difficulties or not improving then a recheck examination may need to be scheduled sooner"; "call us if you believe your pet is having an adverse reaction to any of the prescriptions."
2. Southfields Veterinary Specialists. "Spinal Surgery Long-Term Recovery Guide." Owner leaflet S-017, © 2024. southfields.co.uk. Read in full 23 October 2026: "We tend to see a more dramatic improvement in the first 2 months after the operation, but we want to see a gradual improvement beyond this time"; "Signs of relapse might resemble the first episode, with varying degrees of back/neck pain and inability to use the limbs"; "Within the first month of recovery these signs can be related to the initial injury (same disc), and beyond the first month it is more likely that a different disc, or a different problem has developed"; "If you find that your pet is sore and/or they become weaker in their limbs you should contact your vet as soon as possible"; in dachshunds "the relapse rate can be as high as 30%," in French bulldogs "reported to be about 50%."
3. To AYK, Cherubini GB, Caine A. "Clinical presentation, magnetic resonance imaging characteristics, and short-term outcome of deep surgical site infection following thoracolumbar decompressive spinal surgery for intervertebral disc herniation in dogs." Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2025;12:1645491. doi:10.3389/fvets.2025.1645491. Full text (PMC12380707) read 23 October 2026: January 2017 to December 2021; "113 cases (6.6%) required repeated MRI and surgery within 90 days of the previous surgery"; alternative diagnoses "re-extrusion (46/1723; 2.7%)," "post-operative hemorrhage or hematoma formation (22/1723, 1.3%)," "spinal cord compression by hemostatic agent (2/1723; 0.1%)," "persistent intervertebral disc material (2/1723; 0.1%)," "laminectomy membrane formation (1/1723; 0.1%)"; "20 cases (20/1723; 1.2%) were diagnosed with seroma formation with a negative bacterial culture"; 19 deep surgical site infections (1.1%), median 7 days to diagnosis (range 2-38), spinal hyperesthesia 19/19, neurological deterioration 7/19, superficial seroma 2/19, mean temperature 37.9 °C (36.5-39.1), absence of pyrexia attributed in part to NSAIDs; all survived to discharge, 14/19 ambulatory at discharge; "Of the five dogs that were non-ambulatory at the time of discharge," "four subsequently regained ambulation during short-term follow-up," one lost to follow-up; "Short-term outcomes were available for 14 cases"; 2/19 deteriorated by one grade after repeated MRI and surgery, all 14 with short-term follow-up ambulatory. Introduction: "recurrent disc herniation is the most frequent cause of early clinical deterioration"; "failure to recover as expected, particularly those exhibiting initial postoperative improvement followed by acute worsening of pain or neurological deficits, warrants further investigations." Single-centre retrospective series.
4. Olby NJ, Moore SA, Brisson B, Fenn J, Flegel T, Kortz G, Lewis M, Tipold A. "ACVIM consensus statement on diagnosis and management of acute canine thoracolumbar intervertebral disc extrusion." Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2022;36(5):1570-1596. doi:10.1111/jvim.16480. Full text (PMC9511077) read 23 October 2026, section 6.1: "Early recurrence has been reported within the first month after decompression" and "is almost exclusively caused by extrusion of additional disc material at the site of previous decompression"; fenestration of the herniated disc space at decompression "is recommended"; section 6.2: future extrusion at new disc spaces "reported in up to 19% of all dogs undergoing decompressive surgery," "Most (87.5%) of these late recurrences develop within 1 to 2 disc spaces of the original extruded disc," with rates of recurrence higher for dachshunds (25%) and French bulldogs (44%); "Although some studies report few early recurrences without fenestration," most support that fenestration "prevents early recurrence."
5. Forterre F, Konar M, Spreng D, Jaggy A, Lang J. "Influence of intervertebral disc fenestration at the herniation site in association with hemilaminectomy on recurrence in chondrodystrophic dogs with thoracolumbar disc disease: a prospective MRI study." Veterinary Surgery. 2008;37(4):399-405. doi:10.1111/j.1532-950X.2008.00394.x. Abstract read via Europe PMC 23 October 2026: 19 chondrodystrophic dogs, 9 fenestrated plus hemilaminectomy, 10 hemilaminectomy alone, MRI before, immediately after and 6 weeks after surgery; at 6 weeks "none of the group 1 dogs had further disc material herniation at the fenestrated site"; "Six of the 10 group 2 dogs had a recurrence of herniation leading to clinical signs in 3 dogs (pain in 2 dogs, paresis in 1 dog)." Full text not read.
6. Stigen Ø, Ottesen N, Jäderlund KH. "Early recurrence of thoracolumbar intervertebral disc extrusion after surgical decompression: a report of three cases." Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica. 2010;52(1):10. doi:10.1186/1751-0147-52-10. Full text (PMC2829575) read 23 October 2026: dog 1 "For the first seven days following surgery, neurological function gradually improved," then unchanged for three days, then deteriorated; dog 2 discharged improved and clearly deteriorated at suture removal on day 11; dog 3 "On the second day, signs of back pain were present and the weakness in both pelvic limbs was increased," non-ambulatory by day 4, and was the only dog fenestrated at the first surgery; at reoperation "abundant disc material" at the hemilaminectomy site in all three; outcomes ambulatory paraparesis with moderate ataxia at one year, good ambulation including stairs at nine months, and ambulatory with very mild ataxia three weeks after the second surgery. Case report.
7. Castel A, Olby NJ, Mariani CL, Muñana KR, Early PJ. "Clinical characteristics of dogs with progressive myelomalacia following acute intervertebral disc extrusion." Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2017;31(6):1782-1789. doi:10.1111/jvim.14829. Full text (PMC5697170) read 23 October 2026: 51 dogs (18 confirmed on histopathology); "Onset of PMM signs ranged from present at first evaluation (17/51) to 5 days after presentation," 25 of 51 within 48 hours; 39 of 51 without pain perception at presentation; "Twenty-three dogs (23 of 51) presented with or developed thoracic limbs paresis or proprioceptive deficits"; abnormal respiratory pattern in 18 of 51; no included dog described as improving before deteriorating.
8. McDonnell J. "IVDD in dogs: prognosis based on clinical signs." Veterinary Neurology and Imaging of the Chesapeake, practice blog (dated 15 May, year not shown). vetneurochesapeake.com. Read 23 October 2026: "Dogs that cannot feel their toes will not react appropriately to pinching their toes or the webbing between their toes"; "This is a test best performed by a veterinarian as there are reflexes that can look like this but are not."
9. Gallucci A, Dragone L, Menchetti M, Gagliardo T, Pietra M, Cardinali M, Gandini G. "Acquisition of involuntary spinal locomotion (spinal walking) in dogs with irreversible thoracolumbar spinal cord lesion: 81 dogs." Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2017;31(2):492-497. doi:10.1111/jvim.14651. Abstract read via Europe PMC 23 October 2026: spinal walking defined as "the acquisition of an involuntary motor function in paraplegic dogs and cats without pain perception"; of "Eighty-one acute paraplegic thoracolumbar dogs," "Autonomous SW was achieved in 48 dogs (59%)"; dogs underwent "intensive physical rehabilitation"; "Median time to achieve SW was of 75.5 days (range: 16-350 days)"; lesions described as irreversible.
10. Zidan N, Medland J, Olby N. "Long-term postoperative pain evaluation in dogs with thoracolumbar intervertebral disk herniation after hemilaminectomy." Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2020;34(4):1547-1555. doi:10.1111/jvim.15800. Full text (PMC7379041) read 23 October 2026: 40 dogs followed prospectively; mechanical sensory thresholds at the incision below those of healthy dogs to day 42, and below the healthy minimum in 7 of 31 dogs at six months and 2 of 27 at one year; owners of dogs with persistently low thresholds did not report signs of pain at home.

This article is educational and does not replace veterinary advice. Whether your dog needs to be seen, scanned or operated on again is a decision for the surgeon who knows his case.