Rehab?

You may remember that I had something go wrong at the USDAA trial - guess it was about a month ago now. I wasn't limping or anything, but wouldn't stretch out before my run, came out of my crate shaking like a leaf. Mum took me home right away and checked me out. I spent the day in the corner of the living room and wouldn't come out.

Over the next few days I had a vet check, saw my chiro (my back and hip areas were out), and my soft tissue specialist. And in a matter of a week and a half I was acting completely normal.

So the other night at the New Year's Eve, Eve agility party. Mum ran me a little (no frames, no weaves) to see if I was looking OK. I didn't do too bad, not speedy, but not slow either. My chiro happened to be there and saw some kind of a hitch in my giddy-up when ever I ran - whatever that means :) She thinks she saw an extra step or hop from my left back leg. Mum still hasn't seen anything, and I'm acting incredibly normal. I'm going in for another chiro adjustment next week. But in the meantime, I'm doing my zoomies, chasing Gracie and the kitties, being my usual ornery self, and doing my rehab work.

My rehab, just like last January when I had my iliopsoas pull, consists of treadmill, ball work, stretching, strengthening body work and massage. We also do a lot of that anyway to keep me healthy, which is probably why my recovery is so quick this time - all that stuff really paid off for an injury prone dog like me. Wish I wasn't like this, but I've had a lot of stuff happen to me in my young years, so I need help keeping fit.

We've had a lot of requests to show the work we do, not only on the treadmill, but on the exercise ball, and stretching. You may remember my video on stretching, and the vid where I learned to run on the treadmill. For strengthening work, I'm doing a lot of begs (working up to holding it for 90 seconds - I'm already up to a little over 30 secs. in just a few days). Also doing some controlled stair work, going from a beg to stand and down again, things like that.

Now that I'm in rehab mode, we are taking it easy on the treadmill, not so fast and not so long - you'll see in the vid. We are adding in more incline to my treadmill work this time, to help build muscle mass. And since I may be in somewhat of a fragile state, we are taking it kind of easy on the ball work too - that's when Mum puts the ottoman near to help me get on and off.

Mum has rehab'ed me now 3-4 times in my four years of life. All she needs is one of those POS systems, bottle this rehab plan and she'd make a killing! If you've never rehab'ed a dog before, it's not easy. It takes a lot of dedication, commitment, money and time (sometimes months to a year), all this that you'd rather be doing play, training and running agility. And it takes knowledge, which many times you have to seek out and accumulate on your own, because there just isn't a lot of information out there.

And you can only hope through the process that you are doing the right things to help your dog. Many times injuries are incredibly difficult to diagnosis, even for the most experienced veterinarians and specialists. So you see who you can, and constantly search for answers, do the rehab work, until one day all is hopefully well again. But Mum wouldn't do anything but.

So here's a vid of some of my treadmill and exercise ball work, hope you enjoy!