| This page is for
those of you who have searched high and low on the internet for information on
rehabilitating an agility dog after a strain injury. I couldn't find anything much.
Typing "Hind leg lameness" into search engines brought forth some terrifying
pages on cruciate ligament damage and hip dysplasia. The best I could come up with
was a very good article on Agility Net which was
written by a vet, but a few days into his programme and I realised it wasn't working for
Jamie. How the damage was
caused
Jamie is a large and very boisterous dog. Behaving sensibly has never been his forte
and he has a tendency to go mad dog at the slightest incentive. Thus it was when he
went for a walk with his friends. It was Lizzie who started it. Hurtling round
in crazy circles and then up into the woods with Jamie in hot pursuit. When they
both reappeared all seemed to be fine but a few minutes later we noticed Jamie was limping
on his hind leg. We weren't too concerned at this stage as he didn't seem to be in
great deal of pain and it appeared to be just a temporary annoyance. Jamie does
sometimes limp if he treads on something sharp or if you've just removed a thorn but if
you rub it better he's fine. We had no idea that he'd done anything unusual.
The symptoms
I started to worry when we left our
friend's house and Jamie struggled a bit to get into the car. By the time we reached
home he was clearly going to have a job to get out of the car and once indoors the
lameness was all too obvious. He could hardly put any weight on his right hind leg.
We watched him as he moved round and gradually the movement became easier. We
kept a careful eye on him and noticed that the injury seemed most painful when he had been
resting for a while. It was all very worrying and not at all like Jamie. I'd
better add that it was late Sunday afternoon and we had to decide whether to call the vet
or leave it until the next day. We decided to leave it and observe him so that we
could give the vet an account of exactly how he was behaving.
The Vet's dignosis
Unfortunately Jamie has trained the
vet who saw him not to mess about with him too much. There are one or two vets at
the surgery who say "I'm not having that" and just carry on, but poor Richard
usually ends up plastered against the wall saying "Nice dog, just put my leg down now
would you." He wasn't too worried about the leg (That's Jamie's leg, not his).
Jamie had begun to walk more normally on it and he diagnosed a mild strain.
"Keep him on the lead for a few days and if it's not better in a week bring him back.
I'm confident that there's no ligament damage."
One week later
Jamie appeared to be back to
normal and so I let him off the lead and the first thing he did was to chase a squirrel.
Not just a little run and back again but a full blooded belt after the squirrel, up
the footpath and over a ten foot high bank that's steeper than any A-Frame. By the
time he came back he was limping again but undeterred he took off after another squirrel.
When we caught him we took him home, and this time I decided to do some
research. Only then did I discover that a mild strain can recur in the wink of an
eye and that a week is nowhere near long enough to recover. This was going to
be a long haul.... and then the implications set in.
No Agility
To give the injury time to heal
there was no chance that we would be able to compete at our match in three weeks time but
maybe, just maybe we might make a show a couple of weeks after that. I couldn't
believe that my lively and otherwise very fit agility dog wouldn't be able to run and jump
again very soon and that we would miss the start of the season. More annoying was
the fact that we had a very real chance for progression at the next show and it might be
our last chance. Jamie is now seven years old and he's not going to get a great deal
faster. Once the warmer weather comes he ambles over the courses in his own time so
the beginning and end of the season are our best times for him. There's no way he's going
to get a speedy round at a summer show but the previous year he had been getting better
and better. He'd come away from every show with a rosette or two and the place
rosettes outnumbered the clear rounds by about three to one. At the winter matches
the numbers on the rosettes were getting smaller and we had been placed several times in
the top three. To think that he would miss his beloved agility was almost unbearable
but I would rather he missed agility all summer than risk causing him further injury.
Jamie didn't agree.
Rehabilitation
At first I decided to follow
the advice of the vet who'd written the article for Agility Net. I would keep Jamie
on the lead until he'd been sound for a week and then start slow trotting several times a
day on soft ground. Minimal stairs, and level ground seemed to be the order of the
day. It took three days to realise that I couldn't follow this advice and this is
why.
1) We live in Cornwall and there is no level ground. It just doesn't happen.
Even if you go to a beach you've got a load of sand dunes to negotiate.
2) Everything in our house is steps. It's open plan and the stairs lead off
the living room. You can't put up a baby gate because Jamie would simply try to jump
it and under normal circumstances he'd do this easily. The garden is on a different
level to the house so steps have to be negotiated and we even have a step up out of the
living room and into the lobby and kitchen.
3) Jamie does not believe in sticking to plans. He's a dog, a very lively dog and as
soon as the leg feels better he wants to run and jump. Confining him on a lead
frightened me. Carrying on like this he was making him start to leap around in the
house and it wouldn't be long before he'd start to race into the garden and have one of
his mad turns. This would ultimately do more damage. I had a raving lunatic on
my hands and I didn't know what to do.
So what do you do?
Observation over three days had
confirmed that Jamie was capable of negotiating hills, stairs and steps without causing
the lameness to become worse. Day by day it was improving but I had noticed
something odd. When he stood still he shifted his weight to his left leg but
when he weed it didn't matter which leg he used. This puzzled me until I saw him
stand squarely but with both hind legs coming slightly forward. Obviously the injury
was a bit painful if the hinds legs were stretched backwards a little but he could find a
way to stand that didn't cause any discomfort. I immediately identified with
this. If you hurt something there's always one position that's more comfortable than
another.
At this point I made a bold a possibly foolish decision. I would let Jamie off the
lead for short periods on very familiar walks and stay with him whether he stopped or
trotted. I also let him trot around his own agility garden but not jumping of
course. I have decided to let him do what he can do as long as he trots soundly and
there is no sign of lameness when he's been resting. I've also decided to keep a diary of his progress. |
