Ten hydros, an AGM and a little blip...

Brooke getting ready to chair the meeting for the ESSC AGM at the weekend! She enjoyed meeting all of the shelties and managed to socialise without being too crazy about it :-) She was so tired after her day out.

Brooke only had one hydro last week and it really showed. She wasn't worse, she just didn't seem to show the same improvements. We can't work out whether its that she didn't do hydro, whether it was that she did a few cavaletti exercises or whether it was her going a bit bonkers when Matt walked her. She did her tenth hydro session last night and Katrina didn't think she was extending it as well as before. Over this last weekend she has been on rest and metacam again and seems a bit better which indicates it may be inflammation somewhere.

Brookes first month video!

What brilliant progress Brooke has made over her first month of rehab! I have put together a video of what she has been up to...the hydrotherapy clips back to back are amazing!!

First month of rehab done!

So it is now a month since Brooke saw Patrick and started rehab. She is doing well, she actually walked round the common with the other three dogs over the weekend although she gets very distracted by dogs on the common playing with balls! Brooke also loves to stop and sniff everything...I'm guessing because her world has been a dull place for a long time bless her!

She is happily putting weight on her bad leg and walking pretty evenly now

This was us on our epic walk round the common (ok 25 mins but thats a lot for Brooke!)

Her physio exercises are going well, we are going back on Friday morning to check her progress but she seems much stronger generally. Brodie likes to 'help!'

Unfortunately Brooke is in the process of blowing her coat big time! The only thing that is still hairy is her butt and tail! 

Her lovely PJ's made by Auntie Jenni keep her very snuggly! 

No hydrotherapy videos this week but she continues to do very well and is now up to 20 mins walking on the treadmill in 5 min blocks. She copes really well with it and is actually starting to pull to get in! 

Stepping out!

Brooke has been learning to stretch her bad leg out much more at hydrotherapy and it is really paying off. She actually wanted to trot over the weekend and managed to organise her legs rather than looking like her front legs were hobbled together. I was so happy that she managed this that I cried!

So yesterday she had hydrotherapy session 3 and the difference was amazing! She didn't look lame at all and managed 14 minutes of walking. Our daily walking is up to 20 mins now but is still mostly in walk.

She has been allowed to do bits of walking with the other dogs and she still finds it very exciting! I took her and Brodie for a little walk up the lane at work and they were so cute together :-)

Her wobble exercises are really paying off and I think she is managing to stay a lot more balanced now. We are varying having one or two cushions.

I got Brooke a jumper for after hydro as she gets cold quickly. It is a great fit and has a zip which means its much easier to put on when a dog has a leg injury. I know the colour is a bit dodgy!!

Week 3 - Hydrotherapy!

So this week Brooke bean started Hydrotherapy on Tuesday. To say she was not impressed initially was an understatement! It was a good 20 mins before she moved a foot in the water! Katrina was brilliant with her and took loads of time building her confidence up. We discovered that corned beef was the thing to get Brooke walking!

To have a look at Brooke on the treadmill click here which should take you to the Hydro-Mac facebook page.

She looked quite stiff after being on the treadmill but I guess it was the biggest workout she has had for well before the pups were born!! She looked ok walking the next day though which was good and hopefully it will be the start of her getting stronger.

Its a hard life...

We actually managed a family photo for the first time in ages!

Which I had to take very quickly as they weren't very patient!

A new exercise for this week is getting Brooke to stand on two wobble cushions so she has to keep her balance. She found it really tricky to start with but is only allowed to do it for a very short time. Brodie wanted to be my assistant :-)

A really bad pic but the other thing I have done this week is fed Bean out of a lotus ball a couple of times. I can see this being useful for the future as when she is finally allowed off lead she will go nuts if its not set up as an exercise so thought she could learn to go to a lotus ball rather than a cage ball which would send her scatty!!

Week 2...progress good so far :-)

So we are up to ten minute walks twice a day. To be honest the last couple of days have been challenging, mostly because Brooke has decided that walking calmly is a bit dull now and she would rather up the pace! I actually had to get hold of her harness before the took off doing zoomies on the end of her lead yesterday! This is what she was threatening to do...(not sure why I can't link youtube videos on this blog and I can on the other one? Sorry if you have to copy and paste to watch it)

https://youtu.be/GMeJlv8YKm0

Her walking has improved but I have noticed she gets tired towards the end of her walk and looks a bit shorter on her bad leg and occasionally scuffs her nails. I think there is a bit of muscle coming back but I need someone else to verify this as its hard to tell when you see her every day!

She has had her balance exercises made a little bit harder and is now doing more sits-stands with her front feet on the wobble cushion and she is also doing high fives with alternate front feet.

She is allowed a bit more free time in the kitchen and enjoyed 'helping' me clean yesterday. She is blowing her coat after her season so is feeling a bit chilly so we put a 'Back on Track' coat on her to keep her muscles warm. She definitely looks more stiff if she gets cold.

We have been using the heat pad in her crate at night as well as putting a lightweight fleece coat on her. She is definitely less stiff coming out of her crate in the morning if she is cosy overnight.

Let the rehab commence...!

So we have done our rest and it was harder for us than Brooke in a lot of ways! She adapted so well to her new lazy lifestyle whereas we missed doing things with her, walking as a family and had to get used to our home life being more structured while Brooke is confined.

Just before Christmas Brooke had seen our wonderful physio Sally who had said she could start doing little walks with her and gave us some gentle wobble cushions exercises which strengthen her muscles without stressing the joints with moving. Brooke was on the cushion like a shot and keen to 'tap dance' with her front feet which she does when excited! Watching her walk very slowly round Sallys garden we worked out that she walked better on longer grass as it makes her more aware of where she is placing her feet. She still looked very lame on concrete but then having been sedentary for nine months has meant she has massive muscle wastage :-( She is basically learning to walk again without a biceps muscle!

On Jan 5th we saw Patrick the vet who had operated on her. He watched her walk on concrete (lame), walk on grass (fairly sound) and then asked if I could make her trot. Well to be honest I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! She looked like a newborn foal trying to trot for the first time ever. Her legs were everywhere and she couldn't get a rhythm at all. Patrick wasn't over concerned as she has to work out how to do everything again with a muscle missing and her other muscles have to learn to take over (and they are wasted away) He echoed our thoughts that it would be good to have her on metacam as that way she won't suffer with too much muscle soreness once she starts to walk. Also if she had magically become sound on metacam it would have meant her lameness is pain related and not mechanical. She isn't sound so that is good in a round about way!! We are keeping comprehensive notes of what we are doing which is geeky :-)

This is her walking on Week One...

<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nW6RPrIpDKY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

A guide to coping with six months of total rest!

Having a very active dog who is suddenly confined to a crate/pen and no walking is hard. My arms muscles have never been bigger from carrying her places! We have three other dogs who required lots of exercise and that made it harder as Brooke was not happy being left hone alone knowing that the others were out having fun!  We have tried to make her rest as varied as possible so that she still gets to use her brain and feel included in things we do. One of the most important things in Brookes opinion was that she had sofa time! Obviously she was lifted up and down as jumping off could have ruined any chances of recovery (I don't let the others jump off the sofa if possible due to the impact) As you can see, she loves being on the sofa!

The other reason for having her on the sofa was to do her biomagnetic pulsed therapy treatment three times a day. She loves having it down and it makes her drowsy! It basically improves circulation and promotes healing. I have used it on my back and it is lovely! 

Food has always been the highlight of Brooke's day so we have been using various food toys and anti gulp bowls to slow her down. We had to be careful of which food toys though as we found that the little red ball she got quite angry with and used her bad leg a bit too much! 

Even though she couldn't walk anywhere we found a couple of dog friendly pubs and coffee shops that we could take her in. She loved being a 'lady that lunches'! Lots of look at which wore her out completely.

The other thing that is so important for a resting dog is quality sleep! Brooke has always appreciated lap cuddles and as long as she was comfortable we let her snooze on us! This is a really good picture of the harness we use on her. She is a nightmare to fit harnesses on as she is narrow but also long. We ended up with a Perfect fit harness from Dog Games as it has three very adjustable pieces. It doesn't put any pressure on her bad shoulder and is lovely and padded!

The other thing we had to work hard with was keeping her nails and pads in good shape. Her nails need trimming every few days to stop them getting too long and her foot hair needed trimming constantly to mean she had the best grip possible when she did stand up. Her pads quickly became weird and crusty from not walking so we got some special balm called 'Wild Wash' which has helped keep her pads in good condition. We have tried to keep up with her grooming as well as it helps with her circulation and general health.

The operation and more rest...

So Brooke had her operation on October 5th just after 3 months of total rest to see if nature would so some healing. When I say total rest I really mean it! The only time that she was allowed to move around was when she went to the toilet and that was on a short lead. She has a pen in the lounge, a crate in the bedroom, kitchen and car. If Matt is working from home then she is attached to him on a lead which she loves!

We are lucky that she is the sweetest dog and happily adjusted to her new confined lifestyle. Not bad when you consider that her favourite things in life are cage balls, running and agility! Here are a few photos that sum Brooke up best 

And here is a video of her at one of her last G6 shows

<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mMIXETtFO40" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Starting at the beginning...

Brooke (posh name-Licosateria Mai Rising Star) is a shaded sable Shetland Sheepdog born in 2011. We have owned her since she was 8 weeks old and she is the most fantastic little girly! She was bred by Lian Knight who owns her Daddy Sing and brother Sonic. Brooke had a gorgeous litter of three pups in January last year and they are just gorgeous! Before puppies Brooke had won into Grade 7 agility. (For more info about Brooke and her beautiful boys please click on the link on the right.)

In March last year Brooke injured herself on a stairgate and damaged a ligament in her shoulder. After a lot of physio and months of rest it hadn't improved. On arthoscopic examination it was found that Brooke had a lot of calcium deposits in her biceps tendon as her body had overreacted to the inflammation, so in October 2015 she had her biceps tendon cut to relieve her from the pain. This blog is a diary of her rehabilitation mostly as a record for us and also if it helps anyone else whose dog has had this operation.