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...

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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.