Steve is six weeks into rehab for his second groin pull.
He's not that happy.
Neither am I.
But it's going well, or as well as can be expected. Certainly much faster than the last time. But still, this is the whole summer lost again with him living in a box instead of swimming and frisbee-ing and hiking. And I freaking hate it.
We will get through it, but then comes the question... what about the future? I don't want to do this again. I know there are things that we can do preventatively, but I was already doing many of those things. He is in fantastic shape, has core muscles like a boss (part of why he's recovering so much more quickly this time), I warm him up, cool him down, ask him to stretch... but still my favorite collie got hurt in a fairly non-dramatic spill off the dogwalk. (And he wasn't doing anything crazy... he just, for whatever reason, lost his footing.)
This is typically an agility injury. It is typically *not* a flyball injury, where the turn is predictable and the same (or close) every time. I have no question about bringing him back to flyball. But I really don't know what to do about agility, and it's stressing me out.
His rehab vet says he should be fine to go back to agility in time, but I don't think she sees a ton of performance dogs. Some, yes, and they have returned to sport, but I think she mostly sees pet dogs (post-op knees, back problems, weight loss, etc).
His agility trainer is of course pushing hard for him to come back. She thinks he's amazing. His breeder is giving me the "all my dogs who get hurt get hurt playing flyball" business.
I just want to do right by my dog. Problem is, I don't know what "right" is.
I am trying to schedule him to see someone who is more of a performance/agility dog physical therapist (David Acciani, if anyone is familiar with him) next week because he'll be seeing appointments locally. I am looking less for evaluation of my dog at this present juncture, and more for advice for the future. Hopefully he'll be able to help me find my answers.
In the meantime, I'm stressing :-/
He's not that happy.
Neither am I.
But it's going well, or as well as can be expected. Certainly much faster than the last time. But still, this is the whole summer lost again with him living in a box instead of swimming and frisbee-ing and hiking. And I freaking hate it.
We will get through it, but then comes the question... what about the future? I don't want to do this again. I know there are things that we can do preventatively, but I was already doing many of those things. He is in fantastic shape, has core muscles like a boss (part of why he's recovering so much more quickly this time), I warm him up, cool him down, ask him to stretch... but still my favorite collie got hurt in a fairly non-dramatic spill off the dogwalk. (And he wasn't doing anything crazy... he just, for whatever reason, lost his footing.)
This is typically an agility injury. It is typically *not* a flyball injury, where the turn is predictable and the same (or close) every time. I have no question about bringing him back to flyball. But I really don't know what to do about agility, and it's stressing me out.
His rehab vet says he should be fine to go back to agility in time, but I don't think she sees a ton of performance dogs. Some, yes, and they have returned to sport, but I think she mostly sees pet dogs (post-op knees, back problems, weight loss, etc).
His agility trainer is of course pushing hard for him to come back. She thinks he's amazing. His breeder is giving me the "all my dogs who get hurt get hurt playing flyball" business.
I just want to do right by my dog. Problem is, I don't know what "right" is.
I am trying to schedule him to see someone who is more of a performance/agility dog physical therapist (David Acciani, if anyone is familiar with him) next week because he'll be seeing appointments locally. I am looking less for evaluation of my dog at this present juncture, and more for advice for the future. Hopefully he'll be able to help me find my answers.
In the meantime, I'm stressing :-/