This morning I got the look. That look that says, “why are you doing this to me?”
How do you explain to a dog that loves to run that he is not allowed to run? Dogs run, that’s what they do!
He has been favouring his back right leg especially after resting in his dog bed so it was off to the vet to see what was the matter.
I assumed he might be getting arthritis. Well, he probably will now that he has damaged his knee. Already he has less muscle in his leg. Luckily it is not a full separation of muscle/tendons/cartilage etc. otherwise he would be holding the leg up most of the time, so he is lucky. However, Linus has to refrain from running for now.
To keep him from running along the fence line to greet everyone in the mornings, I have to chain him up out back for a few hours. He has seldom been stuck on a chain so needless to say he is not a happy camper. He is sulking. Mum of course is the bad person in all of this…
In the mean time we now have days of dog physio. I thought it was bad when I had to do physio on my shoulders… I never thought I would be doing dog physio for a very healthy well built dog that is all lean muscle. We already walk for about an hour and a half each day. He only eats the best food and he gets his regular bones from the butcher. Even doing everything right does not mean your dog will remain in perfect health.
So, this morning was our first physio session of the day. Instead of walking our normal route, we spent most of our walk going up and down the same hill. This will force him to use both his back legs instead of using one more than the other. He didn’t seem to mind other than the confused look I got concerning the fact we were not really going anywhere but up and down, up and down, up and down. After that I took him farther along to anther hill and we did that hill just to break the monotony of the same hill. We will do this again later today and probably tonight too.
On top of this we have leg exercises to do. I have to hold his good back leg up so he will put his weight on his weaker leg. We have so many sets and reps of this to do each day too.
None of this is difficult, it just changes the routine and if anything Linus is a bit of a routine lover.
He likes his 40 plus minute walk at 5am. He even gets out of his bed to whine at the window to tell me to get out of bed and walk him. That’s the drill. That walk is to be up and down the entire road and then some, not a rerun of the same hill.
He sets his heart on running the fence line each morning when he sees his doggy friends, cyclist friends or walking friends who all say good morning to him. I bet it will not take long before people start to ask what’s wrong, Linus is never at the fence anymore…
Lets hope he is on the mend soon and can go back to running!
ljr3 