Mar
22
Ticket update — 6.5 weeks and counting
Stopping to smell the flowers…
It’s been about 6.5 weeks since Ticket’s second surgery, and I’m very happy with her progress. She still has a limp, but it’s subtle most of the time. It can get worse with exercise, but is back to “normal” the next day, so nothing persists. Xrays show good healing. I’m finally feeling like she’s making progress in the right direction.
We’re moving on to increasing her activity, adding strengthening exercises, and starting to add some sprints. One game she loves is where I take her in the backyard with her tug toy, tug for a minute, then give her the toy, which she will run around the yard with, before bringing it back for another round. Not running full out, and no hard planting and turning, which is what I’m still trying to avoid. I have permission to do jump work from a sit in front of a low jump, so she’ll see her first agility equipment. 🙂
In rehab, we’re upping the difficulty on the treadmill. She’s back to doing the incline treadmill, and she does intervals with the water level lower, so she gets increased range of motion on her knee. Something else we’re trying that seems to be helping is neuromuscular electrostrimulation (NMES) on her quadriceps. With the disuse for an extended period of time, sometimes there can be neurogenic inhibition on the firing of that muscle. So you do electrostimulation on the nerves on the muscle, to help reeducate it. It’s not something I’d find particularly comfortable, but she has done fantastic with it–lays on her side and lets us zap her. Since we’ve been doing that, I really feel like her walking has improved, for what it’s worth.
I am hoping to start working with her on some “easy” agility stuff in April–straight lines, low contacts, and see how she does. I’d love to be showing her by May, but that is highly dependent on how she handles the increased activity. Mentally, she is very VERY ready.
