Hard at work
10 weeks since TPLO surgery. I think Ticket is finally on the upswing. I can see her bearing more weight on the surgery leg, and while she still has some residual lameness at times and alterations in her gait, she is moving much better. Her lameness does increase with exercise, but resolves, which indicates muscle fatigue. Which, counter-intuitively, is what we want. In order for Ticket to build up more muscle and recover, she needs to hit those points where she is sore after exercise–otherwise, you’re not pushing hard enough to build muscle. Of course, you can go too far–you don’t want severe lameness, and you don’t want it to persist.
Ticket’s knee feels good, and there’s no evidence that there’s a problem with the surgery itself. She will have more xrays next week, 4 weeks after the last set, which will hopefully show a healed bone. At that point, she’ll get some more freedom, and hopefully get to do a little more outside, with more speed. I’ve been very down about how she’s doing the last couple of weeks, but I now think we may have hit the low, and are on our way back. 🙂
With everything going on with Ticket, I haven’t been in an agility frame of mind. I took my lack of motivation as a good chance to give Trip a break from agility. No training, no practice, no shows, no nothing, for almost 6 weeks–I think it may be the longest break of her career. We had one practice, and went back in the ring for the first time on Sunday. Only one day of agility, but I got a wonderful reminder about how much fun I have running Trip, and what a perfect girl she is. She felt great, ran great, and got QQ #90. First qualifying score for 2014 Nationals. As she always seems to remind me…best dog ever. I hope everyone at least once in their agility career gets to experience running with that degree of teamwork and understanding. I hope Ticket and I get to that point one day, but I don’t think it’s a given with every dog. Definitely something to strive for.
Well, followup xrays showed Ticket’s bone hadn’t quite healed yet. So she gets to be a little more free (can be out of the crate if calm inside), but still no running around outside.
She still has significant muscle atrophy, as well as pain in the muscles around her hip, and her psoas. Those last two are a result of compensating for her knee. She also still offloads off of her surgery leg when standing, but will use it well when ambulating. So, I’m focusing on laser/acupuncture to help relieve that secondary pain, as well as upping her rehab to try to increase muscle and weight-bearing. I’ve also been using her Back on Track jacket daily, in the hopes that will help keep her muscles more loose and less painful. The theory is that the ceramic polymers embedded in the jacket reflect a dogs’ body heat back, and therefore keep the muscles looser. I’m honestly not sure how much it might help, but I know it won’t hurt, so I will continue to use it, especially since winter seems to have finally arrived. Hopefully we’ll see some significant improvement in the next 2-4 weeks. Still ok on our Nationals schedule, but would like to make some progress in January to feel confident about where we are going.
Here are some of the exercises we have been working at home.
Balance disc–back feet on and shifting weight onto bad leg, as well as front legs on. I’m currently shaping her to walk in a circle with her front feet on the disc.
Rear feet on disc
Front feet on disc
Peanut ball–weight-shifting and strengthening of the rear legs. With her front end on the ball, I rock the ball to make her take a couple of steps forward, and then back, to make her take a couple of steps backwards.
Rear end strengthening and weight-shifting
Rear end strengthening and weight-shifting
Limbo — Take a shower curtain rod, and place it in a doorway. You want the bar to be low enough that your dog has to duck under it, but not so low that they have to crawl. It’s also important to not let them jump the bar (since they’re still healing). Lure them back and forth, effectively causing them to squat under, and then rise back up. Doggy squats. 🙂
Shower curtain rod in a doorway
Squatting down with the back end
Ducking under the bar
Finally, hills. Yes, even in Houston, you can find hills if you look hard enough, though it’s definitely a challenge. One thing suggested to me is parking garage ramps (if you need somewhere lit at night). Overpasses that have a sidewalk are an option as well. I found this hill at a local park–it’s an embankment for the jogging trail that runs around a pond they built. I will also be putting Ticket on my home treadmill and putting the incline as high as possible, since our weather isn’t looking great for going to the park in the near future.
Keep your eyes open, and you can find a nice steep hill for building those hamstrings
We still aren’t where we need to be, but I hope the next month will get us there. Ticket is a trooper, and wants to do so much, but I have to keep slowing her down. I do feel the bit of time she gets to spend out of the xpen is helping maintain her sanity, though she will happily go back in on her own to take a nap. Healing thoughts for my little honey badger…
Home treadmill
Ticket is getting close to the end–5 days until followup xrays. This week was 6 weeks after her surgery.  She is up to 30 minutes on the underwater treadmill with an incline. That is no problem for her. At home, we are doing two strengthening exercises every other day. So we climbed up and down hills for 10 minutes, and cavaletti for 10 minutes earlier this week. Tonight or tomorrow morning we’ll do some proprioceptive work on the soft balance disc, and some limbo exercises where she has to duck under a bar.
I am under instruction to increase the length of her walks, because her biggest issue right now is muscle mass. She still has some atrophy, and without building that muscle back up, she’s at increased risk for injury. Of course, NOW the weather decides to get cold and nasty. So yesterday, she got two 15 minute walks (with a bit of incline) on the land treadmill at home. We really need to be walking for 20-30 minutes, but this is the first time she’s been on the land treadmill in awhile, so I didn’t want to ask her to stay on it quite that long.
I admit, while Ticket is doing “fine,” and her PT keeps reassuring me that she’s doing well at this stage post-op, I’m still fighting frustration. Ticket still tends to offload off the surgery leg when standing, and doesn’t have the muscle back that I would like to see at this point. My only basis for comparison was Ticket’s first TPLO, where she was a rockstar and recovered exceptionally well. This time, the injury was more chronic, there was more cartilage damage, and it’s just going a little slower. It’s hard to be patient when I have a hard deadline, but I’m getting lots of reassurance that she will be ready. Ticket’s recheck xrays are next Wednesday, but even if we see her bone is healed, she’s not going to be turned completely loose, because of the risk of a strain.
This weekend we’re heading to San Antonio for Christmas. Acres of trails for Ticket to walk on, and it looks like the weather will be good. We’ll also continue working on her strengthening exercises. Hoping for good news next week!
I’m going to try to take some pictures/video of Ticket working through her strengthening/proprioception exercises and get those posted–I know they might be helpful for others after cruciate surgery.
