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Sunday, July 29, 2018

Black Dog Sunday - His Physical Therapy!

Most of you know that our black dog was born with a very serious case of elbow dysplasia. After he'd had a few arthroscopic clean-out surgeries, we were facing up to the fact that he had essentially no cartilage left in the joint, and he was experiencing a lot of pain. Fortunately, we were able to get him a new kind of surgery called "CUE surgery" which puts synthetic weight-bearing surfaces in the elbow joint.

We are now more than 2 years post-surgery, and he is still doing very well. He runs on mountain trails daily with The Runner. He occasionally limps but it rarely lasts long. A big part of how we help our Black Dog to keep running happily is by doing daily exercises with him.

At this point, R is about 10.5 years old so he's starting to deal with age-related issues along with his elbow issues. Labs tend to lose hind end strength as they get older, and I've seen some very minor signs of that process starting for R. Consequently, we've added in a few exercises to strengthen his hind end, like sit-stand on a destabilizing squishy surface.

I thought that you might enjoy seeing his current exercise routine. I made a video with about half of his daily exercises on it. I'll make another video soon with the other half. Enjoy watching our crazy boy! You can watch it here or at Youtube.

11 comments:

  1. not only are you and R getting exercise but I saw Shyla go back and forth to. this is amazing he can do this. I can't believe it has been 2 years since surgery. seems like barely a year from here. good job R on that blue ball

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  2. You are doing a terrific job, R, and working hard for those treats!

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  3. OMCs R....you are over the top qualified for active Duty as an official Trainer of Special Forces...as I know none of them could be as good at crawling under things as you. We are in 200% amazement at your backward ability WOW x a gazillion. Yay You!!
    Hugs Madi who is in total awe of your 10.5 year old abilities

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  4. Go R go! You are darn good at that handsome R!

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  5. Hari Om
    Wondefurs!!! R you are most handsome and most trusting and most athletic and just plain adorable!!! Good work the both of you. Hugs and wags, YAM-aunty xxx

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  6. He's amazing! And so are you for all the hard work you're doing with training to keep him healthy and strong. Love it!
    Jan, Wag 'n Woof Pets

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  7. That was amazing! I am trying to picture my dogs doing that...lol...I think they would just flip me off. So cool!

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  8. Holy cow...I don't think I could do as good a job as your boy does!

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  9. Very, very impressive. These old bones could barely go forward under those chairs, never mind reverse! Heck, they probably don't even do very well going backwards while standing:)

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  10. Wow, that is really, really impressive. Thank you for sharing that.
    Our 10-year old Wyatt Airedale, has a rear leg tissue tear, from a recent rabbit chasing incident. We are on a current low activity/med plan and hope to avoid surgery at his age. Your PT exercises give us hope!

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  11. You are so wonderful for your pups!!! Go, R, go!!!
    KZK

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