Laurie's Blogs.

I saw an interesting case on Saturday.  Actually, it was this particular dog’s second visit.  The owner lives 4 hours away, so it’s been a month since I last saw this dog.  His original presentation was as a post-op ventral slot at C3-4, and at that time he was moving well for 1-month post op.  He just had some mild ataxia and occasional knuckling / sliding of his rear legs or left front paw.  Over the month, the owner was instructed to do some balancing exercises, challenging walking exercises (up and down a curb, sit to stands facing up hill, backing up, walking over obstacles, etc.), and neck traction.

This month however, he looks about the same… and that has me a bit concerned.  You see, this owner hopes to get this VERY HIGH ENERGY dog back to agility & flyball.  And the surgeon told her that he doesn’t see why not.  But with this mild ataxia, now two months post-op despite the speedy immediate post-op recovery… I am concerned that a certain amount of ataxia will remain. 

But the purpose of this blog post is to discuss what I recommended at this stage of his rehab.  Remember in the paragraph above where I mentioned that he was VERY high energy and that he was an agility & flyball dog?  Why that matters is that this little dog moves and bounces as if you’ve sped up a cartoon movie (picture the Chipmunks on crack!), and he knows all of his agility pieces of equipment like the back of his paw.  I watched him do weave poles (okay he had forgotten his entrance into the weaves) and I watched him to a single low jump (6 inches) and a series of 3 jumps.  And for the jumps, he was fast and wrapped around quickly… but not crisply… and THIS had me concerned.  

Why be concerned?  Well I think that neurological learning occurs best when the body has to slow down and the brain has to work a little harder to figure out what to do.  So that the movement strategies that are trained and developed are as close to normal as possible.  But what I was seeing with this little dog was that his brain was on autopilot – jump the pole and wrap around the standard – yet his body was not keeping up.  And in this scenario, I’m not sure much neuromuscular relearning / re-wiring / re-patterning can occur!  If you practice doing something the same old crappy way, will you suddenly start to do it correctly?

So what did I recommend?  Firstly, the owner really wanted to work on pieces of agility equipment.  So I said, try just 2 or 3 pieces of equipment (nothing with height – for safety reasons) and start to retrain them.  We chose jumps (3 jumps with collection at the end – no wrap-around), weave poles (since he had forgotten them), and I suggested tunnel (because it’s not raised).  The owner was quite keen about these.  But my other suggestion was to learn new sports… to make him slow down and think again… and to change the speed.  So I suggested Scent Hurdle (which combines flyball with obedience) – dogs jump 4 jumps, find their dumbbell, and bring it back over the 4 jumps.  And I also suggested Rally-Obedience (which combines obedience and agility) – owners can talk to their dog, they go through obstacles, some of which require pausing, and heeling.  I had to repeat this suggestion 3 or 4 times and reiterate why.  This was the thing that the owner had the hardest time hearing.  Try something new… to make your dog better at something old.  (OR perhaps the new sports become the ones that are safest for him to continue on with – if the ataxia remains!)  I think I got through at the end… but it was an interesting psychological ‘dance’ for a while. 

Now, I’m not saying that I’m right.  The owner won’t be able to make it back for 2 months now… so I won’t know how my suggestions panned out until then (unless she e-mails in a panic!).  But this was my line of thought and my suggestions.  So my question to you is:  What would you have done in this scenario?  (I’d love to hear suggestions and feedback for future discussion.) 

Be in touch!

Cheers,

Laurie