Dude! What's With Your Roach?!

09 Oct 2016

Last week, I had a wonderful little dog come in.  Max is an older, small poodle cross, and he had a spleenectomy back in the spring.  I used to see him in the past as a sporting dog, but this was the first I had seen him since his surgery.  What struck me was his topline.  What a hideous roach!

On evaluation of his spine, there really weren’t any areas that were dramatically painful, certainly not like your typical back pain dog with an antalgic gait!  

So where to check next?  The underside!

Firstly, I asked how he was doing in other aspects?  Mood? Eating? Drinking? Activity level?  Stool quality?  Frequency of urination?  All normal according to the owner.  Great… back to focusing on the physical!

Hands-on evaluation of his abdomen revealed some muscular tension.  As well, you could palpate his incision which went down his linea alba and then off to the side of his ‘winkie’.  (BTW, I have learned many international words for this piece of anatomy, but I’ll refrain from regaling your in my acquired anatomical knowledge.)  Furthermore, when I went to stretch out his back leg and front leg on the same side while he was lying down, you could just see that incisional line tighten up!

Now sometimes you assess and treat at the same time.  So I did a bit of a trial of prolonged stretches, and some myofascial holds (one hand under his rib cage and the other stretching his leg back into extension).    Well that seemed to flatten him out and more striking was that the little dog just seemed to love it!  His eyes were closed and he was ‘bought in’ to the whole thing!

Next was to try a diaphragm release.  We tried with him in side lie… He wasn’t a big fan of that!  So I got him up into sitting, slowly slid my fingertips up and under his ribs, then side bent him towards the treatment side so that my fingers slid further up and under his ribs.  Then we just sat there and breathed together.  Rest and repeat on the other side.

And the result?  A much straighter dog!  A much happier dog!  The owner was shown how to do the front leg-back leg simultaneous stretch, and when she returned 2 days later with a different dog, she reported that Max was looking great!

So the take home on this?  Check the underside in dogs that had abdominal surgery, or pain that causes a rounding of the back.  Try work slow muscle stretches and myofascial holds to help!  (And for FourLeg Members, Check out Training Video 109 for info on the Diaphragm Release!

Until next time…  Cheers!  Laurie