fourleg.com

Hey Laurie and anyone else out there?
I was doing a seminar today on injury prevention and talking about various dog sports - I made an offhanded comment about flyball that I would never do that with my dogs because of possible shoulder injuries. Someone informed me after that with the advent of the swimmer's turn, injuries were less common. I guess that is better than hitting both front legs at once on the board but I can't help but think the continuous banging of the RF leg ( do they all turn to the left?) could cause injuries due to the repetitive nature of it. I do agility and rally with my dogs, neither of which has a single behavior as the predominant skill like flyball. Yes in agility, jumps make up the majority of the course but the angle of approach is not the same for every jump.
I am just curious for those who work with flyball dogs what you are seeing. I am sure my dogs would love it like most dogs do, but I feel firmly against doing it because of injury potential!

And Laurie, I think a great topic for a blog (or even a video if you could figure out how to do it) - would be a brief primer on the various dog sports out there and what do you see as a rehab professional. I am sure you treat a lot of performance dogs and I would love to see some data even if anecdotal in your clinic.

thanks in advance!

You know the funny thing? We see very few Flyball Dogs. Way more agility, obedience, field... Why? I don't know for sure. Do they just not come in, or do they really suffer less injuries?

My concerns would be carpal primarily.
Beyond that, the other main injury I hear of is 'head on' crashes with the next dog coming down the line as they 'cross'.

I like your idea about surveying to hear the types of different injuries seen by the rehab community. I think I'll create a wee Survey and see what we get as responses. Thanks for that suggestion!

Perhaps others will chime in!

Laurie

Shoulders a/o Schneck. With the popularity of whippets and whippet crosses, I see a lot of flyball dogs with upright shoulders, which I think just compounds the problem. Swimmer turn or not, it is a sport that involves repetitive stress absorption of impact through the forelimbs.

I also see SIJ and lumbar issues, presumably from the jackrabbit starts, plus the carnage type injuries from crashing through hurdles etc.

FWIW. I don't know if it is a regional thing or not, but I personally find that flyball people are not as quick to embrace the science of sports medicine (either for treatment or prevention), as participants in other dog sports are - too much reverence for "the way it has always been done".

I see quite a few flyball dogs--probably because most of them are on the same team.
I'm told they let the dog pick which direction to do their swimmer's turn when they start training and then they stick with that direction.
So far I've seen two cruciate tears, two broken toes, lots of back pain, 2 psoas injuries, carpal OA, and one dog that has 1st rib pain.
Diane

oops, a supraspinatus tendonopathy too