Tag: great dane neurological

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Move2Live Podcast About Rehabilitation and Conditioning for Animals – Now Available!

About Exercise Physiology-Based Veterinary Rehabilitation, Rehabdeb, Rehabilitation and Conditioning for Animals, and Move2Live

Collage of photos representing Rehabilitation and Conditioning for Animals, Exercise Physiology-Based Veterinary Rehabilitation and Move2Live
Move2Live & RehabDeb Photo Collage

Check out our Moving2Live interview about exercise physiology-based veterinary rehabilitation! Rehabilitation and Conditioning for Animals is now live on the Moving2Live website. You may find a direct link to the podcast here: http://bit.ly/M2L-Rehabdeb

The interview discusses my background and exercise physiology-based veterinary rehabilitation. You may also find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify and other platforms by searching “Moving2Live.”

What is Exercise Physiology-Based Veterinary Rehabilitation and Rehabilitation and Conditioning for Animals?

Rehabilitation and Conditioning for Animals provides science-based functional rehabilitation. This includes wellness conditioning, nutrition counseling, and athletic training. This approach works for all ages and stages of companion animals, in collaboration with veterinarians. Our goal is to also engage community and worldwide participation in programs that benefit the human-pet experience.

My programs are based on over four decades of my having participated in and having worked deeply in human sport science, nutrition, and functional recovery. All of those same basic operational principles translate to care of our pets. These programs are additionally based on my experiences working hands-on with veterinary specialists. Through this I gained knowledge of diagnostic approaches and medical treatment options. I put that knowledge with decades of historical knowledge in order to create simple plans for you and your pets!

This has trained me to combine navigation of difficult issues with a vast library of recovery info to help you further with your pet. I’ve participated in medical, neurological, and surgical specialty evaluations of patients. This additionally helps me to translate what is going on with your pet to you. A pet injury is often a whirlwind of confusion for pet companions!

I design these programs so that almost anyone may use them at home, therefore veterinary clinics may use them as well.You may do all rehabilitation on pets in the home or regular veterinarian’s environment in most cases.

Get the Word out and Get in Touch!

You probably already know how the internet works regarding “getting the word out”. Please spread the word if you have benefited from this rehab. It’s a great idea to share the interview with co-workers, friends, and family! You never know who needs the help or who knows someone else who needs rehabilitation and conditioning for animals.

Follow the exercise and recovery information I have on this website and/or in my books.  Afterward if you would like advanced exercises to complete the rehabilitation, you will then need to contact me for a consult. There is a contact form at the bottom of this page <<Click on link . Use this form to contact mto schedule a paid phone or in-person consult with me for rehabilitation for your pet.

I hope you are well, stay well, and help others to be well-

Rehabdeb

(updated 4/11/2020)

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Links to Books and Best Boots for Traction

Hey!

I finally finished adding the links for my books on the first four weeks of recovery post-op and post-injury on this page:

Books!

And you will find links to purchase the booklets from most Amazon platforms around the world. I include Amazon links because the booklets are available on Kindle, and I offer some promotions on both Kindle and paperback versions that are only available on Amazon.
You may purchase the books through any bookseller by asking for them using the ISBN. You may find all the info you need to order from another bookseller by clicking through to the Amazon link and copying what your bookseller requires from the details below the book.

I do not currently offer the booklets in a language other than English, however I hope to translate into Spanish, French, German, and Italian in the near future as well as add other translations too!

I continue to work on editing the new version of the booklets, so clinics and rescues and shelters may still take advantage of the offer I have had in place for many years. You may easily use this page to order at a discount for clinics, rescues, and shelters:

Ordering for clinics, shelters, and rescue organizations!

I also just finished locating the boots and shoes I use to help pets with neurological problems to gain traction and stability (plus for hot pavement, ice, snow, jagged streets and terrain…) on many Amazon platforms around the world, including the USA, so I posted the links here:

Boots & Shoes for Traction + Instructions

I have included a lot of instruction and helpful hints from my 12+ years of working with different boots, shoes, socks, and more to gain traction for pets on this page and even more instructions are in a separate post linked from the page in the link just above this paragraph. I have a lot more items to post about that will help around the home, besides boots, shoes, etc…but this is what I have finished now, and I didn’t want to wait to put this info right in front of you.

Thank you-

Blessings-

Rehabdeb

2/22/17

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Miss M, 12 yo Great Dane with History of Canine Meningitis and Knee Surgery

3/2012

Hi Deborah- Thanks for giving me directions to your webpage. Lots of interesting food for thought. I would like to make an appointment with you. Let me give you a bit of background on our dear girl. Our elderly Great Dane, MXXX, is still hanging in there but over the last month she’s having more and more problems with mobility and her back legs. She’s 12, and had ACL surgery two years ago, soon after we lost her brother (house mate but not litter mate). Aside from her back legs (and hips) letting her down, she’s really very healthy. She also has a history of canine meningitis which gives her a chronically stiff neck. We are able to treat that with acupuncture and supplements for the most part though occasionally a short course of Prednisone has been necessary. Since her ACL surgery she has gone to walk on the water tread mill every other week (sometimes more often)… This has really been a help. She always walks better after a day at physical therapy. I feel like she’s hit a bad spot though. Previously we were able to easily go for two 15-20 minute walks daily. She would sometimes get tired towards the end and I’d have to help her home, but just as often it went just fine. Now she always needs help home every time. She also can no longer get herself up, but always needs help (I have seen her get up on her own when she is very motivated, but I actually discourage her from it as I think it strains her and she tends to get abrasions from scooting to try and get up). Finally the lack of exercise is effecting her bowel movements. MXXX is our “first born love child.” We’ve had her since before we were married and we will do anything we can to make her more comfortable. I thought it might be time for her to have wheels for her back end. Dr. D said that you might have some good ideas for helping her to keep using those back legs to help her keep the muscle she has and help her bowels and digestion keep working. Any advice you have would be most appreciated. Please let me know when you might be available for an appointment.
Regards,
K. M.

Excerpts from the first report from her owner a week after my first visit with MXXX:

“MXXX is doing well on her new food, increased fish oil and joint supplements, and her new exercise regime. She’s doing really well with the 3-4 shorter walks per day. She has also done well with the hills. I have not been as good with the cavalettis. We went to the park and walked over some railroad ties. These were a bit too tall for her. She got over about 5 of them before she got tired and started hanging up on them. We rolled up blankets and walked over them in the house one day, and that seemed just fine. All and all she seems more energetic to me which I really like seeing. She is still pooping only once a day, but the quality of her poop seems better.”

“The massager is kind of a mixed bag.  Sometimes she seems to tolerate it really well and enjoy it. Sometimes it seems to really annoy her.  It’s not clear to me what the clues are yet for when she’s going to accept it vs. when it’s going to annoy her.  Also she tends to lay on one side and not the other so her right side has gotten more massage time than her left.  But we’re working on it.”

and my reply:

That’s a great feedback report.
Yay!
The blankets seem like a good idea until she gets more used to the project. Then maybe some tree branches before railroad ties 😉 The railroad ties may always be too big for her…I had one client use a row of several of those folding chairs one takes to sporting events. She had a Golden Retriever, and they were able to do cavaletti work in the carpeted garage. Some people buy things to use from the home fix-it warehouse when I instruct them on what to buy and if we can’t find free stuff that is suitable around the house to use. You don’t usually need to go to a lot of trouble.
Good job keeping up trying the massager. My preference, if you were to get any of it done, would be along the spine to increase circulation where she is probably guarding the most.
I am letting Dr. D know how things are going, too.
Sounds great!
Blessings-

…and from additional comments I placed on Facebook:

She had already done quite a bit of water treadmill walking, but it just wasn’t dynamic enough to improve her neuro-muscular status, at least, not to the degree it could be improved or to the degree that was necessary for better function at this point. In this case, solid program design of land-based drills and exercises that are easy to do in the home environment have made rapid improvements!

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Sully’s Story: Great Dane with Lick Granuloma, Spinal Infection (probable), Paralysis, Ulcer, Pneumonia

I first met Sully March 4, 2011, and you have seen him if you have followed some of my posts about him on Facebook and Twitter. I was first called to see him by a mobile vet and the owner stated as her main concern for Sully at the time, “loss of use of hind legs”. The owner, a woman living alone and not able to easily cope with this just-under-200 pounds-dog who couldn’t move on his own, contacted me on Feb. 28, 2011, and our schedules did not match up until the fourth of March…and by that time he had ceased to be mobile and had been stuck, lying on one side, for several days.

The short story for those of you with attention span issues is that Sully couldn’t walk, had a lick granuloma that was about 2 yrs. old, had likely incurred spinal infection from the infected granuloma site, had several urine burn ulcers, developed pneumonia, was treated for pneumonia, which, in turn, developed into long-term treatment for possible spinal infection, was treated for pain, was pushed daily to move in increasing amounts, and is now walking down the street with no assistance.

A case outcome like this is relatively rare, primarily because the owner has stuck with treatment (it works if you work on it and give it time…), and usually a case like this would have been euthanized because he is huge, the owner did not have additional help in the home, he is aggressive, and the owner was not going to have him hospitalized for any reason-not for pneumonia, not for machine-based diagnostics, not for urinary incontinence, not…period.

Sully definitely had some dark moments, yet everything that has happened with Sully has been “do-able”, maybe not optimal by  some of today’s standards, yet definitely “do-able”. I have pushed Sully, the vets, the owner, and any other caretaker every inch of the way to drive us all to give Sully the best treatment we all could…it has definitely been a collaborative effort, and I knew from my background and experience that experiences like ours with Sully were/are very novel to the majority.

Silly Sully

Thank you for your attention thus far, and blessings…please take any of the following info and use it to heal in your corner of the world.

Two block-and-tackles, a belly sling, a saddle girth, some caribiners, and a hind end sling…gets the day going!

April 7, 2012

Today is Sully’s 10th birthday! I have been working with him for one year and one month. A year ago, he couldn’t stand on his own and was sporting a urinary catheter. Last week he tried to run down the street with me! We love us some Sully!

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