A first in many many months

Last night I headed out to club to renew membership and do a little bit of distraction training with Kenz.

The last time she has done any work, been put in the car and then got out again would have been after her last trial in October last year. On that occasion she was noticeably sore and stiff. A fairly familiar and all to frequent event.

Last night I did some hand target/controlled heel work with her, worked on some attention stuff and then did some mini sit stays and put her away in the car. I wasn't intending on getting her out again but we also happened to still be there when they called open stays. I thought what do I have to lose she needs stay practice around other dogs. I got her out of the car and I guess you can't get the smile off my face when not only did she bounce out happily but showed no evidence of being sore or stiff and certainly not limping. Happy Dance time all round. I probably pushed her a little hard in making her do a 3 min sit stay but I did return early and reward and then kept her in heel position and rewarded intermittently as I didn't want to upset any of the other dogs. She was paddling feet a little bit and on a few occasions looked like she might lay down but still she managed it.

Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel after all :). Feeling much more optimistic about her return to the ring and certainly a firm resolution to continue to rehab her as slowly as John wants to ensure the greatest chance of success.

A wet miserable day here so not much rehab on the agenda. A quick 20 min walk around the block this morning was enough to have both dogs sleeping their heads off.

A time frame

Well kinda - Kenz had an appointment with Emma this afternoon and her view was that we give it another month at the maximum before just letting her go.

Kenz is not doing to badly. She had some overall tightness. Her LH was tighter then her RH but Emma didn't feel the patella was a significant problem. She released some of the tension over the knee. There were some puncture wounds/scabs on her left thigh from the staffie incident at the beach last week. Some trigger points in her RH which might explain the lameness I noticed on the weekend. Her right shoulder has a little more external rotation then it should but otherwise seems ok.

It has been suggested that I include some more hill walking and walking through water and a little more soft sand walking. Heel work is all ok and more good news tugging is to be encouraged so long as its pulling back and not bouncing around like a lunatic. Kenz will be a happy little girl with that added.

I guess it keeps with all John has suggested she does at this point and confirmed in my mind there was nothing else lurking at this stage in her rehab. She is doing fairly well and otherwise not showing to many issues so it was nice that most of what was found was insignificant.

Hopefully we are now finally getting to the light at the end of the tunnel :).

Slowly but surely

One step at a time - more steps forward less steps backward. Finally permission to start back with some controlled heel work - using a food lure to try and keep her from being over the top. Slowly but surely - patience patience patience. Both fed up with the restrictions/confinement side of things but fingers crossed it does the job and she is back to being able to be her usual feral self soon.

Its certainly getting significantly harder to keep her from being naughty. Any way this is a video of a training session from last night. Some nice prancing, happy trotting. No signs of lameness and no post rest stiffness.

Nine and a half weeks

This coming Wednesday marks 10 weeks since Kenz's first PRP injection. Touch wood she is still continuing to progress well with her rehab. Its a long slow process but she has comfortably managed half an hour swimming at the beach for the last 7 consecutive days plus another couple of km walk in the evening. Its been a long while since she has managed anywhere near that exercise level without being stiff and sore. To say I am rapt with her progress would be an understatement. Late last week John requested video of her tugging so he can assess as to whether that activity should be ok to recommence - if we get that restriction lifted it will be as though Kenz's life has returned to normal.

She lives to train and we are both missing it greatly. Even an unfortunate incident in the yard tonight where she went racing off after something down the back resulted in a 100% sound Kenz.

Her LH has been less problematic this week with the increase in swimming compared with leash walking so I have fingers crossed whatever we are doing is working and she will make a full return to her performance activities as John always said she would.

Mean while life continues to go on as normal - Kenz is obviously over being confined and as the weeks progress with minimal evidence of her being sore its getting harder to remain quite so strict on her.

Have planned to get Emma back to look over her before we up things to much. Just to make sure we have limited the damage with respect to what else might be sore in compensation and so when she is finally released to play properly there will be nothing stopping her.

Might even get out to obedience this Tuesday night - will see what happens.

As if life couldn't get any worse......

Kenz's shoulder rehab is continuing to progress well and we were finally starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. She has however been having some occasional LH lameness episodes and so ended up back at Matthew last Thursday.

I nearly didn't bother with her thinking it was just something relatively minor well you can imagine my shock horror when Matthew's verdict was that she needed a trip back to John the ortho specialist because she had a medial luxating patella and would need surgery.

Kenz was back to John yesterday where he spent 5 minutes examining her and confirmed Matthew's verdict of a Grade 2 Medial Patella Luxation and the suggestion of surgery sometime in the future to the tune of $2800.

For now we agreed I will continue rehabbing the shoulder and will consider surgery for her knee at a later date.