Why Your Dog Needs Rehabilitation

As our veterinary surgeon explained very delicately after Sobek’s TTA (cruciate ligament repair) surgery, “Surgery is 10 percent, rehab is the other 90 percent.” Sobek is a young dog. He’s only two years old and my goal is having him back to full function.

How Rehab Helps

If your dog is limping, he’ll have limited range of motion and decreased muscle mass in his injured leg. The old saying “use it or lose it” comes into play after an injury, but it’s easier said than done, right?

Here’s where a canine rehabilitation expert fits in. He’ll measure your dog’s range of motion and muscle mass to design a program that will rebuild and strengthen his injured leg. Plus, it’ll teach your dog to use his repaired leg again.

RELATED: Dog Cruciate Ligament Surgery

Weekly Expert Follow-Up

Just having weekly expert validation that Sobek’s knee was healing correctly gave me peace of mind. If there were any questions, he would contact my vet, which put me at ease as well. Each week, Rob Newman at Canine Rehabilitation of Nashville looked, touched and moved Sobek’s repaired knee either in ROM (range of motion) exercises or while stretching, making sure it felt normal. Today, he found an internal suture that worked itself out, which he explained is totally normal. Whew!

Physically Challenging

During each visit, Rob asked how Sobek recovered from the previous session. If he was sore, we kept the week’s exercises the same as last week. If he was better, we increased them slightly.

Now, not only did Rob listen carefully to my feedback, he also watched Sobek’s movement. During one visit, I mentioned Sobek was doing really well. However, Rob noticed he was not using his repaired leg properly so Rob customized Sobek’s weekly session to address it. Wow! Sobek did well and was much better afterwards and during the week. And folks, I consider myself a seasoned dog expert and I missed it. Thank goodness for Rob!

At Home Practice

After each rehab session, Rob provided written exercises to continue at home. He clearly explained and demonstrated each exercise, then allowed me to practice to ensure the correct muscle was engaged correctly. Trust me, having an expert watch you practice ROM exercises with your dog’s repaired leg is much better than watching a YouTube video. 🙂

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