Water, Water, Everywhere

This morning I took Koira up to Salem for a session of swim therapy. Over the last month and a half of rest due to her shoulder injury, she has lost almost five pounds, all of it muscle. She didn't have any other weight to lose. But, though she is doing much better as far as her shoulder goes, she is not ready for our normal muscle-building routine of off leash runs, bike rides, hikes, and other adventures.

Swim therapy is a great way for her to get some exercise and work on her muscle tone without putting a lot of impact onto her shoulder, which could cause a relapse. After seeing a number of posts over at Greyhound Gardens, I asked them where they had gone and made an appointment to try it out with Koira.

Here are a few pictures of her therapy session.

There were four dogs there for swim therapy, and each dog took three turns swimming in the pool with the two therapists.

Koira thought it was TONS of fun, though she was a bit hesitant about stepping into the pool at first. We pulled out an empty water bottle, though, and BAM, Koira was in play mode, swimming at top speed.

It wasn't just a mess of playing fetch in the water, though. The therapists also felt every dog and checked range of motion. They spent time evaluating how each dog swam, to see if they had muscle weakness in certain areas, were reluctant to use a limb, or listed to one side or the other (such as the dog recovering from a stroke, who swims great but occasionally tilts over to one side).

Koira didn't really care, she just wanted to have some fun and play some fetch.

And I love this last picture of Koira at the swim therapy. She looks, to me, like a submarine about to submerge under water.

At the end of Koira's third ten minute swim (each dog got to swim for about ten minutes three different times, with chances to rest a bit in between), I talked to the therapists about Koira. They told me she is weak in the back, as in does not keep her rear up high in the water. She has pretty much always been like this, and I think it is more an issue with her swimming style than a physical issue. Koira was also turning exclusively left when fetching, so they worked for a while forcing her to turn to the right to work out the other side of her body. But, they did mention that she had no range of motion issues, both sides matched in what they were able to do and how they moved. She showed them no signs of having a shoulder injury.

Koira had a great time, and has spent the rest of the day lazing around and sleeping. She is showing no signs of being sore in the least. I'm going to talk to my vet and chiropractor about adding in ball work as well as weekly swimming sessions for Koira, to help build back some of the muscle she has lost while keeping her workouts low impact.

Not exactly a wordless Wednesday

Poor Koira hurt herself at the park. The vet this morning believe it to be a soft tissue injury, likely a pulled muscle in her shoulder or upper leg. So, Koira is on crate/leash rest for at least two weeks, along with twice daily rimadyl. If she isn't improving in a week, we will be getting an ultrasound done to check out her tendons. Hopefully she will be getting better by then, making it a non issue. I'm going to try to get in to see the chiroprator with her, since it won't hurt to get an adjustment and might end up helping.

At the park, about five minutes before the limping.

Limping... Again

Well, bad news. Koira is limping again. This time, it started in the morning today and has lasted all day. I stretched her out good first thing this morning, which loosened it up a good bit and reduced the severity of the limp. By the time I got home from work, she was holding the foot up again not wanting to use it at all. Again, stretching it out helped a lot, but did not get rid of the limping. Hopefully she'll be feeling better by tomorrow.



While I was stretching out Koira, I decided to do some stretching with Pallo as well. One stretch we do (and the dogs both naturally do often) is have their front legs on the ground, back legs on my lap straight behind them. This time, though, as Pallo straightened his legs out behind him, I felt first one, then the other, hip make a huge pop. He didn't act like it hurt at all, and has been fine since then, so I guess if anything it was a needed adjustment. It sure did give me a scare though for the first minute.

Meat, Flowers, and the Park

I posted two days ago that I went to a local agility trial in the morning. I did watch some of the runs and went around to some of the booths as well, but I was really there for two reasons. One, to meet up with some friends. Specifically, to split up some meat we had purchased as a group (warning, raw meat picture later in post). Two, to take Koira to the chiropractor, in hopes of solving her mysterious limping issues that way. We also had the added bonus of a visit to an unfamiliar park to play in.

The day was beautiful.



I left the frisbee in the car, since the footing was pretty muddy underneath all that lush green grass.



The dogs didn't seem to mind though, since I did agree to bring out the chuck-it and a racquetball.



We didn't stay too long, but the dogs did get a chance to run off some energy and enjoy some new scenery.



Pallo and Koira both went to see the chiropractor. Pallo had a funky neck thing again, which the chiro down in California commented on as well. She thought it was from being walked using a flat buckle collar but this chiro suggested it might be something about how he is hitting the flyball box. As soon as she said that, it brought to my mind the pictures of Pallo, nose totally squished against the box face when the ball doesn't pop out fast enough, followed quickly by my mental note that our boxes have too much lag time between trigger and plunger. We're fixing it soon, so hopefully that will help the neck thing.

Koira did have enough of a jam up in her mid back that the chiropractor (while not making any promises) thought it likely to be linked to the limping. Basically, what she did say was that it was certainly bad enough to have caused some lameness. So hopefully the whole mystery limping thing will go away now. Fingers crossed.

The other reason for meeting up at the agility trial and dog show was to split up some meat with two friends. Specifically, the three of us decided to try out a bulk ordering group by purchasing two calves to split three ways. Which we did in the parking lot.



I'm a bit surprised, and worried, that no one so much as commented on the fact that two women were casually sorting through a huge pile of bloody meat chunks in the parking lot. What kind of town is this, anyway?

Canada, here we come

Looks like Pallo has a team to run with in Canada at the end of April. I'm really looking forward to this, since we had to miss the team trip up there last weekend. It was surprisingly hard for me to hear about all the fun times they had up there. They did great, and I'm happy for the team, but wish I could've gone along, and been a part of the whole thing.

But, we will be going up there with part of our team at the end of April, so hopefully we will have some fun times, and get a flyball fix that lasts until the local tournament in July. I'd still love to go to the two June tournaments in Alaska, but that is a goal that will likely have to wait for another year.

Flyball practice last night went pretty good. Pallo practiced with a box jump in, and his turn has gotten really high on the box again. I think we will continue to run with the prop for another few weeks, or start doing one run with, one without, to encourage him to keep his turn high.

We were going to try wall work at practice with him, but he gets so excited when we get there, I don't think it will work if there are any other dogs in the building working on the box. He just gets so amped up and confused.

He managed to reaffirm my statement that he can not run start. Part of this is because I find it rather cruel to have the height dog running start most of the time (with some exceptions) because of the possibility of reruns. Height dogs are already doing enough for the team without having to potentially run 2-3 times as many times as the other dogs due to reruns.

My other reason is Pallo specific. He likes to watch the other dogs, both on his team and the other team. As long as at least one dog is on the course or has just done the course when he is released, he runs great. In start though, he veers to the other lane badly, or just looks confused. I think I will work with him on this when we get the chance, but because of Reason One that I don't like height dogs running in start, we probably won't focus on it for long.

Koira did pretty good. She did a few full runs, and a number of partial runs, but was dropping her ball a lot, and back to not making much of an effort to catch it-- like, just not bothering to close her mouth around it even. Previously when she had this issue, the chiropractor had to do a major adjust on her upper neck and jaw, which helped fix the issue. Since the Chiro is only the next town over for the weekend, we will probably head over there on Sunday morning before I head to work to get her adjusted.

I work starting super early tomorrow morning, so may not make it to the blog hop if I sleep in. If I don't please stop by and visit, and I will make sure to do some blog hopping when I get the chance this next week. And, everyone have a good Blog Hop.

Tree frogs and chiropractors

Yesterday Koira and Pallo went to the chiropractor for the first time. I've never been to one myself, but someone suggested they could use an adjustment, and I figured why not.

Pallo was a bit weird about it, as he is with pretty much anyone but me touching him, but the chiro worked with him about it, so he did pretty good after he relaxed a little. Koira just wanted to lick the chiro, but did get her jaw and neck realigned, so hopefully that will help her with catching the ball out of the flyball box.

Then, this evening, Koira came walking in the house with something green on her back. Thinking it was a leaf, I gave it a flick, realizing as soon as I made contact that it was not a leaf, it was a tree frog. I searched all over where I thought it had gone, and didn't find anything. Then, a few minutes later, sure enough, there was a tree frog hanging out on my door. I took it out and let it loose in the front yard in some bushes. Now I just wonder if its the same tree frog Koira had hitch a ride in with her a month or so ago. Does she have a tree frog friend, or is she just tree like to the frogs?