Fit Friday: Injuries and Pred

I've kind of been missing in action. Not a whole lot is happening around here. Koira is feeling pretty good. She really wants to romp and play, but is still on rest for another 6 days or so while we finish off the prednisone.

Unfortunately, her recovery is going to be long. Really, really long. Not only did she have the neck injury (which needs to be treated carefully even if she doesn't think so) but the prednisone had some pretty severe side effects for her. There is the normal constant hunger and the drinking excessively. Which means extra peeing and pooping as well. But Koira has also had some pretty severe muscle wasting. In the past 2 weeks, she has lost 3 lbs.

Photo of Koira taken on Wednesday, after almost two weeks on prednisne

The vet says the muscle will come back once we stop the steroids and can start exercising. However, I'm worried about doing many activities at first with Koira so... soft.

For comparison, here is a photo of her from last summer.

The lines are from a structure analysis. But you can see the muscle definition and tone that is lacking in the recent photo I posted above.

The photos are slightly different- the one above is a forced stack (I placed her in position) while the one below is a free stack (she naturally stopped like this at the park). And of course the lighting is different with cloud cover versus full sun. But I think it is still very obvious to people used to analyzing dogs that Koira has lost a lot of tone, and her muscles are very soft.

We're off to a flyball tournament this weekend. Koira won't be running due to her injury. Pallo won't be running due to his mental problems. I'll be boxloading for one team and running a teammate's dog on the other team. My dogs will be spending the weekend hanging out in their crates.

That said, we'll have to come up with a conditioning plan for the future. I need something low impact and gradual. Swimming would be ideal, but with it being winter, we would have to drive up to Portland for an indoor heated dog friendly swimming pool. Four hours of driving round trip seems a little overboard, even for me. But... if that is what she needs... On leash walks (with the leash attached to a harness that puts no pressure on the neck) will obviously be another part of our rehab.

The long and the short of it is, injuries happen. They suck. Completely. Sometimes the treatment causes additional problems as well. But, you just have to suck it up and deal. Move forward. And that is what we are trying to do.