Sept 15th 2009

Well here are the bars, but Daisy sidestepping over them is still a work in progress! Just trotting over them should help[ keep her properly balanced.

Sept 14th 2009

Just a little update on Daisy, because it’s a bit out of date, and I’m getting more & more queries from people with suspected hip probs, who I’m directing here.

She had a short spell of aching, but nothing like as bad as before when she squeaked when touched, but she did have 3 weeks on her lead (including the NF doodle show, which was a pain!). I suppose that is a cycle that will repeat itself from time to time, but at least now I know what to look out for so it won’t get too bad

We’re now back to learning to do side-stepping which will work the right muscles to keep the hip in place, as well as still doing the fig 8 swimming once a fortnight. Once Daze has perfected her sidestepping technique, I’ve made some very low hurdles for her to do it over (about 2″ high), but I shan’t be introducing them until she has done a good bit of sidestepping without them.

She’s still going to see Lezleigh from time to time for her massage, and as well as helping Daze feel better, Lezleigh can point out things that need work, and areas of stiffness, so it’s useful info for me too. (and Barney gets a holistic massage at the same time which REALLY helps him).

It’s almost the deer rutting season, and the pheasant shoots will start soon too, so Daisy’s hip will be getting a real test over the next couple of months! Fingers crossed she doesn’t get as bad as last year when it all came to light

June 16th 2009

Just a little update on Daisy’s massage
She has progressed to having some homework exercises. She is still doing the one which involves her sitting down, and having her head lured up, down, left & right as far as she can – she can now move her head round so that her nose touches her sides. This is a huge improvement for her as she was very tense in her neck & shoulders.

The other exercise is to get her to stand with each back paw on a wobbly cushion, and gently rock her from side to side so that she has to use her adductor muscles to centre herself again – these are the ones that hold the hip in place. Here she is balancing on the cushions, and some pics of her enjoying a relaxing massage after the intense one.

We are starting to notice some differences in the way Daisy moves now – her back is flatter, and she is stretching her back legs out behind her as she moves. She is also coming to stand by my chair in the evenings for some stroking and fussing which is really lovely, and not normal for Daisy!

Our next exercise will be getting her to do some side-stepping with her back legs, if I can figure out how to get her to do it without her standing on her back legs!

May 7th 2009

Daze had her second massage yesterday, and is still completely zonked out this morning! She has to have 48 hours with no exercise, but to be honest I don’t think she wants to do much except sleep today – she was the same last week, but tomorrow she will be fed up at missing her walks. The ideas is that she has been using the muscles that move her forward & backwards and they are nice & strong, but the ones that control sideways movement are the ones that are weak. I think those must be the ones that have a lot to do with supporting the bad hip. When she has been worked on she has to rest to stop the muscles going straight back to working the way they are used to, and to give them a chance to start the new way of working – at least that’s what I understood – I was a bit sidetracked by the way Daisy’s eyes glazed over as Lezleigh got her all relaxed

April 29th 2009

Back again with an update. Daisy had her first massage today, and was so good. I’ve been practising since the training day – very gently just to get her used to being handled in areas that are either sensitive, or that she remembers as being sensitive, and she was much more receptive to it that I’d thought she would be. It seems that there is quite a bit of tension in her neck & shoulders as they have been taking extra strain as she tries to ease her hips, so we have some exercises to do to help with them. Daisy has to rest for a few days now, but once we start exercising her I have to make sure that she starts and ends her walks with 10 minutes on the lead to warm up/cool down (something they should all do really!), and I have some stroking massage thingies to do before & after exercise too. We go back next week for a second session.

March 26th

Well as long as Daisy goes along with my plans, this should be my last post on here for a little while (touching wood, crossing fingers etc etc !) We went along to swimming tonight, and having had a chat with the girls there, we decided that Daisy can go onto a maintenance programme of fortnightly swims. She has had 2 courses of 12 sessions, and is doing really well with her mobility and strength, plus we’ve managed to get her weight down to 27.4kg which will help too. She is swimming for about 20 mins against a current (with breaks), and twice weekly should be sufficient to keep her fitness levels up – any longer between sessions and they start to lose it apparently, and so don’t get all the benefits from their swimming.

March 23rd 2009

It’s ages since I added to this, so I thought I’d post a quick Daisy update. She is still swimming once a week and is building up some lovely muscles. (I am so impressed with it that I’ve started taking Barney along there to try & keep him mobile without painkillers). Daisy has no restrictions on her walking and playing now, other than ball-chasing which is not allowed, and she still uses the ramp to get in & out of the car – I think I’ll stick to that permanently. As far as I can tell she is not in any discomfort, although her walk has changed, as has the way she goes up & down steps.

Today we went to agility for the first time since we found out about her hips. Yesterday I took her over a couple of low jumps in the garden to see if she was willing to go over them. She jumped them quite happily, and then did them again on her own so I took that to mean there was no problem for her. Today I kept her to the mini course, and intended to take her slowly around missing out the A frame the dog walk and the table, but Daisy had other ideas. First go she hared round the whole course – taking obstacles at random just pleased to be there. Once we got a bit more control then we stuck to some small jumps and slowly over the see-saw. She’s had a gentle walk this evening and I’ve felt her hips and there are no signs of any discomfort yet – I’ll keep an eye on her over the next couple of days to see how she seems, but it’s all very encouraging!