Coonhound Paralysis

This blog talks about our experience when Goya (our 150lb English Mastiff) came down with coonhound paralysis (also called acute idiopathic polyradiculoneuritis).

Monday, July 03, 2006

Goya is released from Physical Therapy

Friday (June 30th) Goya was released from Physical Therapy. He walked, all by himself with no help, into the PT building and walked all around the waiting room (and caused a minor ruckus with two cats in a carrier). When it was his turn to go into the PT room, we lifted his back-end up, then he walked all through the two PT rooms -- exploring here and there, bck and forth, wagging his tail a mile a minute the whole time.

Sally thought that doing land exercises would be better for him now than being in the water tredmill. She had him doing circles (healing in a tight circle, both clockwise and counterclockwise) because the side closest to the ccenter of the circle has to hold more weight, so doing both directions exercises each side separately. Then she had him doing sits-to-stand, with as little help as we can give him. It is now quite easy to pcik up his backside with your hands on his "butt bones" -- if I pick him up a few inches, then he gets his feet under him and once he does, he can almost push his way up himself. When we are home, he also is supposed to go up the one step to the back porch and stand there for a while. Evidently, dogs support most of their weight on their front feet and he need exercisse on his back legs, so we need to do things that exercise his back legs. Elevating his front by having his front feet one step up puts more weight on his back feet. Likewise, making him walk up a small hill in the backyard elevates his front and helps him exercise his back legs.

Since these are all things we can do with him at home, Sally suggested that we exercise him at home several times a day and come back to PT only for two reasons. (1) if he doesn't progress for 2 weeks in a row, or (2) he gets 100% better and we come back to showoff! Hopefully, the latter is only a few weeks away.

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