Physical rehab helps keep pets moving

Kim Campbell Thornton • E-mail

Mikey was hit by a car, fracturing his upper front leg. Mocha had severe degenerative joint disease that affected his elbows, hips, knees and back. Doc had a painful ruptured disk, causing him to be unable to use his hind legs or control his bladder and bowels.

But through the use of underwater treadmills, electrical stimulation, range-of-motion exercises, massage and other equipment and techniques derived from physical therapy in people, Mikey and Mocha are active dogs with full use of their limbs. Doc is able to walk, no longer suffers from incontinence and continues to improve.

If Mikey, Mocha and Doc had been human, physical therapy would be an expected part of their treatment. But as dogs they were fortunate to benefit from veterinary rehab, a relatively new but quickly growing field.

"It’s advanced very rapidly in the last 10 years, in line with people’s expectations of their own physical therapy," says veterinarian Michael Andrews, president of the American Animal Hospital Association. "We’ve seen more and more people participating in physical therapy for their own injuries, and that’s spilled over into veterinary medicine as well."

John Sherman A dog gets a water workout thanks to an underwater treadmill.

Experts say physical rehabilitation can be a helpful tool for animals that are recovering from surgery for orthopedic or neurological problems, have incurred injuries to joints or soft tissue, or suffer from chronic pain.

Rehab can help pets recover more quickly, increase mobility and flexibility, improve endurance and agility, and reduce the need for pain medication. Before surgery, rehab can help pets lose weight, reduce pain and gain muscle, all of which can eliminate the need for surgery or improve its success. And after surgery, weeks of cage rest have been replaced by rehab techniques that begin almost immediately, including cold therapy to reduce inflammation. It’s also popular for conditioning athletic or working dogs.

At VetHab, a clinic in Raleigh, N.C., veterinarian John Sherman — who treated Mikey, Mocha and Doc — sees pets with ruptured anterior cruciate ligaments or developmental diseases such as hip and elbow dysplasia, top field trial dogs whose owners want a conditioning program to help prevent injury, and older pets whose joints have stiffened with age.

Finding a pet rehab specialist Ask your veterinarian for a recommendation. Because this is such a new field, however, it may take some searching to find a qualified person. Check with equipment manufacturers to see if anyone in your area has, say, an underwater treadmill. They may be using it for rehab. Search the Web. The University of Tennessee, which offers a certification in canine rehabilitation, has a site that lists a number of facilities throughout the world that perform animal rehabilitation.

In addition to more people wanting their beloved pets to have the same type of care they receive, Sherman attributes the growing popularity of rehab to other factors, including more dog sports. “A lot more people do things with pets these days,” he says. “If you look at the list of sports or activities you can do with your dog, it’s a lot longer than you would think. People want their dog to be as good as it can and be safe.”

And because pets are living longer, more of them are facing health issues that affect mobility, such as osteoarthritis. Helping older pets maintain quality of life and mobility is becoming a new area of medicine, Sherman says.

Rehab is mostly used in dogs, who are more prone to injury than cats. But practitioners also see felines, especially those that have had a limb amputated, suffer neurologic problems, have arthritis or are just plain fat.

Pudgy dogs go in for rehab, too. Abby’s stomach dragged on the ground when she walked. The corgi weighed 48 pounds, more than double the low end of the breed’s recommended weight of 21 to 30 pounds. Abby’s owner had physical disabilities of her own and couldn’t give the dog the exercise she needed.

“This poor little puppy’s stomach had sores on it from dragging on the ground,” says veterinarian Pam Nichols of K-9 Rehab Center in West Bountiful, Utah. “She couldn’t even walk from our exam room to our scale without stopping and sitting and huffing and puffing.”

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