Canine Physiotherapy

Many dogs benefit from physiotherapy whether they are post-surgical cases or maintenance; each will be treated as an individual in order to improve their wellbeing.

Initial Intake

Whether the dog is a performance animal or simply your best friend, the process will remain the same. The aim for each treatment is to identify short-falls in function or performance that can be enhanced through treatment and exercise adaptations.

Once you contact Eclipse Vet Physio about booking an appointment Holly will have a conversation with you regarding the animal in order to fill in the below form. This can be done over the phone, email or messages – alternately you can fill it in yourself and make sure Holly has it prior to the appointment.

In the case of rehabilitation cases vet consent is required. This form can be downloaded and sent to your vets or the physio will contact your vets for you by email or over the phone to obtain a complete picture of your dog so that complete and most effective treatments may be given.

Assessment

1 – Discussion

When the therapist arrives for the appointment, she will have a quick conversation regarding how the dog has been recently (any changes good or bad?) and discuss your goals for the dog, be it short or long term and whether there are areas for specific consideration or cautions to note.

2 – Static and Dynamic

The dog will then be assessed statically and dynamically in order to create links between stationary and moving posture. These will highlight areas of potential weaknesses to assess further in the next stage of treatment along with connections between any current pathologies and their impacts of the dog’s mobility.

3 – Palpation and Range of Motion

Finally, a thorough palpation of the dog will locate areas of tension, tonicity, temperature increases and texture changes that have resulted from movement dysfunction or conditions.

Treatment

Depending on what is found in the assessment stages will mean different types of treatments will be required. The dog will tell you how much it will allow in the first session but the aim will be to decrease any painful areas and increase muscle extensibility in order to allow better joint range of motion and functionality.

When the dog feels pain in an area they will choose to stabilise this by holding the muscles in constant contraction, but in doing so they don’t apply these muscles to their full range of motion and risk creating “stuck” areas where even if they try to relax these muscles are now unable to do so. That is where the therapist can come in and identify such areas to address them and relay back to the owner how to identify and restrict the potential for them to return.