Thursday, May 23, 2013

8 Months, 2 Weeks: Training - Day 104

Emma injured her left rear leg today.
I am not sure what Emma did to injure herself, but she's injured her back leg.  She's not bearing weight on it most of the time and hobbling along.  This was a sudden thing from my point of view.  All day today she was moving fine, playing well with Jack and racing around my yard like a goof ball when it was outside time.  She was walking just fine when we trained on my ramp and when my son Walter arrived - but sometime between 5 PM and 6:15 PM when we saw her hopping along she injured her leg.

She's not crying in pain and actually doesn't act like it is bothering her, but the fact she's not putting weight on it means she's hurting - just not like Dieter was with his back.  I called Emma's owner and left a message stating I would need to take her to the vet tomorrow.  Emma, of course, didn't let us know she was hurt until after the vet office was closed!

I checked her knee and hip and find nothing out of place.  I feel no heat or swelling in the leg.  I can move it without her complaining.  She simply is NOT walking on it a majority of the time.  I am concerned by the way she's hanging it when she rests that it may be a ligament injury.  Here's hoping it's a strain and she simply needs to be keep quiet for a bit.

I have restricted her movement.  The moment we realized she was injured I stopped letting her outside without being on lead.  She is taken down to the yard and given a chance to potty or poop and then taken back in, where she is self regulating and resting in my home.  She is simply too young and not in enough pain to actually not race around my yard like an idiot with an injury and I don't want her to further injure that leg.

So, the second training session I had planned for her was cancelled and I just fed her her dinner.  I had not trained her this morning because I had reports for my other job I had to write up and thus planned on training her with her lunch and dinner. I got half of what I planned to work on for her homework done, but her injury required stopping any movement training at this time and I'll go to the Levels to her training tomorrow.

Today's Lesson:

Loose Leash Walking

I took Emma outside to the ramp and worked up and down it on lead today.  I walked with her in loose leash while she watched me.  She did fantastic.  She was focused, in the game with me and ravenous when we did the training.  She loves Liverwurst and I had mashed some on her kibble to raise it's value for her training outside.  It worked like a charm!

She is doing very well with this training and I believe she'll be able to do it on the weekend with her owners.  Since she injured her leg I didn't do the walking loose lead to a goal, which would have been my son Walter, but instead stopped training and put her on the "injured dog list" in my home.

I'll know more about the leg injury and what she can and can't do while she recovers tomorrow.


No comments:

Post a Comment