September 16, 2025 • 23 mins
The road to recovery after canine surgery can feel overwhelming and restrictive. Between strict activity limitations, wound management, and preventing your dog from causing further damage, rehabilitation periods often leave pet owners feeling helpless and frustrated.
Lauren Langman and guest Alice share their first-hand experiences navigating this challenging journey, offering practical wisdom that transforms recovery from a limitation into an opportunity. Alice's powerful story of rehabilitating Bonnie, her Cane Corso mix, after double cruciate ligament surgery reveals how games-based training became her lifeline during a critical nine-month recovery period. For Bonnie—a reactive dog with separation issues—the stakes couldn't have been higher; damage to her surgical sites could have meant euthanasia.
What emerges is a treasure trove of actionable strategies that work even when physical movement is severely restricted. From creating enrichment opportunities that require minimal movement to teaching valuable stationary behaviors, you'll discover how to keep your dog mentally engaged while physically healing. The conversation explores environmental management techniques, identifying subtle signs of discomfort, and how to adapt training to accommodate your dog's specific recovery needs.
Perhaps most valuable is the revelation that rehabilitation periods offer unique opportunities to build skills that will serve you long after recovery ends. Lead walking, muzzle training, scent work, and boundary games can all be developed during these seemingly limiting times, creating a silver lining to an otherwise challenging experience.
Whether you're currently navigating post-surgery care, preparing for an upcoming procedure, or simply want to be prepared for potential future needs, this episode provides the emotional support and practical tools to transform rehabilitation into a relationship-strengthening experience. Share this episode with anyone facing the challenges of canine recovery—it might just be the guidance they need during a difficult time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to the Absolute Dog Sex in a Squirrel
podcast.
I'm Lauren Langman.
I'm one of the world's leadingdog trainers and it's my mission
to help owners become theirdog's top priority.
In each episode, you'lldiscover how to gain trust and
communicate with your dog likenever before, creating
unbreakable bonds that make youthe most exciting part of their
world.
Okay, rehab.
(00:30):
We're talking rehab now.
Alice, you have got aparticularly interesting take on
rehab, I think, because you hada pretty well unusual
experience with your rehomed dog.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit more about it?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
yeah, when we got bonnie about two or three months
in, she started to limp, so wewe can obviously took her to the
vet and had this investigatedand, to cut a long story short,
she actually needed both of hercruciate ligaments operated on.
So we were in for quite a longroad really in terms of two
(01:03):
different surgeries and intimateby intermittent recovery period
, so that around that.
So, yeah, it was about the sortof yeah, it took about nine
months start to finish now, whenI know people are listening,
they're thinking rehab in onedirection, rehab in another
direction.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I've got lots of different examples of rehab,
from rehabbing a psoas injury torehabbing a dog post spay to
rehabbing like just many, many,many, many many different
experiences of rehab.
Now, alice, when I'm thinkingabout your specific rehab
experience, what was the moststressful part for you and I
think it's worth saying justquite how big Bonnie is- yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
so Bonnie is a canicorso mix, so she, so she's
quite a bit of dog and she'salso a naughty but nice dog.
So actually the most stressfulpart for us was helping her to
get through especially theearlier, more vulnerable stages
of her recoveries really calmlyand like creating and
maintaining a really calmenvironment where we were
(02:03):
minimizing the risk of herhaving potentially like a quite
a big reactive outburst.
This at that time that couldhave been in response to like a
knock at the door or just anoise in the street could have
caused that at that point, youknow, very, very early in our
training and and that could havecaused damage to the surgery
site and that would have beenreally bad news for her.
(02:24):
So we had to take that veryseriously and Bonnie's also a
dog that struggles withseparation, certainly struggled
a lot more at the point wherethis was all happening as well.
So we basically camped out inthe downstairs of our house
because Bonnie couldn't goupstairs really, and
particularly the vet was veryworried about if she did go
(02:45):
upstairs, if there was a noiseor something and she came
charging downstairs.
That could have been one ofthose things that could have
kind of caused a sort of apossibly irreparable damage and
when you say irreparable damage,what do you mean?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
you can be really clear with everyone yeah so.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So we were warned that, like if, if sort of
significant damage happened tothe surgery site, particularly
whilst it was very new, it wouldhave potentially meant more
surgery or that might not haveeven possible, so it could have
been the end of the road forBonnie.
It could have been a put tosleep sort of euthanasia
situation if we'd gotten intothat situation which I think
when people are listening, youkind of go oh my goodness, like
this is serious.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Now for me, experiencing so many different
rehab experiences, I think we'vegot lots of different tips we
can share with people, and Ithink what we should do is a bit
of a sort of tip scenario whereit goes from you to me, me to
you and we just share some ofour experience.
So I'm going to start with youand you get to share just one of
your top tips with all of ourlisteners.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Super.
So I think that, Particularlywhen you're looking at the very
early parts of rehab, you mightbe looking at ditching the bowl
in slightly different ways thanyou might normally.
You might not really be doing alot of like throwing food here
and there and, you know, doing alot of the games that you might
normally do with your dog.
So you might be instead youmight be spending more of their
daily food allowance in creatingnice like enrichment bowls or
(04:07):
stuffed Kongs and things likethat, Things that are like a
nice activity for the dog butthat they can literally pretty
much do from lying in their bed.
So that would be a top tip forparticularly those early stages.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Lovely and I'm going to go calm, calm, calm and more
calm, like there really isnothing at all that will beat
calm, and if you can encourageand grow and build calmness at
every level, it's going to helprehab Back over to you, alice.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah.
So another one of my top tipswould be absolutely go mining in
Games Club for the kind ofgames that you can still play
with your dog when they arerecovering potentially from a
surgery or an illness orsomething, because there are so
many games there that you can dothat have.
They can either be sedentary orwith very gentle movement.
So some of the things we didwith bonnie were like teaching a
(04:58):
nose touch or chin targeting weyou know bang as well.
It was even like a trick wemanaged to sort of teach us by
capturing normal like naturalmovements.
As she was sort of flopping tolie down, we could just capture
and teach a trick.
And also really useful lifeskills like muzzle games.
So like sort of teaching her tobe comfortable and actually
enjoy wearing a muzzle.
(05:19):
Because, again, her being anaughty but nice dog and and was
working sort of on on somereactivity issues, thinking
ahead to kind of post-surgeryrecovery, when we could start
growing her world again, thatwas going to be a really useful
skill that we could actuallystart working on, even just from
home when she wasn't movingaround much.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Lovely and I so agree .
I was also thinking for my dogs.
One of the biggest ones was tryand teach everything before you
ever need it.
So when you go into Games Club,look at some of the games and
think how might this serve me ina future space?
And one of mine is lead walking.
Actually, make sure that yourdogs walk really, really, really
, really, really nicely on leadso that when you do need this at
(05:58):
a later date, actually the leadwork comes in in handy.
Because most of the time whenyour dog comes out of any sort
of rehab people are going to saylead work, so lead work only.
And I actually collected mylittle dog, blink, from surgery
just, and she needed lead work.
And same when she had hertibral tuberosity transposition
big operation on her knee like10 years ago.
(06:19):
It's lead work only, so let'sdo lead work only with her.
Well, actually, when you firstput a dog on lead that's not
used to being on lead they canbe like jack-in-the-box monkeys,
like literally backflipping onyou.
So for me, lead work's reallyimportant.
So all of our lead games magichand and any sort of proximity
game where lead is built andvaluable and effectively valued
by your dog can make such amassive, mega difference to your
(06:43):
rehab and recovery road lateron.
What do you think, alice?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
oh, definitely.
And again, it's thosefundamental skills that are then
so transferable, whether it'sas a necessity or just for kind
of general life skills.
And also, I think my next tipwould be that know when a game
or a trick might not be rightfor them, so there's always an
alternative, there's always away to adapt and be creative,
(07:09):
and there's so many ideas inGames Club and you, you know, in
the lives and in the communitywhere we sort of share these
kind of ideas but like, forexample, we were we were on a
live recently where you'reteaching instant down and
actually for bonnie we discussedthis and an instant stop was
more appropriate for her.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So there's always a way of getting the behavior you
want in a way that's appropriatefor your dog, whether it's
during their rehab or beyondlovely and I love that
adaptation for bonnie and agreat example, a stand being so
much more appropriate for her,knowing that an instant down is
probably not that reinforcing.
Do you want to explain that,alice, as to why?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
yeah.
So because sort of bonnie's hadboth her cruciates done and
she's a lot sturdier than shewas post-surgery and
post-recovery like it'sdefinitely done wonders for her
overall health and fitness, butshe is still a kind of lanky,
wonky donkey with arthritis andstuff going on.
So whereas for a lot of dogs aninstant down behaviour would be
really rewarding, would be areally joyful behaviour, I don't
(08:08):
think that bonnie would enjoyit.
I think it'd be a bit littlebit rough on her joints.
So actually she, but she'sreally enjoying the instance
that we've done some practicesince the, the live and uh, and
she seems to be really enjoyingthat game.
So it's it's about adapting tomeet the needs of the handler in
terms of what is, what is thebehavior that we need, what do
we need to grow and what do weneed to teach, but also
(08:29):
advocating for the dog's needsin how we achieve that behavior
fantastic, absolutely, and and Iso agree like it wouldn't be
remotely enjoyable for her totry and hit her the deck like a
50 kilo dog hitting the deckfast.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Like that's not like fun, is it?
Um, actually, how about juststop dead and then get to run
again?
I know I love that when I thinkabout rehab.
Another one for me is if yourdog has any open wound actually
consideration on that.
So for me, when my dog recentlyhad an open wound, we have an
appropriate coat thateffectively covers the tummy.
We have ability to step in andstep out of that coat so it's
(09:03):
not too uncomfortable for thedog.
We also think about laser onthat wound.
So if you know anyone with alaser, we use a category 3B or 4
laser to be able to heal woundrecovery.
We use Soothe lotion and we usePrime from AOK9, which are both
like going to heal your doginside out, which for me is mega
, really important, really vital.
(09:23):
But also with wound recovery, Ithink so many people look at
the wound on the outside butthey don't look at the wound on
the inside, or you can't see thewound on the inside, so people
forget it.
For me, whether it's post-spa orany other kind of abdominal
surgery.
Maybe your dog's eatensomething or got hold of
something or maybe donesomething stupid with, like I
don't know, ingestinginappropriate objects.
For me it's really, really keythat we take our time in terms
(09:47):
of building up exercisegradually after that and knowing
that with abdominal surgerythey can feel quite tight and
quite restricted for a littlewhile.
So again, enabling them to havegradual lead work build up and
my lead work again comes intothis as well as a fitness sort
of space, space with the dog.
So, cavaletti, confidencecircuits I know you do
confidence circuits, alice.
(10:07):
What do you think of them?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
They're really good.
They're really good fun andagain, you can be quite creative
with, like how you can evensort of build some of these
things at home and just sort ofuse what you've got lying around
.
So it's, yeah, it's good fun.
If people can kind of get intothat badge, it's really good.
But also, if you're in GamesClub, then you can have these
little sort of tasters of someof these sort of fitness and
confidence games with thefitness friday lives, so like if
(10:33):
sort of you're not that kind ofwell versed yet in how to
observe your dog's kind of bodycondition and posture or balance
and things like that.
That's all stuff that gets youknow, looks in, looks at, you
know on a weekly basis, isn't itin games?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
yeah, really nice.
It is actually in fitnessfriday.
I forget that actually you guysget to watch me train my dogs
and and yeah, it's somethingthat's great learning
opportunity and and I reallybelieve that those when you're
in rehab, those are the thingsyou want to go to, those are the
can do's, because there's somany things you can't do.
I think in rehab it's sometimesopening your mind up and going
what can I do when the world'sfeeling a bit more closed off
(11:11):
for your dog and I know that.
Say, you enjoy sport and you'vegot an injury in sport right
now.
Maybe it's a tendon or aligament or some kind of issue
with your dog.
Sport wise, you can feel soinhibited because you can't get
to do your normal thing and Iknow for you, alice, like maybe
walks or exercise or being outand about or being doing some
like some training or some somework where get to move it can
feel so restrictive when you'retold, no, you shouldn't be doing
(11:32):
this, it's not part of yourrehab.
I think sometimes we need tolook at what can you do.
So, alice, what can you do whenyou're in rehab with a dog like
Bonnie or with a dog like Blink?
What can you do?
Because I'm thinking like evenbasics like scent would be
really, really opportunisticright now.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, scent is absolutely where I was going to
go to.
That's we did.
I mean, we did so much of thatwith with bonnie when we're at
home and actually it's this isit's worth mentioning.
This is how I found absolutedogs, because when we were told
keep bonnie on house rest, sheshouldn't be having any regular
exercise at the moment untilwe've sorted out what needs to
happen and I just I can't justdo nothing because this dog has
a lot of behavioral struggles.
I can't just put this on pauseuntil we can get back out and
(12:16):
have in-person training sessions.
I need to find something I cando at home.
And it was brilliant to be ableto find absolute dogs and sort
of find it was sort of into thesort of naughty but nice sort of
pathway in and find all kindsof games that had real life
value, sort of on the outsideworld that we could start
growing on the inside.
(12:37):
So, yeah, some of the kind ofnaughty but nice skills, like I
mentioned, muzzle game beforeand some of that A to B and lead
work, as you were saying.
But also scent was fantasticbecause it's such a naturally
calming activity for the dog.
Bonnie finds it incrediblyreinforcing and it's so easy to
do at home, so it's still hertop favourite game.
(12:58):
If she sort of if I'm sort ofgetting ready she knows, if I'm
getting ready for going to do abit of a play session or
training session and signal isthat she will just dart to her
bed, she'll dart into her crateand she'll be like cool, you're
going to do a treasure hunt andthen like kind of she'll just
wait for me to start hidinglittle like whether it's toys or
food or whatever she's going togo searching for.
She'll kind of be like amazing,and it's you're teaching
(13:18):
boundary games pretty much, butlike it is her favorite thing to
do and it really lights her up,but not in a high arousal way,
which is exactly what you wantif you're looking at sort of
surgery recovery amazing, and Ilove hearing that, and I suppose
I'm grateful, then, therefore,that you did have to go through
something like that to a degree,because that's how you found
(13:41):
this and you're such an amazinggame changer.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I suppose it's almost a moment of gratitude, right?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Definitely it was a silver lining, because I think
when we sort of started doingthe sort of homeschooling and
looking at the naughty but nicetraining at home and one of the
first pieces of advice was thinkabout ditching the walk, like
if it's not working for anyone,if it's not fun for anyone, if
no one's having a nice time time, then maybe sort of rewind and
just work on some skills at home.
(14:06):
First I thought, ah well, we'redoing that anyway, so we have
to do that because you knowshe's not allowed to go anywhere
at the minute.
But okay, that means that we'rein the right place and actually
we're learning the right skillsin the right order.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I love hearing that.
Now I was just thinking likeswitching gears a little with my
little dog coming backpost-surgery.
She's had abdominal surgery,which effectively for her means
no sort of jumping and bouncingand leaping, and I came home
last night I'd left a friendlooking after her and she had
her and just up on the sofa withher and I said how did she get
up?
And she said, oh, she jumped.
And I'm like, oh my goodness.
(14:39):
And then I also looked as I gotinto bed that evening and I
popped a bed next to my bed soshe could sleep with me and the
bed had a massive lip on it andit's even things like this I
think we don't think about.
So were there any subtletiesthat you didn't think about when
you were going into rehab?
For me, I'm going to say,jumping on furniture in and off
and on beds and surfaces offloors, like actually going from
(15:01):
like wood to tile to ashtrayturf, to anything slippy, like
thinking through all thedifferent opportunities there,
or maybe like potentialconsequences.
What were some of yours, alice?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah.
So, like I say, because Bonniesort of struggled with
separation, we knew that weactually kind of needed to move
our mattress downstairs and sortof camp out in the living room
because she wouldn't have beenable to settle with us being in
a different area.
So we're like, okay, well then,that's going to.
She would have just we had babygates and stuff to try and
(15:36):
block off the stairs.
But if we'd been upstairs for aprolonged period of time and she
was downstairs, she would havejust jumped over it and again
jumping onto the sofa, when theymight not have been supposed to
like the dogs don't necessarilyknow or like appreciate that
they're going to just sort of dowhat feels like the right thing
for them to do, like you know,the natural thing for them to do
(15:56):
.
So, yeah, so we kind of had tothink about where we place
ourselves, because we knewthat's where bonnie was going to
sort of gravitate to and andjust think about kind of, yeah,
what kind of movement we allowedor encouraged, because we have,
like, our laminate flooringdownstairs so it can be a little
bit sort of slippy.
So we just have to make surethat she didn't have
opportunities to kind of reallypick up speed if she wanted to.
(16:20):
So yeah, just kind of keepingeverything very sort of low down
, very soft and slow and, like Isay, just calmness all day,
every day big one, really bigone.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
And I think, just to add, calm from a canine, massive
support for dogs going throughrehab, massive support for dogs
going through any stressful oranxious period.
Also, if your dog has hadsurgery for me it's got so many
and good things post-surgery aswell.
So, yeah, calm, calm.
K9, I think also Alice, for thewin, right.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Absolutely yeah.
Yeah, bonnie was on thatthroughout that period and I
definitely think it helps, yeah,and.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I think one of my other considerations is actually
how anybody else handles thedog, is actually how anybody
else handles the dog.
So, for example, like I said,my friend I'm sort of sitting
and watching over Blink didn'treally think too hard on it, and
then came home to Blink beingon the sofa and I was like oh no
, but didn't think too hardbecause she would have sat there
and Blink would have looked ather adoringly and she'd have
said she could come up.
But it is, the dogs don'tnecessarily know how to tell us
(17:20):
what they can't do, so anybodyelse who also has involvement
has that ever been somethingyou've needed to consider or not
, alice?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
A little bit, yeah, like sort of Bonnie has a fairly
tight knit circle of humanfriends, so it's not something
that comes into play hugely, butbut certainly just um, even
things like, um, observing bodylanguage and observing the signs
of discomfort, I think, likeit's like saying that the dogs
aren't always like the best attelling us in an obvious manner,
(17:49):
but we can learn to look forthose signs.
So you know, any kind of lickingor nibbling of a specific area
or kind of if, if, I kind ofknow, if, if Bonnie's feeling a
little bit sore now, like if Itouch her and then you get that
little sort of skin flicker, sokind of just sort of knowing and
you've had a really greatworkshop on this in Bowerland
when I was down and and lovely,brave was your fantastic demo
(18:10):
dog for that and and actuallylooking kind of how to sort of
find those areas that might be alittle bit sore and how to just
sort of gently massage or justkind of sort of soothe those,
those sort of little aches andpains that you know.
I say Bonnie, as much as she'sout of recovery and has been for
a long time she's, she's alwaysgoing to have issues, like
she's got kind of hip dysplasiaand arthritis, so she's always
going to have some of thoselittle kind of sore spots or
(18:32):
aches and pains that just weneed to watch out for.
So, whether it's us or whetherit's anybody else who might be
looking after her, for us likeknowing what those signs are,
and even if those signs might bejust a bit of a full bucket
actually, if you sort ofstrongly think, hang on, why is
the dog behaving a little bitdifferently or kind of, you know
, not quite as operant or assort of cheerful as they might
(18:55):
otherwise be, it could just bethat their bucket's a little bit
full, with sort of somediscomfort or other of there and
I really hugely believe thatone.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
So when I went into the vets recently and said, look
, she's really not well, theytook a temperature and she was
kind of 39, which was just topend of of high, but it's not
like, it's not excessive andsilly, and and I and they said,
well, we'll give her some medsand tummy meds and she can go
home and you know, when you knowyour dog and you're like no, we
need to scan her, like thatit's not tummy I know it's not
tummy, like it's too, and theywere like no, she seems bright
and bubbly and I'm like this isreally dull for her.
(19:28):
I think there's that moment ofknowing your dog specifically
and even, like you say, yourdogs aren't in a big circle of
friends, and the same for mine.
Really, I don't want lots ofpeople handling them and looking
after them, even within you andChris and me and Matt and like
even within our small, liketight circle.
Actually, it's really importantthat you even communicate
(19:48):
between each other.
So, for example, when I got upthis morning, I left Blink with
Matt and said just keep a closeeye.
She hasn't nibbled, but don'tleave her alone, because you
know that it won't take a secondto nibble and then actually
that becomes even more a majorabdominal surgery and if you
can't actually heal that wound,then again you're in a position
of actually quite damaging forthe dog and you can't actually
heal that wound, then againyou're in a position of of
actually quite damaging for thedog and you can't explain to
(20:09):
them don't lick it.
Absolutely.
You do need to put them in aposition where they're not going
to lick it and I know you wentthrough that with with your
wounds and and when she washealing from a cruciate, because
there are fairly big woundswith cruciate.
I mean they're big enough andthere's stitches and there's a
surgery and a site right.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, definitely yeah , and they did it sort of took
several weeks, you know, eachtime for them to be sort of
healed up, so it was quite aprolonged period to be quite
vigilant before.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
And when they go in Alice, they go in for the
surgery with Krisha and theycome out and they almost look
much worse when they come out, Ithink because you're kind of
like, right, I took the dog inand they look reasonably bad,
and now they've come out hoppinglame because you've broken
their leg.
Like you don't realize quitehow bad it's going to be until
because my operation with Blinkwas a very similar operation.
It was a knee surgery and sowhen I saw her and the first
(21:01):
time she had surgery this iswhen I saw come out I was like
God, you're like 10 times worse,and when you went in like she,
she couldn't even weight bear onit at first.
And for you to go through ittwice, I mean, God Lord, it's a
lot.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
It was and you do kind of think, kind of crikey,
what, what are we doing?
What actually?
You just, yeah, like you say,it looks worse before it looks
better.
But I mean there might belisteners kind of thinking, oh,
we've got this coming up and orwe've just kind of in that
situation now and just day byday, week by week, just kind of
(21:33):
it's just taking it in babysteps, I think, just to kind of
know that actually they're goingto come out the other side of
that, if you just kind of do allthe right things when they're
most vulnerable yeah, yeah,massive, I mean massive.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
So I suppose, for everybody listening, if you're
going to go through rehab, alice, is it possible, is it doable?
Can we help through games?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
absolutely, and not only can we, but I think it's
the best way that you can help.
I think it's it's the and I.
It's the best way for your dogand for the handler.
I think, like speaking from myown experience, I think it just
kind of it just made that timefeel a little bit more fun and
certainly more manageable andcertainly calmer.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
And for your emotional health and for your
mental health.
Really, I think it's somethingthat actually you can do in a
time when there's so much youcan't do.
So that was this episode.
I have enjoyed talking to youimmensely, most of all, Alice,
because I know you've beenthrough this.
If you've gone through this,please, please, please, share
this podcast.
Share it with a friend, afamily member or maybe even your
vet, someone who might like toshare it and pay it forward.
(22:38):
Join us next week, where we aregoing to get a little bit more
testing.
Welcome to the Absolute Dog Sex in a Squirrel
podcast.
I'm Lauren Langman.
I'm one of the world's leadingdog trainers and it's my mission
to help owners become theirdog's top priority.
In each episode, you'lldiscover how to gain trust and
communicate with your dog likenever before, creating
unbreakable bonds that make youthe most exciting part of their
world.
Okay, rehab.
(00:30):
We're talking rehab now.
Alice, you have got aparticularly interesting take on
rehab, I think, because you hada pretty well unusual
experience with your rehomed dog.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit more about it?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
yeah, when we got bonnie about two or three months
in, she started to limp, so wewe can obviously took her to the
vet and had this investigatedand, to cut a long story short,
she actually needed both of hercruciate ligaments operated on.
So we were in for quite a longroad really in terms of two
(01:03):
different surgeries and intimateby intermittent recovery period
, so that around that.
So, yeah, it was about the sortof yeah, it took about nine
months start to finish now, whenI know people are listening,
they're thinking rehab in onedirection, rehab in another
direction.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I've got lots of different examples of rehab,
from rehabbing a psoas injury torehabbing a dog post spay to
rehabbing like just many, many,many, many many different
experiences of rehab.
Now, alice, when I'm thinkingabout your specific rehab
experience, what was the moststressful part for you and I
think it's worth saying justquite how big Bonnie is- yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
so Bonnie is a canicorso mix, so she, so she's
quite a bit of dog and she'salso a naughty but nice dog.
So actually the most stressfulpart for us was helping her to
get through especially theearlier, more vulnerable stages
of her recoveries really calmlyand like creating and
maintaining a really calmenvironment where we were
(02:03):
minimizing the risk of herhaving potentially like a quite
a big reactive outburst.
This at that time that couldhave been in response to like a
knock at the door or just anoise in the street could have
caused that at that point, youknow, very, very early in our
training and and that could havecaused damage to the surgery
site and that would have beenreally bad news for her.
(02:24):
So we had to take that veryseriously and Bonnie's also a
dog that struggles withseparation, certainly struggled
a lot more at the point wherethis was all happening as well.
So we basically camped out inthe downstairs of our house
because Bonnie couldn't goupstairs really, and
particularly the vet was veryworried about if she did go
(02:45):
upstairs, if there was a noiseor something and she came
charging downstairs.
That could have been one ofthose things that could have
kind of caused a sort of apossibly irreparable damage and
when you say irreparable damage,what do you mean?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
you can be really clear with everyone yeah so.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So we were warned that, like if, if sort of
significant damage happened tothe surgery site, particularly
whilst it was very new, it wouldhave potentially meant more
surgery or that might not haveeven possible, so it could have
been the end of the road forBonnie.
It could have been a put tosleep sort of euthanasia
situation if we'd gotten intothat situation which I think
when people are listening, youkind of go oh my goodness, like
this is serious.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Now for me, experiencing so many different
rehab experiences, I think we'vegot lots of different tips we
can share with people, and Ithink what we should do is a bit
of a sort of tip scenario whereit goes from you to me, me to
you and we just share some ofour experience.
So I'm going to start with youand you get to share just one of
your top tips with all of ourlisteners.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Super.
So I think that, Particularlywhen you're looking at the very
early parts of rehab, you mightbe looking at ditching the bowl
in slightly different ways thanyou might normally.
You might not really be doing alot of like throwing food here
and there and, you know, doing alot of the games that you might
normally do with your dog.
So you might be instead youmight be spending more of their
daily food allowance in creatingnice like enrichment bowls or
(04:07):
stuffed Kongs and things likethat, Things that are like a
nice activity for the dog butthat they can literally pretty
much do from lying in their bed.
So that would be a top tip forparticularly those early stages.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Lovely and I'm going to go calm, calm, calm and more
calm, like there really isnothing at all that will beat
calm, and if you can encourageand grow and build calmness at
every level, it's going to helprehab Back over to you, alice.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah.
So another one of my top tipswould be absolutely go mining in
Games Club for the kind ofgames that you can still play
with your dog when they arerecovering potentially from a
surgery or an illness orsomething, because there are so
many games there that you can dothat have.
They can either be sedentary orwith very gentle movement.
So some of the things we didwith bonnie were like teaching a
(04:58):
nose touch or chin targeting weyou know bang as well.
It was even like a trick wemanaged to sort of teach us by
capturing normal like naturalmovements.
As she was sort of flopping tolie down, we could just capture
and teach a trick.
And also really useful lifeskills like muzzle games.
So like sort of teaching her tobe comfortable and actually
enjoy wearing a muzzle.
(05:19):
Because, again, her being anaughty but nice dog and and was
working sort of on on somereactivity issues, thinking
ahead to kind of post-surgeryrecovery, when we could start
growing her world again, thatwas going to be a really useful
skill that we could actuallystart working on, even just from
home when she wasn't movingaround much.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Lovely and I so agree .
I was also thinking for my dogs.
One of the biggest ones was tryand teach everything before you
ever need it.
So when you go into Games Club,look at some of the games and
think how might this serve me ina future space?
And one of mine is lead walking.
Actually, make sure that yourdogs walk really, really, really
, really, really nicely on leadso that when you do need this at
(05:58):
a later date, actually the leadwork comes in in handy.
Because most of the time whenyour dog comes out of any sort
of rehab people are going to saylead work, so lead work only.
And I actually collected mylittle dog, blink, from surgery
just, and she needed lead work.
And same when she had hertibral tuberosity transposition
big operation on her knee like10 years ago.
(06:19):
It's lead work only, so let'sdo lead work only with her.
Well, actually, when you firstput a dog on lead that's not
used to being on lead they canbe like jack-in-the-box monkeys,
like literally backflipping onyou.
So for me, lead work's reallyimportant.
So all of our lead games magichand and any sort of proximity
game where lead is built andvaluable and effectively valued
by your dog can make such amassive, mega difference to your
(06:43):
rehab and recovery road lateron.
What do you think, alice?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
oh, definitely.
And again, it's thosefundamental skills that are then
so transferable, whether it'sas a necessity or just for kind
of general life skills.
And also, I think my next tipwould be that know when a game
or a trick might not be rightfor them, so there's always an
alternative, there's always away to adapt and be creative,
(07:09):
and there's so many ideas inGames Club and you, you know, in
the lives and in the communitywhere we sort of share these
kind of ideas but like, forexample, we were we were on a
live recently where you'reteaching instant down and
actually for bonnie we discussedthis and an instant stop was
more appropriate for her.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So there's always a way of getting the behavior you
want in a way that's appropriatefor your dog, whether it's
during their rehab or beyondlovely and I love that
adaptation for bonnie and agreat example, a stand being so
much more appropriate for her,knowing that an instant down is
probably not that reinforcing.
Do you want to explain that,alice, as to why?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
yeah.
So because sort of bonnie's hadboth her cruciates done and
she's a lot sturdier than shewas post-surgery and
post-recovery like it'sdefinitely done wonders for her
overall health and fitness, butshe is still a kind of lanky,
wonky donkey with arthritis andstuff going on.
So whereas for a lot of dogs aninstant down behaviour would be
really rewarding, would be areally joyful behaviour, I don't
(08:08):
think that bonnie would enjoyit.
I think it'd be a bit littlebit rough on her joints.
So actually she, but she'sreally enjoying the instance
that we've done some practicesince the, the live and uh, and
she seems to be really enjoyingthat game.
So it's it's about adapting tomeet the needs of the handler in
terms of what is, what is thebehavior that we need, what do
we need to grow and what do weneed to teach, but also
(08:29):
advocating for the dog's needsin how we achieve that behavior
fantastic, absolutely, and and Iso agree like it wouldn't be
remotely enjoyable for her totry and hit her the deck like a
50 kilo dog hitting the deckfast.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Like that's not like fun, is it?
Um, actually, how about juststop dead and then get to run
again?
I know I love that when I thinkabout rehab.
Another one for me is if yourdog has any open wound actually
consideration on that.
So for me, when my dog recentlyhad an open wound, we have an
appropriate coat thateffectively covers the tummy.
We have ability to step in andstep out of that coat so it's
(09:03):
not too uncomfortable for thedog.
We also think about laser onthat wound.
So if you know anyone with alaser, we use a category 3B or 4
laser to be able to heal woundrecovery.
We use Soothe lotion and we usePrime from AOK9, which are both
like going to heal your doginside out, which for me is mega
, really important, really vital.
(09:23):
But also with wound recovery, Ithink so many people look at
the wound on the outside butthey don't look at the wound on
the inside, or you can't see thewound on the inside, so people
forget it.
For me, whether it's post-spa orany other kind of abdominal
surgery.
Maybe your dog's eatensomething or got hold of
something or maybe donesomething stupid with, like I
don't know, ingestinginappropriate objects.
For me it's really, really keythat we take our time in terms
(09:47):
of building up exercisegradually after that and knowing
that with abdominal surgerythey can feel quite tight and
quite restricted for a littlewhile.
So again, enabling them to havegradual lead work build up and
my lead work again comes intothis as well as a fitness sort
of space, space with the dog.
So, cavaletti, confidencecircuits I know you do
confidence circuits, alice.
(10:07):
What do you think of them?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
They're really good.
They're really good fun andagain, you can be quite creative
with, like how you can evensort of build some of these
things at home and just sort ofuse what you've got lying around
.
So it's, yeah, it's good fun.
If people can kind of get intothat badge, it's really good.
But also, if you're in GamesClub, then you can have these
little sort of tasters of someof these sort of fitness and
confidence games with thefitness friday lives, so like if
(10:33):
sort of you're not that kind ofwell versed yet in how to
observe your dog's kind of bodycondition and posture or balance
and things like that.
That's all stuff that gets youknow, looks in, looks at, you
know on a weekly basis, isn't itin games?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
yeah, really nice.
It is actually in fitnessfriday.
I forget that actually you guysget to watch me train my dogs
and and yeah, it's somethingthat's great learning
opportunity and and I reallybelieve that those when you're
in rehab, those are the thingsyou want to go to, those are the
can do's, because there's somany things you can't do.
I think in rehab it's sometimesopening your mind up and going
what can I do when the world'sfeeling a bit more closed off
(11:11):
for your dog and I know that.
Say, you enjoy sport and you'vegot an injury in sport right
now.
Maybe it's a tendon or aligament or some kind of issue
with your dog.
Sport wise, you can feel soinhibited because you can't get
to do your normal thing and Iknow for you, alice, like maybe
walks or exercise or being outand about or being doing some
like some training or some somework where get to move it can
feel so restrictive when you'retold, no, you shouldn't be doing
(11:32):
this, it's not part of yourrehab.
I think sometimes we need tolook at what can you do.
So, alice, what can you do whenyou're in rehab with a dog like
Bonnie or with a dog like Blink?
What can you do?
Because I'm thinking like evenbasics like scent would be
really, really opportunisticright now.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, scent is absolutely where I was going to
go to.
That's we did.
I mean, we did so much of thatwith with bonnie when we're at
home and actually it's this isit's worth mentioning.
This is how I found absolutedogs, because when we were told
keep bonnie on house rest, sheshouldn't be having any regular
exercise at the moment untilwe've sorted out what needs to
happen and I just I can't justdo nothing because this dog has
a lot of behavioral struggles.
I can't just put this on pauseuntil we can get back out and
(12:16):
have in-person training sessions.
I need to find something I cando at home.
And it was brilliant to be ableto find absolute dogs and sort
of find it was sort of into thesort of naughty but nice sort of
pathway in and find all kindsof games that had real life
value, sort of on the outsideworld that we could start
growing on the inside.
(12:37):
So, yeah, some of the kind ofnaughty but nice skills, like I
mentioned, muzzle game beforeand some of that A to B and lead
work, as you were saying.
But also scent was fantasticbecause it's such a naturally
calming activity for the dog.
Bonnie finds it incrediblyreinforcing and it's so easy to
do at home, so it's still hertop favourite game.
(12:58):
If she sort of if I'm sort ofgetting ready she knows, if I'm
getting ready for going to do abit of a play session or
training session and signal isthat she will just dart to her
bed, she'll dart into her crateand she'll be like cool, you're
going to do a treasure hunt andthen like kind of she'll just
wait for me to start hidinglittle like whether it's toys or
food or whatever she's going togo searching for.
She'll kind of be like amazing,and it's you're teaching
(13:18):
boundary games pretty much, butlike it is her favorite thing to
do and it really lights her up,but not in a high arousal way,
which is exactly what you wantif you're looking at sort of
surgery recovery amazing, and Ilove hearing that, and I suppose
I'm grateful, then, therefore,that you did have to go through
something like that to a degree,because that's how you found
(13:41):
this and you're such an amazinggame changer.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I suppose it's almost a moment of gratitude, right?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Definitely it was a silver lining, because I think
when we sort of started doingthe sort of homeschooling and
looking at the naughty but nicetraining at home and one of the
first pieces of advice was thinkabout ditching the walk, like
if it's not working for anyone,if it's not fun for anyone, if
no one's having a nice time time, then maybe sort of rewind and
just work on some skills at home.
(14:06):
First I thought, ah well, we'redoing that anyway, so we have
to do that because you knowshe's not allowed to go anywhere
at the minute.
But okay, that means that we'rein the right place and actually
we're learning the right skillsin the right order.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I love hearing that.
Now I was just thinking likeswitching gears a little with my
little dog coming backpost-surgery.
She's had abdominal surgery,which effectively for her means
no sort of jumping and bouncingand leaping, and I came home
last night I'd left a friendlooking after her and she had
her and just up on the sofa withher and I said how did she get
up?
And she said, oh, she jumped.
And I'm like, oh my goodness.
(14:39):
And then I also looked as I gotinto bed that evening and I
popped a bed next to my bed soshe could sleep with me and the
bed had a massive lip on it andit's even things like this I
think we don't think about.
So were there any subtletiesthat you didn't think about when
you were going into rehab?
For me, I'm going to say,jumping on furniture in and off
and on beds and surfaces offloors, like actually going from
(15:01):
like wood to tile to ashtrayturf, to anything slippy, like
thinking through all thedifferent opportunities there,
or maybe like potentialconsequences.
What were some of yours, alice?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah.
So, like I say, because Bonniesort of struggled with
separation, we knew that weactually kind of needed to move
our mattress downstairs and sortof camp out in the living room
because she wouldn't have beenable to settle with us being in
a different area.
So we're like, okay, well then,that's going to.
She would have just we had babygates and stuff to try and
(15:36):
block off the stairs.
But if we'd been upstairs for aprolonged period of time and she
was downstairs, she would havejust jumped over it and again
jumping onto the sofa, when theymight not have been supposed to
like the dogs don't necessarilyknow or like appreciate that
they're going to just sort of dowhat feels like the right thing
for them to do, like you know,the natural thing for them to do
(15:56):
.
So, yeah, so we kind of had tothink about where we place
ourselves, because we knewthat's where bonnie was going to
sort of gravitate to and andjust think about kind of, yeah,
what kind of movement we allowedor encouraged, because we have,
like, our laminate flooringdownstairs so it can be a little
bit sort of slippy.
So we just have to make surethat she didn't have
opportunities to kind of reallypick up speed if she wanted to.
(16:20):
So yeah, just kind of keepingeverything very sort of low down
, very soft and slow and, like Isay, just calmness all day,
every day big one, really bigone.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
And I think, just to add, calm from a canine, massive
support for dogs going throughrehab, massive support for dogs
going through any stressful oranxious period.
Also, if your dog has hadsurgery for me it's got so many
and good things post-surgery aswell.
So, yeah, calm, calm.
K9, I think also Alice, for thewin, right.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Absolutely yeah.
Yeah, bonnie was on thatthroughout that period and I
definitely think it helps, yeah,and.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I think one of my other considerations is actually
how anybody else handles thedog, is actually how anybody
else handles the dog.
So, for example, like I said,my friend I'm sort of sitting
and watching over Blink didn'treally think too hard on it, and
then came home to Blink beingon the sofa and I was like oh no
, but didn't think too hardbecause she would have sat there
and Blink would have looked ather adoringly and she'd have
said she could come up.
But it is, the dogs don'tnecessarily know how to tell us
(17:20):
what they can't do, so anybodyelse who also has involvement
has that ever been somethingyou've needed to consider or not
, alice?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
A little bit, yeah, like sort of Bonnie has a fairly
tight knit circle of humanfriends, so it's not something
that comes into play hugely, butbut certainly just um, even
things like, um, observing bodylanguage and observing the signs
of discomfort, I think, likeit's like saying that the dogs
aren't always like the best attelling us in an obvious manner,
(17:49):
but we can learn to look forthose signs.
So you know, any kind of lickingor nibbling of a specific area
or kind of if, if, I kind ofknow, if, if Bonnie's feeling a
little bit sore now, like if Itouch her and then you get that
little sort of skin flicker, sokind of just sort of knowing and
you've had a really greatworkshop on this in Bowerland
when I was down and and lovely,brave was your fantastic demo
(18:10):
dog for that and and actuallylooking kind of how to sort of
find those areas that might be alittle bit sore and how to just
sort of gently massage or justkind of sort of soothe those,
those sort of little aches andpains that you know.
I say Bonnie, as much as she'sout of recovery and has been for
a long time she's, she's alwaysgoing to have issues, like
she's got kind of hip dysplasiaand arthritis, so she's always
going to have some of thoselittle kind of sore spots or
(18:32):
aches and pains that just weneed to watch out for.
So, whether it's us or whetherit's anybody else who might be
looking after her, for us likeknowing what those signs are,
and even if those signs might bejust a bit of a full bucket
actually, if you sort ofstrongly think, hang on, why is
the dog behaving a little bitdifferently or kind of, you know
, not quite as operant or assort of cheerful as they might
(18:55):
otherwise be, it could just bethat their bucket's a little bit
full, with sort of somediscomfort or other of there and
I really hugely believe thatone.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
So when I went into the vets recently and said, look
, she's really not well, theytook a temperature and she was
kind of 39, which was just topend of of high, but it's not
like, it's not excessive andsilly, and and I and they said,
well, we'll give her some medsand tummy meds and she can go
home and you know, when you knowyour dog and you're like no, we
need to scan her, like thatit's not tummy I know it's not
tummy, like it's too, and theywere like no, she seems bright
and bubbly and I'm like this isreally dull for her.
(19:28):
I think there's that moment ofknowing your dog specifically
and even, like you say, yourdogs aren't in a big circle of
friends, and the same for mine.
Really, I don't want lots ofpeople handling them and looking
after them, even within you andChris and me and Matt and like
even within our small, liketight circle.
Actually, it's really importantthat you even communicate
(19:48):
between each other.
So, for example, when I got upthis morning, I left Blink with
Matt and said just keep a closeeye.
She hasn't nibbled, but don'tleave her alone, because you
know that it won't take a secondto nibble and then actually
that becomes even more a majorabdominal surgery and if you
can't actually heal that wound,then again you're in a position
of actually quite damaging forthe dog and you can't actually
heal that wound, then againyou're in a position of of
actually quite damaging for thedog and you can't explain to
(20:09):
them don't lick it.
Absolutely.
You do need to put them in aposition where they're not going
to lick it and I know you wentthrough that with with your
wounds and and when she washealing from a cruciate, because
there are fairly big woundswith cruciate.
I mean they're big enough andthere's stitches and there's a
surgery and a site right.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, definitely yeah , and they did it sort of took
several weeks, you know, eachtime for them to be sort of
healed up, so it was quite aprolonged period to be quite
vigilant before.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
And when they go in Alice, they go in for the
surgery with Krisha and theycome out and they almost look
much worse when they come out, Ithink because you're kind of
like, right, I took the dog inand they look reasonably bad,
and now they've come out hoppinglame because you've broken
their leg.
Like you don't realize quitehow bad it's going to be until
because my operation with Blinkwas a very similar operation.
It was a knee surgery and sowhen I saw her and the first
(21:01):
time she had surgery this iswhen I saw come out I was like
God, you're like 10 times worse,and when you went in like she,
she couldn't even weight bear onit at first.
And for you to go through ittwice, I mean, God Lord, it's a
lot.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
It was and you do kind of think, kind of crikey,
what, what are we doing?
What actually?
You just, yeah, like you say,it looks worse before it looks
better.
But I mean there might belisteners kind of thinking, oh,
we've got this coming up and orwe've just kind of in that
situation now and just day byday, week by week, just kind of
(21:33):
it's just taking it in babysteps, I think, just to kind of
know that actually they're goingto come out the other side of
that, if you just kind of do allthe right things when they're
most vulnerable yeah, yeah,massive, I mean massive.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
So I suppose, for everybody listening, if you're
going to go through rehab, alice, is it possible, is it doable?
Can we help through games?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
absolutely, and not only can we, but I think it's
the best way that you can help.
I think it's it's the and I.
It's the best way for your dogand for the handler.
I think, like speaking from myown experience, I think it just
kind of it just made that timefeel a little bit more fun and
certainly more manageable andcertainly calmer.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
And for your emotional health and for your
mental health.
Really, I think it's somethingthat actually you can do in a
time when there's so much youcan't do.
So that was this episode.
I have enjoyed talking to youimmensely, most of all, Alice,
because I know you've beenthrough this.
If you've gone through this,please, please, please, share
this podcast.
Share it with a friend, afamily member or maybe even your
vet, someone who might like toshare it and pay it forward.
(22:38):
Join us next week, where we aregoing to get a little bit more
testing.
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