February 6, 2024 • 51 mins
We all know that a good workout can do wonders for our health, but the same is true for our pets. Dr. Laurie McCauley joins us as we uncover the myriad ways exercise benefits our furry family members, from their muscles to their minds. We chat about how to help them avoid injury and how to support and be proactive in with our pups health as they age. We also touch on the importance of the emerging field of energy medicine and its role in veterinary care.
Dr. Laurie McCauley graduated from Colorado State School of Veterinary Medicine where she spent six years in general practice, and quickly became a pioneer in the field of Veterinary Rehabilitation. Dr. McCauley is an International lecturer and contributing author in many textbooks and journals. She was awarded the 2011 Iams AARV Award of Excellence in the Field of Rehabilitation and the 2015 AHVMA Holistic Practitioner of the Year Award. She does locum work at the Louisiana School of Veterinary Medicine, stepping in as head of the Integrative Medicine Department several times a year.
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You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkBnCS8-p0eGS6Qn34Km7LQ
Text : 1-866-949-0068 for her free e book on the Top 5 Exercises for Geriatric Dogs
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*This podcast is for informational purposes only, even if, and regardless of whether it features the advice of veterinarians or professional dog trainers. It is not, nor is it intended to be a substitute for professional veterinary care or personalized canine behavior advice and should not be used as so. The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast author or the individual views of those participating in the podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So is your dog's name Oliver.
So you said, yes, I love thatname for a dog.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And he's 14, and he's like standing at the far end of
the yard going.
Hmm, I mean no.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm sorry, that's OK Right here, right here.
Good Good job, buddy.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
There we go.
Now we're going to have toworry about him because it's
raining and cold outside, ohyeah.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
You don't want him to stand out there and just stay
there forever you say he's 14.
What kind of puppy is he?
He's a mastiff cross.
Oh my gosh, and he's 14.
Good job.
Well, yes, you're a longevityexpert, so that makes sense.
That's fantastic.
Oh, how lucky.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So yeah, I lost my dog's at 18 and a half a couple
years ago A couple years ago.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh, I love that.
I'm not too familiar withdoxins, but I've been noticing
there's been a lot of the longhair doxins in my neighborhood
lately.
They're so cute.
Is there a specific differencebetween those two?
Are they different variationsof the breed?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
obviously, so there's minis, which are like 10 pounds
, and under there's the regularones that were bred to hunt the
badgers, which are like 15 to 30pounds.
There's tweenies, which are theones that are in between Got it
, and they have personalities,and then in each set you can
(01:33):
have different coat colors.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
So there's a lot of variation Got it.
Was your guy in between or washe a?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
No, he was a mini.
He was only eight pounds Awcute.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Well, thanks you two for popping on, and Dr Lori, I'm
very excited to meet you, DrHeather, who I've been doing
rehab rehabilitation with withmy own dog, who is going to be
16 next month.
I've been seeing her since hewas like seven years old when he
was diagnosed withosteoarthritis, and she is one
of the.
I think 80% of why he's stillmoving and grooving and trucking
(02:07):
along so well is because of ourcontinuous work with her.
So you are like the pioneer ofveterinary rehabilitation and
physical therapy, which I thinka lot of people don't even think
about when it comes to theirpets, unless perhaps they have
some sort of like major injurythat they need to rehabilitate
from right A torn ligament orsomething like that.
(02:28):
Do you want to introduceyourself to my listeners and
tell us a little bit about you?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So I'm Dr Lori McCauley.
I graduated from vet school in1992.
I did six years of regularpractice, fell down the stairs
at three o'clock in the morning,hurt my dogs out.
Of course I hurt my back.
My chiropractor couldn't fix me.
I went to the orthopedicsurgeon who said you need to go
see a PT and it was like a lightbulb went off and I went oh my
(02:55):
God, this is so cool, this iswhat I want to do for dogs, and
said I'll take a course.
And of course there were nocourses at the time.
So I went.
I did some research with alarge hospital that had a human
PT on staff that was just doinga little bit of work and we did
some research together.
And then I opened up theworld's first rehab center for
(03:16):
dogs.
I designed the first underwatertreadmill.
I've been blessed to be able towrite multiple chapters for
textbooks and articles.
I've lectured all over theworld.
I have let's see what else.
I taught the rehabcertification course.
I was one of the maininstructors for 14 years.
(03:37):
I've had interns from 17countries.
I love, love, love teaching andmy mission in life is
empowering people to help theirpets.
So whether it be veterinariansthat I'm helping technicians,
pet parents.
Every time I help somebody,help their pet, it fills my cup
and warms my heart.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
That's fantastic.
And Dr Lindsay, you were justmentioning, I think that you
took one of her courses recently.
Did I get that correct?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I did.
Yeah, she offered a kind ofit's like a miniature we call
them wet labs or a hands-onlaboratory during the last
holistic veterinary medicalassociation conference and I
also have known Dr Heather foryears and she has sung your
praises since I've met her, so Iwas very excited and honored to
have the opportunity to be ableto learn from you.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I love, love, love, because I think about it like
the ripple effect.
Right, I help you and you helppet parents, and then they help
their dogs, or you help theirdogs, and I'm just so blessed
that I have that ability andthat opportunity.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Well, thank you for all that you do and all that
you've accomplished.
My guy wouldn't be moving andgrooving if probably if it
wasn't for you and all of yourwork.
So I really appreciate it andthank you.
And I wanted to talk about.
One of the things you oftentalk about is the importance of
exercise for our pets, and Ithink when we think about
exercise, we automatically thinkof like running, you know, or
(05:00):
like fast walking.
What does that look like?
What is the importance ofexercise look like, and what
does exercise look like in youreyes for our pets?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So you know there's, if you think about exercise in
humans, right.
So we have something to compareit to.
You've got your marathonrunners who can run, run, run,
but then you ask them to liftsomething heavy and they can't
Right.
And then you've got your what Icall gym rats, right, the
people who are out at the gymfive days a week.
They're really built, yeah, butyou ask them to run and they're
(05:30):
out of breath immediately,right?
So there's different types ofmuscle fibers in our bodies and
it's the same with dogs.
So there's two important sidesof that.
We want to be able to increaseendurance, whether it be heart,
lungs and the muscles, and thenwe also want to increase
strength, and we increasestrength to decrease the chance
of injury.
(05:50):
And, believe it or not, thosetwo things the runner and the
person who is doing differentexercises, and building the type
two muscle fibers.
That actually affects the brainas well.
So the I'm going to go for awalk, I'm going to walk my dog,
I'm going to swim my dog, I'mgoing to run my dog, and that
actually increases the number ofneurons in their brain.
(06:10):
I'm going to learn somethingnew.
I'm going to lift weights.
I'm going to do new tricks I'mgoing to do.
That kind of stuff Increasesthe life expectancy of each
neuron in their brain.
So by comparing the two, bydoing the endurance exercises
and the targeted exercises, weactually increase cognitive
(06:31):
function in the dog.
We increase endorphins so thatthey're happier, they're less
stressed.
There's so many things that wecan help with.
We can.
We can decrease the chance ofmetabolic issues.
A bunch of Canadian physicianshave actually have a statement
out that says that exercise isthe largest underutilized tool
(06:55):
for controlling pain associatedwith arthritis in humans.
Right, so we take that andbring that into our pets.
So many of our dogs are onsupplements or medications and
that's great.
But if we can strengthen themuscles, tendons and ligaments
around the joints, we canpotentially get them off of
things that may have sideeffects as well as cost and get
(07:18):
them doing fun things.
That increases their bond withtheir owner, increases their
happiness, literally.
There's tons of research thatshows that exercise increases
longevity.
So we're just talking a littlebit off air about, you know,
having our pets live a long time.
Exercise is a big part of that.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And this is something that we should just implement
from the get go.
Like, how does it change asthey age, right, like, how does
it the level of exercise and thekind of exercise, because
there's so many different things.
You're talking about strengthtraining.
How do we do strength trainingwith our dogs, right?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I can't see my dog lifting many ways I wish this
was on video, but so my dog Sid,who usually he's next to me now
, usually he's behind me heliterally came to me with
straight knees, straightshoulders and a long back Right,
and I'm a rehab mom.
So I looked at him and go,you're not going to have a
(08:18):
cruciate injury, I will notallow you to have a shoulder
injury, You're not going to havea back injury or an iliopsoas
injury.
So I put together an exerciseprogram for him to help
strengthen and support all ofthat stuff and then I shared it
with friends of mine.
And one of my friends, whoactually lives in Chicago, so a
thousand miles away, wrote backand said oh my God, Lori Sophia
(08:43):
is a niffer dog, she's acompetitive agility dog and I
think we started when she waslike 10, nine and a half 10.
And she's like I thought my dogwas strong, she does hurting.
So she does all the runningsports right, she does obedience
, she does the agility.
She's like my dog is probablythree pounds this is a small
shelter three pounds heavier andit's all muscle Right.
(09:06):
And at 11, she was the seventhfastest shelter in agility, in
the bad dog agility.
So everybody else is like four,five and six and at 11, she was
in the top 10, which is justamazing.
She's like Lori.
You need to share this withothers and that's why I created
(09:28):
corn more.
So the exercise and corn moreis your exercise.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
But is that something that's available for for pet
parents too?
Yes, absolutely, oh great.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, yep, core and more foundational exercises for
your dog Okay.
And you can get on my websiteoptimum pet vitalitycom, and
it's right there, okay.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
So what?
Here's my question, some of myquestions how do we know?
How do we know if we're A ifour dog is getting enough
exercise and B If we're pushingour dog too hard to get exercise
right?
Excellent?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
questions yeah, so facial expressions Okay, right,
so when we look for signs offatigue and I don't want to push
it, but it's all in the courseright?
Signs of fatigue are ears thatare perc.
Ears will come back and thendown A tail that's what they
call a gay tail that comesacross the back, will actually
(10:31):
unravel and come down.
Signs of stress, signs offatigue Heavy panting right, so
dogs don't sweat.
They literally cool themselvesoff by panting.
And when a dog starts tooverheat, their tongue will
flatten out so it has a largersurface area.
They'll pant and you'll watchtheir head move, literally
(10:53):
because they don't want tobreathe in the hot air.
They just breathe out.
Their eyes will dilate.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Is that why they do that Right, so panting, and they
are moving.
They move around a lotInteresting.
I did not know that, okay.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yep, they pick places that has cool air Makes sense.
Yeah yeah, rob Gillette didthat study probably 20 years ago
.
It's so cool.
He did it for hunting dogs, gotit?
Yep, so there's lots of signsof fatigue.
You may see their head comedown, their eyes may, like I
said, if they're stressedthey'll dilate.
Their facial features may comeflat.
(11:28):
They may be looking for a signof escape, especially if they're
on a treadmill or somethinglike that.
They'll be like this is reallyhard, I don't know if I can do
this.
And they'll look around saying,okay, where am I going to go?
So it's body language.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, learning about canine body language in general
is something that we all need todo as pet parents for many
different reasons you justmentioned.
You just mentioned treadmill.
Do you recommend like treadmillwork, like putting your dog on
a treadmill, or are therecertain dogs that shouldn't do
activity?
Because I know it's hard for alot of people to even get out
and walk their dogs after theywork.
(12:03):
They're exhausted and they wantto work out themselves and
maybe your dog does a differentpace than you do.
Then you have to do like doublethe workout.
You really don't want to do it,so you recommend something like
doing a treadmill workout withyour dog.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
It depends, okay.
So if I have somebody who wantsto work with their dog and go
walking and stuff like that,it's always better for both to
walk than to be on a treadmill.
I spent 24 years in Chicagowhere the winters were
horrendous.
Yeah, right, so a treadmill.
There was a wonderful thing Iworked with a lot of police dogs
(12:39):
, so this way the police couldbe studying as they were going
through their coursework Right?
So I worked with them beforethey were officially on the
force and they would work up toan hour and a half on the
treadmill three times a week onan incline.
So if you're going to theincline, it actually decreases
the amount of exercise than ifyou're flat.
(13:00):
So, absolutely, the strength isto be at an incline.
Well, it makes sense, right?
If you're going at an incline,the weight is shifted back and
the back legs, or your musclesor the limbs of propulsion
pushing you forward, your frontlegs are your deceleration.
So if you have dogs that arelike agility dogs, where they
(13:21):
have to wrap around somethingright, they have to slow down
really fast Then working thefront end is super important.
But most of the time, what Isee with clients is the thought
of how many times when I was ingeneral medicine, people said,
doc, my dog just couldn't get upanymore so I put him to sleep.
Yes, stop Right.
(13:45):
One of my goals is to stop that.
One of my goals is to take.
Right now, 80% of orthopedicsurgeries in the dog world is
cruciate injuries.
I would love to drop that toless than 20%.
That's one of my goals.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
For those of us who may not know what that means,
but have an idea what iscruciate injuries Like a
ligament or like a Greatquestion.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
So in humans they call it an ACL.
Okay, yeah, right.
So a knee injury where you teara knee but the tear one of the
leg.
It's like a cross.
Cruciate means cross.
Okay, they're one of thoseligaments and in dogs right now
to have that surgery is $5,000to $7,000 and that's without the
rehab.
Wow, and 50 to 60% of themwithin the next two years will
(14:31):
tear the other one.
So strengthening the dog'sknees, the tendons and ligaments
and the muscles around it thatsupport it, are super, super
important.
Finding inflammation beforethey tear and then getting rid
of it.
Super, super important to tryto decrease the chance of doing
that.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Got it and what are some of the ways that we can get
rid of that inflammationwithout using, like you know, in
addition to using, you know,medication?
I personally like to use asminimal medication as I can with
chance, Even at his age.
We only use, like our medicamsand our maloxicams, like
whenever he's having some sortof a big flare up.
(15:14):
What are some of the ways thatwe can help our dogs with that
inflammation in order to preventsome of these injuries?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
So one is simple as keeping them lean, right.
So white fat, right.
So if you were to look insidethe dog and you see fat, that's
actually endocrine organ, andjust the fat, not just the
weight of the dog, but the fatitself will create chemicals in
the body that increaseinflammation throughout the body
(15:43):
.
Right, Exercise, justexercising, decreases
inflammation in the body, Right.
And then if you wantsupplements, you can use joint
supplements.
You know the whole glucosaminechondroitin thing, If you want
to.
Just one quick tip on that,because there was a meta
analysis, meaning one researchstudy that looked at lots and
(16:06):
lots and lots of researchstudies showed that when
glucosamine and chondroitin camefrom the whole animal so
greenlit muscles or pernamuscles it had a significant
effect.
When the glucosamine andchondroitin was isolated, so
taken out and you don't have therest of the coenzymes and the
rest of the part of the animal,it did not have the same results
(16:28):
.
So good quality supplements andI don't recommend just one.
I tell people, pick four orfive, and it's not like Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday you're on adifferent one, but you do one
bottle of this and then onebottle of that, because if
you're on the same thing all thetime, your body doesn't need it
, Right.
But if you're on thisglucosamine and chondroitin, and
(16:49):
this one has devil's claw andthis one has collagen and this
one has, you know, the avocadostuff and all of these different
things, then you're getting awhole array to help your dog.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Got it and now I need to mix up chances some of the
supplements, because we've beendoing the same one for quite
some time.
And at what age should we startgiving our dogs these
supplements?
Oh, there's your puppy.
What's he?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
doing?
What's he doing?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
He's back there, he is looking up.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Where's the acro on my lawn?
He may start screaming in asecond, because he is the ice, a
Carolina squirrel dog, amountain dog, and his biggest
thing in life is to chase crowsand squirrels.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Oh my gosh, that is so cute.
Yeah, he's ready to go.
He's ready to go, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
The other thing I have to say before we get off
supplements is omega-3 fattyacids.
There is more research on thatthan any other supplement to
help decrease inflammation andthat if you're like, ah, I don't
want to do any kind of drug,any kind of supplement,
something as simple as sardinesor a higher fish diet can get
you natural omega-3s.
And again, just like with theomega-3s I recommend, just like
(18:01):
the other supplements, Irecommend picking four or five
different ones and rotatingthrough.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Before we move off of omegas.
I'm actually curious to getyour opinion on this, because
I've heard kind of mixed thingsdepending on who I speak with.
How do you feel about salmonoil versus small fish in terms
of sourcing, like for ongoinguse?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Not my area of expertise.
I don't sourcing.
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
No, that's okay.
I was just curious because Iknow that some people have
concerns with salmon having somelevel of heavy metal
accumulation over time.
So when I talk about omegas, Iusually just like to mention to
people if you can try forsustainable sourcing, like small
fish, usually from Norwegianwaters, or micro algae.
(18:44):
That's another great sourcethat's popping up.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So, yeah, I have krill oil, I have, like Nordic
naturals, I have grizzlypolycoil.
So, again, staying away frommore from the salmon.
So I agree with you on that,but I don't have as much
information as you do.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I think I wanted to ask briefly what age we should
start to.
I think we got interrupted byyour cutie-petutie behind you.
But at what age should we startgiving our dogs these
supplements to help with theinflammation and help with the
keep them from getting any sortof injury, if we can?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
For me it's job dependent.
Oh, okay, If somebody comes tome and they say I want my dog to
be a world team agility dog, westart supplementation at six
months.
Wow, if I have a dog, that andagain that's from a study done
by Christian Kirk B Shaw onAtiquan, where they took beagles
(19:47):
and they took split litters andhalf of them they gave Atiquan
to and half of them they didn't,and then they ran the heck out
of them.
Then they looked at theircartilage and the ones that had
the supplementation beforehandor as they were going through it
had minimal damage to thecartilage and the pup that
didn't had tons of damage to thecartilage.
(20:09):
Now, if I have a pet andthey're not going to be training
constantly I don't think theyneed that Then to me it's
half-life.
If you have a dog, that'sexpected like a great day to
live to be seven to 10 years old.
You may start at five.
If I have a doxin that I expectto live to be 15 years old, we
(20:32):
may wait till we're six or seven.
It just depends upon that.
There's not a problem startingearlier.
I want my kids to eat healthytoo.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Right as our dogs age , how do we adjust our
expectations for exercise andare mindful of not overdoing it
in our senior dogs, Also beingmindful to actually, I think a
(21:04):
lot of people just let theirsenior dogs lie around because
they're like, oh, he's tired,he's old, he's whatever.
How do we encourage people toget up and even do just minimal
stuff, keep them moving?
What are the some?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
of the ways that we can do that.
Great point.
I have some of my clients thatcome in where, just like you
said, they have like oh, here'smy 16-year-old dog and he lays
around all day and he may get up.
I'm like that significantlydecreases life expectancy.
There are studies that showthat inactivity and lack of
(21:43):
stimulation significantly speedsthe degeneration of both the
brain and the body.
I will start those pets onthings like I need you to walk
to the mailbox three times a day, or if the client's
stay-at-home parent, it would befive times a day.
Just walk to the mailbox andthen it may be some of people
(22:05):
like I don't know if you canbecause I live on a farm you
maybe walk around the inside ofthe house and then the outside
of the house.
We have exercises that we can do, like rhythmic stabilization.
Again, I hate to bring it inagain, but Core War is all
exercises that work on stabilitythat are amazing for geriatric
(22:26):
dogs.
It's nothing pounding, it's thepounding that puts pressure on
the joints.
It's working on the musclesaround it, without the pounding
and without the shear force thatwe worry about with knees or
hips, that help build the muscleto help prevent Then again
learning new things in humans,something as simple as learning
(22:47):
a new language.
Learning a instrument increaseslife expectancy and
significantly increases neuronsin the brain.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
With our dogs.
Would that be something like anew game, or even walking in a
different neighborhood?
I was thinking, maybe if yourdog is able to get a plume in
the car and take them to adifferent neighborhood, they're
getting a little bit morestimulation in that way, they're
getting some mental stimulationthat's different than they're
used to Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
If your dog can't walk through them in a stroller
or wagon, I'll have clients likewith my neuro patients or my
really older dogs that will takethem to the park and then throw
a ball there or throw someleaves around them.
They'll be like what's this,what's that?
They'll be like.
I'm excited that makes themhappy and decreases stress,
(23:38):
releases endorphins andserotonin and all those happy
chemicals.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Right, that's great.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
I think the other important thing to note with
this, too, is greed differences.
Professionally, we know thatthere are certain dogs that are
far more prone to slipping adisc or an vertebral disc
disease.
Like Dr Laurie mentioned,investing in core strengthening
early on can be really, reallyhelpful, because there's very
(24:09):
little that we can offer interms of prevention coming from
a conventional aspect outside ofproper weight management.
I think it's another way forpeople to think about that.
Dr Laurie, I didn't know if youhad any other comments just
along those lines.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I can tell you again, if you can put this in the
notes.
I have a book, an e-book thatpeople can get called the Top 5
Exercises for Geriatric Dogs,that people can text the word
exercise to 1-866-949-0068.
(24:46):
It is my top five exercise thatare safe for anything from a
16-week-old puppy to a16-year-old dog.
I can tell you, when I lecture,the two most important
exercises and Lindsay, youprobably heard me say this.
If I can teach you just twoexercises, it would be walking
backwards and walking sideways.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Right, that's something you can say.
You know what we're going tofeed Fluffy, so, fluffy, you
have to start with walkingbackwards five steps and then
your bowl goes down.
Or, fluffy, you're going towalk sideways from the kitchen
to the living room and then back, and then your bowl goes down.
Or you can be on a walk and sayyou know what, every five
houses, we're going to walksideways a house and then five
(25:30):
houses and then we'll walksideways the other way.
So you can implement exercisesinto normal daily routine for
fun, mental stimulation and tostrengthen the most important
muscles to help a dog livelonger and decrease chance of
injury.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
And that's because you're moving muscles that you
don't normally use.
If you're going backwards andsideways, or so you're kind of
getting all the you're hittingall the angles.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
So when you go backwards, you're using your
glutes and your hamstrings andyour calf muscles.
Okay, so those are the musclesthat weaken when the dog can't
get up Right.
It's the muscles of proposal,got it?
It also works the triceps whenthey're going backwards, which
are the major standing musclesfor the front end, and it's
working the brain, because theyhave to think about stepping
(26:16):
back, and where they're placingtheir feet Sideways is because a
lot of dogs have hip issues orshoulder issues, and we're
walking sideways stimulates andstrengthens the muscles that
support the hips and theshoulders.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Interesting.
That makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, think about old dogs.
What's the most common injury Isee is they run, run, run and
they do a splay right wheneither the front legs go out or
the back legs go out, whetherthey're running, whether they're
on ice or a slippery, you know,wood floor or whatever.
And by strengthening, by doingside steps and strengthening
that, you can increase that ortake it away.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Right.
What are some of the commonmistakes that we make when we're
implementing an exerciseprogram for our dogs?
We can worry your syndrome.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
What is that?
Yeah, that was when I Lindsay'snodding.
She's like uh-huh.
It's when the client or petparent doesn't work with their
dog Monday through Friday andthen Saturday comes and they go
for a 10-mile run, right, right.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
So I'm like I'm ready .
I'm a cute and ant.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Just because you only have time two days a week.
Exercises can be five minutesonce or twice a day.
It can be 20 minutes threetimes a week.
I always tell people look atyour calendar, pick your two to
three busiest days in the weekand don't do any exercises that
day as long as they're not rightnext to each other, right.
But then the other days dosomething.
Even for humans they say youhave increased life expectancy
(27:55):
and health.
So we can talk about lifespanand health span If you go for a
walk for 25 minutes five times aweek, right.
So we can take that into thedog world and say do what we can
.
The other thing I'll tell youthat's really important to know
is people say my dog'soverweight, so I'm going to cut
(28:16):
their food.
But if we just cut theircalories, then their dog is
going to use in their normaldaily life.
They're going to use muscle tosupply the calories that they
need.
They're not just going to burnfat.
So they will literally lose,pound per pound, the same amount
of muscle as they do fat.
(28:36):
But there's research that showsthat if you exercise while
cutting calories, you lose thefat and you keep your muscle.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
That makes sense.
That makes sense.
Can we circle way back to thebeginning, when we talked about
how you were the first one, theone of the first people, or the
first people to develop anunderwater treadmill for dogs?
Mostly because I think it's sofreaking cute.
I know it serves a purpose, butwhen I've had clients where
I've had to take them to,there's a wonderful place not
(29:07):
far from me that does likeveterinary rehab and I've just
had a few clients with manyyears ago.
But I remember the first time Isaw all the kiddos in their
underwater treadmills.
Can we talk A how did youdevelop that?
And B what are some of thebenefits of that?
I mean, I'm sure it's much likeus doing water aerobics, maybe
some sort of to relieve some ofthe pressure on your joints, but
(29:29):
I would love to hear a littlebit more about that because it's
really cute, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
So underwater treadmill was designed for the
first for horses.
Because what happened?
There were race horses, sothey're very, very expensive and
they would get hurt when theywere racing and then they would
have surgery and then they wouldbe in stall rest and then they
would never come back.
So they said, okay, let's takethis idea and let's swim them,
(29:56):
and this way we'll keep themuscle.
But then what they found waswhen they were swimming them
they came back and they werejust as strong and then they
would break a bone, because youdon't have the pounding which is
what strengthens the bone.
So then they come up with theunderwater treadmill for horses
and then, like I don't know, 10,15 years later, they came up
with it for people.
And then I'm like this would beperfect for my geriatric dogs.
(30:19):
So we had the first one andliterally I took a human
treadmill, I took a jet ski lift.
So imagine the crank on a jetski lift.
I called the local zoo and saidhow do you make your polar bear
tanks?
And I got the same glass thatthey use.
And I had a pool company comein and it was an upside down
(30:42):
cement cup with a right side upcement cup on it.
And then so I had it, so it wasonly 28 inches high so that the
dogs could walk up a long rampand get on, so that we weren't
lifting.
They didn't have any problemswith falling.
We had a security camera thatlooked through the glass, and
then we had a TV monitor, soright so that we could watch
(31:07):
while we're working with thedogs.
We could see exactly what theywere doing.
What else?
And then we learned that youget from a jet ski lift if you
keep doing that, you gettendonitis in your elbow.
So when we did our new boatlift that could hold literally
3,000 pounds and that was that.
So it was.
There was just pushing a button.
(31:28):
It was much, much nicer.
So I actually designed thisbefore there were any of the
tanks.
And then what happened was Ipresented at the first
international symposium onsports medicine and
rehabilitation oh my gosh, andmaybe 2000, 2001, something in
(31:49):
there and I had a video of Nala,who was a patient of mine, a
Rottweiler who has a tail.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
That's Dr Lindsay, the name of Dr Lindsay's dog.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Oh, awesome.
And in the video it shows herin the underwater treadmill
because we had the camera fromthe side, where she's just
dragging her back legs.
And then I find a magic spot ontheir tail about a third of the
way down and all of a suddenshe starts taking steps and
everyone was like what?
And then through the years welearned about central pattern
(32:23):
generators and how dogs and catshave these things that can
actually create stepping motions, even if the spinal cord is
transected, so we can get whatwe call spinal walkers.
But clients don't care what youcall it.
I've had dogs that haveliterally broken their back and
been paralyzed, no pain, and getthem back to walking five or
(32:44):
six miles on a trail with theirowner, because that's what the
dog lives for.
Because of this spinal walkingOkay, and it's not gonna save
everybody Helps a lot of dogs.
And then we saw the geriatricdogs were like taking the weight
off their joints, the buoyancy.
And then we had our athletesand we're like look, we can put
(33:04):
jets in there.
So water and air are blowing atthem at different amounts so
that we can increase theresistance.
So water can be up to 60 timesmore resistant than air.
At the same time, we havebuoyancy, and then you have
hydrostatic pressure, right.
So if there's inflammation, thepressure of the water actually
decreases, it increases thecirculation and decreases the
(33:28):
inflammation and the edema orswelling in the tissue.
So it helps so so many things.
And now, believe it or not,they sell more underwater
treadmills for dogs than they dofor horses and humans.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Oh my gosh, wow, I hope.
Did you patent it?
No, Okay, are there any dogsthat you come across that don't
that are just too terrified todo the underwater?
I mean, I know my dog inparticular.
He's not a fan of water.
He'll take a bath, but that'sabout it.
I tried to teach him to swimwhen we were younger and he was
(34:02):
not interested.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
So and I know I have some clients who are absolutely
terrified of water yeah, I haveonly had one dog that was a
Border Collie that wentabsolutely crazy and like
flailed and we couldn't calmthem down for anything but like
there's things like the Samoyedsor the really overweight
(34:24):
Goldens and what they'll do isyou put them in the underwater
treadmill and they pick theirfeet up and they go look, I can
float, yeah.
So enough.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Right, I was just thinking about a golden who a
client of mine once he said thatwho passed not too long ago at
15, but he would have loved thatunderwater treadmill.
But he would have probably donethe same thing like, oh yeah,
Just floated yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
But like, so we work with them, right, right, so we
make the water only carfus orwrist tight, yeah, and then as
they are walking, then we slowlyincrease the height so that it
goes up to either the point ofthe shoulder, the point so in
the underwater treadmill, if youwant the most resistance with
the least buoyancy, so you wantto work this dog, you put the
(35:10):
water at you can't see me, butat the elbow height, right, you
don't have the body in the water, so you don't have the buoyancy
, but they have all theresistance In humans.
You take your arms straight outand you make little L's with
your hands and you touch yourthigh.
If you were at that height inthe water, you're going to have
the most resistance without thebuoyancy.
Right, for your old dogs thathave a lot of arthritis.
(35:31):
We're going to put him at justabout, maybe a little bit above
shoulder height.
If you go too high, have youever been in water up to here
and you go up on your tippy toes?
Yeah, right up to your chin,yeah, yeah.
You can't take long strides.
You're up on your tippy toes intiny steps, so you don't want
to go too high, because then thedogs don't take normal strides.
You want them to have nice longstrides in the underwater
(35:55):
treadmill, got it?
That makes sense.
Yeah, I can tell you all kindsof tips to make dogs work.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
OK, my last question is and I don't know if you have
other questions, dr Lindsey, butmy last question is what if you
have just a dog that doesn'twant to exercise?
Let's say you got a bulldog and, not to generalize it, all
English bulldogs are lazy lovers, but they are like a lot of
them don't like to do a lot ofwork or I have a lot that will
(36:23):
maybe like pancake we callpancake.
They just don't want to walk,they just you go outside and
they just stand right there andthey're like yeah, no, I'm good,
I'm not interested in this.
How do you motivate a dog who'sunmotivated to exercise?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
So we look for what motivates the dog.
So I have literally traineddogs to re-walk when they were
paralyzed.
We had one option that the onlything he would walk for was
coffee.
So he's only told us he wouldwalk, so we'd take a spiral cup
and cut it down like acentimeter of coffee in there,
and then we'd have him walkthree steps.
(37:00):
He would get to go lap, lap, lapand then we would move it.
I had one dog that the onlything he would walk for was
caramelized popcorn.
It couldn't even be cheese orsome other flavor, it had to be
caramelized.
So interesting I had one dogthat had no food motivation at
all but had done agility andloved the tunnel.
(37:20):
So we literally put a tunnel upand then every time she did an
exercise then she was allowed togo through the tunnel tunnel
tunnel back to an exercise.
Oh, that's cute.
I've had a St Bernard who hadcruciate injury and decided that
she was going to die becauseher knee hurt and she, at
(37:43):
140,000 pounds, refused to getup and we put her on a support.
We can put them on a peanut ball, like more of a round ball
that's shaped like a peanut, andwe rock them back and forth
until they realize they canstand, or in a standing
apparatus or a cart so that theydon't have the ability to lay
down, and then we can tickletheir toes.
(38:05):
And it's very, very importantthat you communicate with the
dog.
So imagine I pushed you, Ipushed you, I pushed you, you
turn around and you push me back.
But if I pushed you and said,thank you, charlotte, I so
appreciate you taking that step.
And then I pushed you and youtook a step and I said, oh my
gosh, charlotte, thank you, thatis awesome.
(38:27):
And then I pushed you.
Before I even get to the push,you're going to take a step.
So working with the dog andpraising them for everything
that they do is so simple andimportant than just trying to
correct them or ignore thethings they do wrong.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Positive reinforcement.
It works, you guys.
It works with people and pets.
Yep, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I will do almost everything for chocolate.
It definitely works.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
That's true.
I don't know how we can talkabout this, but the other thing
I really appreciated about thewet lab was the way that you
just very organically integratein energy medicine into what you
do, because that is so.
That really has made a hugedifference, like for myself as a
person, for a lot of thepatients that I've worked with,
and I feel like, of course, inthe holistic community it's a
(39:14):
lot more accepted, but on theconventional side you know, they
, they think we're who and let'sjust all these terms that
they'll throw around but it is.
It is so important, I think,probably almost even more
important for Our animalcompanions then for humans,
because they don't havepreconceived notions, are just
open vessels.
So I didn't know if you wantedto touch on that at all, because
(39:35):
it's it's very refreshing tosee someone that is as as
accomplished as you that seesthe importance in that.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
I would love to tell you the story about how I
figured I won't say I didn'tfigure it out how I learned
about this, about energymedicine.
I always listen to.
To me it's God, it could be theuniverse, whatever you've got,
feel whatever.
And I was in general medicineand I was at a great clinic and
I had a parvo golden retrieverand everybody thought she was
(40:07):
going to die.
And it was Friday night and sowe did the responsible thing
right, you can't leave her atthe clinic.
We were closed for the weekend.
So we took her to the emergency, or her parents took her to the
emergency clinic and I kepthearing you got to go visit that
dog.
I'm like it's a 45 minute drivefor me from my house on the
weekend to go visit that dog.
(40:27):
And I kept hearing you got togo visit that dog and like why
would I go visit that dog?
It's not going to live.
But I had to write deep insideof me and I'm like, ok, these
people don't know me, I've neverbeen to the emergency clinic,
but I drove there.
I'm like, all right, god, nowwhat do I do?
And I had no clue.
(40:47):
So I just sat and I just heldthe dog, put my hands on the dog
, held the dog and spent like 15minutes just loving on the dog
and I'm like, did I do what Iwas supposed to do?
I don't know.
And I left and Monday morningcomes and I'm thinking we're
going to get the phone call.
Oh, I'm sorry she passed awayand we get the phone call from
(41:08):
the owner.
Thank you so much.
The emergency clinic told usI'm going to cry from the moment
you left.
That dog turned around and gotbetter and she was up and she
lived and I said there'ssomething to this.
Ok, god, take me, teach me andI continue to learn.
I just learned about I don'tknow if you've taken Patrice
(41:30):
Corsica's class on osteopathy Todo, to do, and I am so, so, so
excited because I teach part ofthe pain management course for
Vin Right.
The people take to getcertified in pain management and
I went to.
We had a full meeting and I'mlike guys, I know this isn't in
(41:53):
the exam, but this is reallycool, the things I can do with
this tuning fork.
And I thought they were goingto be like yeah, no.
So you know, 10 years ago theywere like laser, I'm not sure.
And then, you know, eight yearsago they were like PEMF, I'm
not sure and they were like allright, laurie, you're on, learn
about it as much as you can withFASHA.
And by 2025 there will betuning for a lecture, including
(42:17):
tuning fork with FASHA in theVin pain management course.
Tell me, that is an exciting.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
That's amazing.
And, for those that don't know,vin is the veterinary
information network, so it's areally robust resource that we
all use collectively,professionally, to communicate
with each other.
There's specialists on there,there's general practitioners on
there, so that just goes toshow that the conventional, our
conventional colleagues areputting more weight into a lot
(42:45):
of the things that have beendisregarded and discredited for
a really long time.
That's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
It is and in fact we, you know, every year we teach
and Jan Huntingford and I havethe non pharmaceutical part of
it, and this year they're likeOK, it looks like we want to
increase.
Right, there's more and morepeople that are wanting to take
this course.
We want to increase our timeand they asked us specifically
(43:12):
they want to increase palliativecare, hospice which just warms
my heart and more rehab, painmanagement, rehab and I'm like
that is amazing here, I thoughtthey're.
You know, every year I'm like,oh, my god, are they going to
say they're going to cut usbecause you know it's not drug
related?
And they actually increased ourtime, which, again, just one.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Can we circle back really quickly and explain what
tuning fork is?
I have heard that term beforeand I'd like to know how it
applies to veterinary medicineor how it applies to healing.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
A tuning fork.
In general, medicine is used ifyou think you have a bone
fracture and it causes avibration.
So if it's put it on there, thebones vibrate and you can tell
there's a fracture because allof a sudden it's painful.
But, as I'm learning, there'sdifferent frequencies, which
makes sense, right?
I actually just heard a of aresearch article I have it ready
(44:07):
, yet I have it on using soundfrequencies to treat some kind
of cancer like holy cow.
That's cool, but this is atuning fork at a specific
frequency that releases fascia,so trigger points.
I just for the first time usedit on.
I had a patient last week thathad like half inch thick scar
(44:32):
tissue.
She licked her tarsus, her, herheart joint and that had an
ulceration and that's healed.
But there's so much scar tissueit's uncomfortable and
literally we use the laser andgot it in half.
And then I'm like let's try thetuning fork and it got in half
again.
Wow, so I'm still learning andamazingly cool that's super cool
(44:57):
, you do sound therapy, drLindsay.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
I do, yeah, so, yeah, so I.
I have one patient inparticular that the reason the
pet parent reached out to me wasbecause the dog, because she,
uses an animal communicator.
The dog requested aveterinarian that did
acupuncture and sound healingand Reiki and we happened to
connect and I have never Ireally should record it the
response that that dog has.
I'll put acupuncture needles inher and then I have a singing
(45:23):
bowl and a gong and a chime thatI play and she, just her whole
body melts.
Sound healing is incrediblypowerful because I mean we all,
frequency is is life.
I think we just don't knowenough about it to be able to,
you know, stay in a conventionalscientific way.
Yes, it's doing this, but I'mso excited that there are
studies that are coming out thatare helping to support that, so
(45:46):
that we can give thatinformation to more people,
because it really is so simple.
There's no side effects, right,yeah, so it is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Well, I know what my next episode is going to be.
I mean, dive deep and deeperinto this, because this is
amazing and I'm getting chillslike talking about all of this.
So I mean, I know I'minterested in all those same
things for myself, so whywouldn't I be for my pet, right?
So can.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
I take one step further and this may be more
than you want to know, but Ireally just came out with a
course called optimum lasertherapy.
No, I'm sorry, at home lasertherapy because when I look at,
I teach at LSU, the LouisianaState Vet School, and I see
(46:34):
these kids coming out andthere's not enough veterinarians
right now to take care, right,everybody, covid, everybody got
a dog, yeah, right, or cat, yeah, and then all the veterinarians
that were of retirement age arelike I'm not doing this anymore
and they left.
They sold their practices.
Corporates are buying it up,yeah, so I was led to her at
last year at the pet innovationsummit, which is the veterinary
(46:58):
feel.
It was a conference not for theveterinarians but for the
companies that support theveterinary field.
So Merck, amazon, chewy, a lotof the those kind of companies
and one of the big thing, theinsurance companies.
One of the big things they saidis pets are the new kids and
(47:20):
plants are the new pets.
Right, so there's not.
People are more and more like mydog.
He sleeps in my bed under thecover.
I there's many nights I fallasleep holding his paw.
His tent is on my pillow halfthe time.
Right, he is my kid.
My kids are grown up rightthere, adults now.
He is my kid right now.
Yeah, I want what's best forhim.
(47:42):
Yeah, and the veterinary fieldisn't there Again.
I work with a lot of, a lot ofagility people and a lot of
people whose dogs are their kids.
Yeah, and I say 50 to 70% ofthem own a laser and at the time
, zero of them knew how to useit appropriately.
So I created this program sothat they could learn how to use
(48:05):
their lasers.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
How do we like ingrain in people how important
this is, how important like the,the, the being proactive about
our the, the, the, the healthand wellness of our pets.
So they don't, so we're nothaving to put them down at like
10 because of the osteoarthritis, right?
So I mean, that's a whole otherepisode.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
But it's exactly what you're doing, yeah, you're
educating people, you're gettingthe word out so people
understand.
One, we can do this, yeah.
And two, they're not alone,right.
So the more people you havethat listen to your podcasts
yeah, and the more peopleunderstand, they realize there's
lots and lots of people likethem who love their dog yeah,
(48:46):
and it's okay and we supportthem and that's a wonderful
thing.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Well, thank you so much for jumping on and doing
this with me.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
I appreciate you inviting me on.
This was wonderful and again, Ihope it helps pet parents
everywhere.
Thanks for doing what you do.
So is your dog's name Oliver.
So you said, yes, I love thatname for a dog.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And he's 14, and he's like standing at the far end of
the yard going.
Hmm, I mean no.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm sorry, that's OK Right here, right here.
Good Good job, buddy.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
There we go.
Now we're going to have toworry about him because it's
raining and cold outside, ohyeah.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
You don't want him to stand out there and just stay
there forever you say he's 14.
What kind of puppy is he?
He's a mastiff cross.
Oh my gosh, and he's 14.
Good job.
Well, yes, you're a longevityexpert, so that makes sense.
That's fantastic.
Oh, how lucky.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So yeah, I lost my dog's at 18 and a half a couple
years ago A couple years ago.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh, I love that.
I'm not too familiar withdoxins, but I've been noticing
there's been a lot of the longhair doxins in my neighborhood
lately.
They're so cute.
Is there a specific differencebetween those two?
Are they different variationsof the breed?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
obviously, so there's minis, which are like 10 pounds
, and under there's the regularones that were bred to hunt the
badgers, which are like 15 to 30pounds.
There's tweenies, which are theones that are in between Got it
, and they have personalities,and then in each set you can
(01:33):
have different coat colors.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
So there's a lot of variation Got it.
Was your guy in between or washe a?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
No, he was a mini.
He was only eight pounds Awcute.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Well, thanks you two for popping on, and Dr Lori, I'm
very excited to meet you, DrHeather, who I've been doing
rehab rehabilitation with withmy own dog, who is going to be
16 next month.
I've been seeing her since hewas like seven years old when he
was diagnosed withosteoarthritis, and she is one
of the.
I think 80% of why he's stillmoving and grooving and trucking
(02:07):
along so well is because of ourcontinuous work with her.
So you are like the pioneer ofveterinary rehabilitation and
physical therapy, which I thinka lot of people don't even think
about when it comes to theirpets, unless perhaps they have
some sort of like major injurythat they need to rehabilitate
from right A torn ligament orsomething like that.
(02:28):
Do you want to introduceyourself to my listeners and
tell us a little bit about you?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So I'm Dr Lori McCauley.
I graduated from vet school in1992.
I did six years of regularpractice, fell down the stairs
at three o'clock in the morning,hurt my dogs out.
Of course I hurt my back.
My chiropractor couldn't fix me.
I went to the orthopedicsurgeon who said you need to go
see a PT and it was like a lightbulb went off and I went oh my
(02:55):
God, this is so cool, this iswhat I want to do for dogs, and
said I'll take a course.
And of course there were nocourses at the time.
So I went.
I did some research with alarge hospital that had a human
PT on staff that was just doinga little bit of work and we did
some research together.
And then I opened up theworld's first rehab center for
(03:16):
dogs.
I designed the first underwatertreadmill.
I've been blessed to be able towrite multiple chapters for
textbooks and articles.
I've lectured all over theworld.
I have let's see what else.
I taught the rehabcertification course.
I was one of the maininstructors for 14 years.
(03:37):
I've had interns from 17countries.
I love, love, love teaching andmy mission in life is
empowering people to help theirpets.
So whether it be veterinariansthat I'm helping technicians,
pet parents.
Every time I help somebody,help their pet, it fills my cup
and warms my heart.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
That's fantastic.
And Dr Lindsay, you were justmentioning, I think that you
took one of her courses recently.
Did I get that correct?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I did.
Yeah, she offered a kind ofit's like a miniature we call
them wet labs or a hands-onlaboratory during the last
holistic veterinary medicalassociation conference and I
also have known Dr Heather foryears and she has sung your
praises since I've met her, so Iwas very excited and honored to
have the opportunity to be ableto learn from you.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I love, love, love, because I think about it like
the ripple effect.
Right, I help you and you helppet parents, and then they help
their dogs, or you help theirdogs, and I'm just so blessed
that I have that ability andthat opportunity.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Well, thank you for all that you do and all that
you've accomplished.
My guy wouldn't be moving andgrooving if probably if it
wasn't for you and all of yourwork.
So I really appreciate it andthank you.
And I wanted to talk about.
One of the things you oftentalk about is the importance of
exercise for our pets, and Ithink when we think about
exercise, we automatically thinkof like running, you know, or
(05:00):
like fast walking.
What does that look like?
What is the importance ofexercise look like, and what
does exercise look like in youreyes for our pets?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So you know there's, if you think about exercise in
humans, right.
So we have something to compareit to.
You've got your marathonrunners who can run, run, run,
but then you ask them to liftsomething heavy and they can't
Right.
And then you've got your what Icall gym rats, right, the
people who are out at the gymfive days a week.
They're really built, yeah, butyou ask them to run and they're
(05:30):
out of breath immediately,right?
So there's different types ofmuscle fibers in our bodies and
it's the same with dogs.
So there's two important sidesof that.
We want to be able to increaseendurance, whether it be heart,
lungs and the muscles, and thenwe also want to increase
strength, and we increasestrength to decrease the chance
of injury.
(05:50):
And, believe it or not, thosetwo things the runner and the
person who is doing differentexercises, and building the type
two muscle fibers.
That actually affects the brainas well.
So the I'm going to go for awalk, I'm going to walk my dog,
I'm going to swim my dog, I'mgoing to run my dog, and that
actually increases the number ofneurons in their brain.
(06:10):
I'm going to learn somethingnew.
I'm going to lift weights.
I'm going to do new tricks I'mgoing to do.
That kind of stuff Increasesthe life expectancy of each
neuron in their brain.
So by comparing the two, bydoing the endurance exercises
and the targeted exercises, weactually increase cognitive
(06:31):
function in the dog.
We increase endorphins so thatthey're happier, they're less
stressed.
There's so many things that wecan help with.
We can.
We can decrease the chance ofmetabolic issues.
A bunch of Canadian physicianshave actually have a statement
out that says that exercise isthe largest underutilized tool
(06:55):
for controlling pain associatedwith arthritis in humans.
Right, so we take that andbring that into our pets.
So many of our dogs are onsupplements or medications and
that's great.
But if we can strengthen themuscles, tendons and ligaments
around the joints, we canpotentially get them off of
things that may have sideeffects as well as cost and get
(07:18):
them doing fun things.
That increases their bond withtheir owner, increases their
happiness, literally.
There's tons of research thatshows that exercise increases
longevity.
So we're just talking a littlebit off air about, you know,
having our pets live a long time.
Exercise is a big part of that.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And this is something that we should just implement
from the get go.
Like, how does it change asthey age, right, like, how does
it the level of exercise and thekind of exercise, because
there's so many different things.
You're talking about strengthtraining.
How do we do strength trainingwith our dogs, right?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I can't see my dog lifting many ways I wish this
was on video, but so my dog Sid,who usually he's next to me now
, usually he's behind me heliterally came to me with
straight knees, straightshoulders and a long back Right,
and I'm a rehab mom.
So I looked at him and go,you're not going to have a
(08:18):
cruciate injury, I will notallow you to have a shoulder
injury, You're not going to havea back injury or an iliopsoas
injury.
So I put together an exerciseprogram for him to help
strengthen and support all ofthat stuff and then I shared it
with friends of mine.
And one of my friends, whoactually lives in Chicago, so a
thousand miles away, wrote backand said oh my God, Lori Sophia
(08:43):
is a niffer dog, she's acompetitive agility dog and I
think we started when she waslike 10, nine and a half 10.
And she's like I thought my dogwas strong, she does hurting.
So she does all the runningsports right, she does obedience
, she does the agility.
She's like my dog is probablythree pounds this is a small
shelter three pounds heavier andit's all muscle Right.
(09:06):
And at 11, she was the seventhfastest shelter in agility, in
the bad dog agility.
So everybody else is like four,five and six and at 11, she was
in the top 10, which is justamazing.
She's like Lori.
You need to share this withothers and that's why I created
(09:28):
corn more.
So the exercise and corn moreis your exercise.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
But is that something that's available for for pet
parents too?
Yes, absolutely, oh great.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, yep, core and more foundational exercises for
your dog Okay.
And you can get on my websiteoptimum pet vitalitycom, and
it's right there, okay.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
So what?
Here's my question, some of myquestions how do we know?
How do we know if we're A ifour dog is getting enough
exercise and B If we're pushingour dog too hard to get exercise
right?
Excellent?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
questions yeah, so facial expressions Okay, right,
so when we look for signs offatigue and I don't want to push
it, but it's all in the courseright?
Signs of fatigue are ears thatare perc.
Ears will come back and thendown A tail that's what they
call a gay tail that comesacross the back, will actually
(10:31):
unravel and come down.
Signs of stress, signs offatigue Heavy panting right, so
dogs don't sweat.
They literally cool themselvesoff by panting.
And when a dog starts tooverheat, their tongue will
flatten out so it has a largersurface area.
They'll pant and you'll watchtheir head move, literally
(10:53):
because they don't want tobreathe in the hot air.
They just breathe out.
Their eyes will dilate.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Is that why they do that Right, so panting, and they
are moving.
They move around a lotInteresting.
I did not know that, okay.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yep, they pick places that has cool air Makes sense.
Yeah yeah, rob Gillette didthat study probably 20 years ago
.
It's so cool.
He did it for hunting dogs, gotit?
Yep, so there's lots of signsof fatigue.
You may see their head comedown, their eyes may, like I
said, if they're stressedthey'll dilate.
Their facial features may comeflat.
(11:28):
They may be looking for a signof escape, especially if they're
on a treadmill or somethinglike that.
They'll be like this is reallyhard, I don't know if I can do
this.
And they'll look around saying,okay, where am I going to go?
So it's body language.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, learning about canine body language in general
is something that we all need todo as pet parents for many
different reasons you justmentioned.
You just mentioned treadmill.
Do you recommend like treadmillwork, like putting your dog on
a treadmill, or are therecertain dogs that shouldn't do
activity?
Because I know it's hard for alot of people to even get out
and walk their dogs after theywork.
(12:03):
They're exhausted and they wantto work out themselves and
maybe your dog does a differentpace than you do.
Then you have to do like doublethe workout.
You really don't want to do it,so you recommend something like
doing a treadmill workout withyour dog.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
It depends, okay.
So if I have somebody who wantsto work with their dog and go
walking and stuff like that,it's always better for both to
walk than to be on a treadmill.
I spent 24 years in Chicagowhere the winters were
horrendous.
Yeah, right, so a treadmill.
There was a wonderful thing Iworked with a lot of police dogs
(12:39):
, so this way the police couldbe studying as they were going
through their coursework Right?
So I worked with them beforethey were officially on the
force and they would work up toan hour and a half on the
treadmill three times a week onan incline.
So if you're going to theincline, it actually decreases
the amount of exercise than ifyou're flat.
(13:00):
So, absolutely, the strength isto be at an incline.
Well, it makes sense, right?
If you're going at an incline,the weight is shifted back and
the back legs, or your musclesor the limbs of propulsion
pushing you forward, your frontlegs are your deceleration.
So if you have dogs that arelike agility dogs, where they
(13:21):
have to wrap around somethingright, they have to slow down
really fast Then working thefront end is super important.
But most of the time, what Isee with clients is the thought
of how many times when I was ingeneral medicine, people said,
doc, my dog just couldn't get upanymore so I put him to sleep.
Yes, stop Right.
(13:45):
One of my goals is to stop that.
One of my goals is to take.
Right now, 80% of orthopedicsurgeries in the dog world is
cruciate injuries.
I would love to drop that toless than 20%.
That's one of my goals.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
For those of us who may not know what that means,
but have an idea what iscruciate injuries Like a
ligament or like a Greatquestion.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
So in humans they call it an ACL.
Okay, yeah, right.
So a knee injury where you teara knee but the tear one of the
leg.
It's like a cross.
Cruciate means cross.
Okay, they're one of thoseligaments and in dogs right now
to have that surgery is $5,000to $7,000 and that's without the
rehab.
Wow, and 50 to 60% of themwithin the next two years will
(14:31):
tear the other one.
So strengthening the dog'sknees, the tendons and ligaments
and the muscles around it thatsupport it, are super, super
important.
Finding inflammation beforethey tear and then getting rid
of it.
Super, super important to tryto decrease the chance of doing
that.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Got it and what are some of the ways that we can get
rid of that inflammationwithout using, like you know, in
addition to using, you know,medication?
I personally like to use asminimal medication as I can with
chance, Even at his age.
We only use, like our medicamsand our maloxicams, like
whenever he's having some sortof a big flare up.
(15:14):
What are some of the ways thatwe can help our dogs with that
inflammation in order to preventsome of these injuries?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
So one is simple as keeping them lean, right.
So white fat, right.
So if you were to look insidethe dog and you see fat, that's
actually endocrine organ, andjust the fat, not just the
weight of the dog, but the fatitself will create chemicals in
the body that increaseinflammation throughout the body
(15:43):
.
Right, Exercise, justexercising, decreases
inflammation in the body, Right.
And then if you wantsupplements, you can use joint
supplements.
You know the whole glucosaminechondroitin thing, If you want
to.
Just one quick tip on that,because there was a meta
analysis, meaning one researchstudy that looked at lots and
(16:06):
lots and lots of researchstudies showed that when
glucosamine and chondroitin camefrom the whole animal so
greenlit muscles or pernamuscles it had a significant
effect.
When the glucosamine andchondroitin was isolated, so
taken out and you don't have therest of the coenzymes and the
rest of the part of the animal,it did not have the same results
(16:28):
.
So good quality supplements andI don't recommend just one.
I tell people, pick four orfive, and it's not like Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday you're on adifferent one, but you do one
bottle of this and then onebottle of that, because if
you're on the same thing all thetime, your body doesn't need it
, Right.
But if you're on thisglucosamine and chondroitin, and
(16:49):
this one has devil's claw andthis one has collagen and this
one has, you know, the avocadostuff and all of these different
things, then you're getting awhole array to help your dog.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Got it and now I need to mix up chances some of the
supplements, because we've beendoing the same one for quite
some time.
And at what age should we startgiving our dogs these
supplements?
Oh, there's your puppy.
What's he?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
doing?
What's he doing?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
He's back there, he is looking up.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Where's the acro on my lawn?
He may start screaming in asecond, because he is the ice, a
Carolina squirrel dog, amountain dog, and his biggest
thing in life is to chase crowsand squirrels.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Oh my gosh, that is so cute.
Yeah, he's ready to go.
He's ready to go, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
The other thing I have to say before we get off
supplements is omega-3 fattyacids.
There is more research on thatthan any other supplement to
help decrease inflammation andthat if you're like, ah, I don't
want to do any kind of drug,any kind of supplement,
something as simple as sardinesor a higher fish diet can get
you natural omega-3s.
And again, just like with theomega-3s I recommend, just like
(18:01):
the other supplements, Irecommend picking four or five
different ones and rotatingthrough.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Before we move off of omegas.
I'm actually curious to getyour opinion on this, because
I've heard kind of mixed thingsdepending on who I speak with.
How do you feel about salmonoil versus small fish in terms
of sourcing, like for ongoinguse?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Not my area of expertise.
I don't sourcing.
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
No, that's okay.
I was just curious because Iknow that some people have
concerns with salmon having somelevel of heavy metal
accumulation over time.
So when I talk about omegas, Iusually just like to mention to
people if you can try forsustainable sourcing, like small
fish, usually from Norwegianwaters, or micro algae.
(18:44):
That's another great sourcethat's popping up.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So, yeah, I have krill oil, I have, like Nordic
naturals, I have grizzlypolycoil.
So, again, staying away frommore from the salmon.
So I agree with you on that,but I don't have as much
information as you do.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I think I wanted to ask briefly what age we should
start to.
I think we got interrupted byyour cutie-petutie behind you.
But at what age should we startgiving our dogs these
supplements to help with theinflammation and help with the
keep them from getting any sortof injury, if we can?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
For me it's job dependent.
Oh, okay, If somebody comes tome and they say I want my dog to
be a world team agility dog, westart supplementation at six
months.
Wow, if I have a dog, that andagain that's from a study done
by Christian Kirk B Shaw onAtiquan, where they took beagles
(19:47):
and they took split litters andhalf of them they gave Atiquan
to and half of them they didn't,and then they ran the heck out
of them.
Then they looked at theircartilage and the ones that had
the supplementation beforehandor as they were going through it
had minimal damage to thecartilage and the pup that
didn't had tons of damage to thecartilage.
(20:09):
Now, if I have a pet andthey're not going to be training
constantly I don't think theyneed that Then to me it's
half-life.
If you have a dog, that'sexpected like a great day to
live to be seven to 10 years old.
You may start at five.
If I have a doxin that I expectto live to be 15 years old, we
(20:32):
may wait till we're six or seven.
It just depends upon that.
There's not a problem startingearlier.
I want my kids to eat healthytoo.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Right as our dogs age , how do we adjust our
expectations for exercise andare mindful of not overdoing it
in our senior dogs, Also beingmindful to actually, I think a
(21:04):
lot of people just let theirsenior dogs lie around because
they're like, oh, he's tired,he's old, he's whatever.
How do we encourage people toget up and even do just minimal
stuff, keep them moving?
What are the some?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
of the ways that we can do that.
Great point.
I have some of my clients thatcome in where, just like you
said, they have like oh, here'smy 16-year-old dog and he lays
around all day and he may get up.
I'm like that significantlydecreases life expectancy.
There are studies that showthat inactivity and lack of
(21:43):
stimulation significantly speedsthe degeneration of both the
brain and the body.
I will start those pets onthings like I need you to walk
to the mailbox three times a day, or if the client's
stay-at-home parent, it would befive times a day.
Just walk to the mailbox andthen it may be some of people
(22:05):
like I don't know if you canbecause I live on a farm you
maybe walk around the inside ofthe house and then the outside
of the house.
We have exercises that we can do, like rhythmic stabilization.
Again, I hate to bring it inagain, but Core War is all
exercises that work on stabilitythat are amazing for geriatric
(22:26):
dogs.
It's nothing pounding, it's thepounding that puts pressure on
the joints.
It's working on the musclesaround it, without the pounding
and without the shear force thatwe worry about with knees or
hips, that help build the muscleto help prevent Then again
learning new things in humans,something as simple as learning
(22:47):
a new language.
Learning a instrument increaseslife expectancy and
significantly increases neuronsin the brain.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
With our dogs.
Would that be something like anew game, or even walking in a
different neighborhood?
I was thinking, maybe if yourdog is able to get a plume in
the car and take them to adifferent neighborhood, they're
getting a little bit morestimulation in that way, they're
getting some mental stimulationthat's different than they're
used to Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
If your dog can't walk through them in a stroller
or wagon, I'll have clients likewith my neuro patients or my
really older dogs that will takethem to the park and then throw
a ball there or throw someleaves around them.
They'll be like what's this,what's that?
They'll be like.
I'm excited that makes themhappy and decreases stress,
(23:38):
releases endorphins andserotonin and all those happy
chemicals.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Right, that's great.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
I think the other important thing to note with
this, too, is greed differences.
Professionally, we know thatthere are certain dogs that are
far more prone to slipping adisc or an vertebral disc
disease.
Like Dr Laurie mentioned,investing in core strengthening
early on can be really, reallyhelpful, because there's very
(24:09):
little that we can offer interms of prevention coming from
a conventional aspect outside ofproper weight management.
I think it's another way forpeople to think about that.
Dr Laurie, I didn't know if youhad any other comments just
along those lines.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I can tell you again, if you can put this in the
notes.
I have a book, an e-book thatpeople can get called the Top 5
Exercises for Geriatric Dogs,that people can text the word
exercise to 1-866-949-0068.
(24:46):
It is my top five exercise thatare safe for anything from a
16-week-old puppy to a16-year-old dog.
I can tell you, when I lecture,the two most important
exercises and Lindsay, youprobably heard me say this.
If I can teach you just twoexercises, it would be walking
backwards and walking sideways.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Right, that's something you can say.
You know what we're going tofeed Fluffy, so, fluffy, you
have to start with walkingbackwards five steps and then
your bowl goes down.
Or, fluffy, you're going towalk sideways from the kitchen
to the living room and then back, and then your bowl goes down.
Or you can be on a walk and sayyou know what, every five
houses, we're going to walksideways a house and then five
(25:30):
houses and then we'll walksideways the other way.
So you can implement exercisesinto normal daily routine for
fun, mental stimulation and tostrengthen the most important
muscles to help a dog livelonger and decrease chance of
injury.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
And that's because you're moving muscles that you
don't normally use.
If you're going backwards andsideways, or so you're kind of
getting all the you're hittingall the angles.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
So when you go backwards, you're using your
glutes and your hamstrings andyour calf muscles.
Okay, so those are the musclesthat weaken when the dog can't
get up Right.
It's the muscles of proposal,got it?
It also works the triceps whenthey're going backwards, which
are the major standing musclesfor the front end, and it's
working the brain, because theyhave to think about stepping
(26:16):
back, and where they're placingtheir feet Sideways is because a
lot of dogs have hip issues orshoulder issues, and we're
walking sideways stimulates andstrengthens the muscles that
support the hips and theshoulders.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Interesting.
That makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, think about old dogs.
What's the most common injury Isee is they run, run, run and
they do a splay right wheneither the front legs go out or
the back legs go out, whetherthey're running, whether they're
on ice or a slippery, you know,wood floor or whatever.
And by strengthening, by doingside steps and strengthening
that, you can increase that ortake it away.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Right.
What are some of the commonmistakes that we make when we're
implementing an exerciseprogram for our dogs?
We can worry your syndrome.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
What is that?
Yeah, that was when I Lindsay'snodding.
She's like uh-huh.
It's when the client or petparent doesn't work with their
dog Monday through Friday andthen Saturday comes and they go
for a 10-mile run, right, right.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
So I'm like I'm ready .
I'm a cute and ant.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Just because you only have time two days a week.
Exercises can be five minutesonce or twice a day.
It can be 20 minutes threetimes a week.
I always tell people look atyour calendar, pick your two to
three busiest days in the weekand don't do any exercises that
day as long as they're not rightnext to each other, right.
But then the other days dosomething.
Even for humans they say youhave increased life expectancy
(27:55):
and health.
So we can talk about lifespanand health span If you go for a
walk for 25 minutes five times aweek, right.
So we can take that into thedog world and say do what we can
.
The other thing I'll tell youthat's really important to know
is people say my dog'soverweight, so I'm going to cut
(28:16):
their food.
But if we just cut theircalories, then their dog is
going to use in their normaldaily life.
They're going to use muscle tosupply the calories that they
need.
They're not just going to burnfat.
So they will literally lose,pound per pound, the same amount
of muscle as they do fat.
(28:36):
But there's research that showsthat if you exercise while
cutting calories, you lose thefat and you keep your muscle.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
That makes sense.
That makes sense.
Can we circle way back to thebeginning, when we talked about
how you were the first one, theone of the first people, or the
first people to develop anunderwater treadmill for dogs?
Mostly because I think it's sofreaking cute.
I know it serves a purpose, butwhen I've had clients where
I've had to take them to,there's a wonderful place not
(29:07):
far from me that does likeveterinary rehab and I've just
had a few clients with manyyears ago.
But I remember the first time Isaw all the kiddos in their
underwater treadmills.
Can we talk A how did youdevelop that?
And B what are some of thebenefits of that?
I mean, I'm sure it's much likeus doing water aerobics, maybe
some sort of to relieve some ofthe pressure on your joints, but
(29:29):
I would love to hear a littlebit more about that because it's
really cute, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
So underwater treadmill was designed for the
first for horses.
Because what happened?
There were race horses, sothey're very, very expensive and
they would get hurt when theywere racing and then they would
have surgery and then they wouldbe in stall rest and then they
would never come back.
So they said, okay, let's takethis idea and let's swim them,
(29:56):
and this way we'll keep themuscle.
But then what they found waswhen they were swimming them
they came back and they werejust as strong and then they
would break a bone, because youdon't have the pounding which is
what strengthens the bone.
So then they come up with theunderwater treadmill for horses
and then, like I don't know, 10,15 years later, they came up
with it for people.
And then I'm like this would beperfect for my geriatric dogs.
(30:19):
So we had the first one andliterally I took a human
treadmill, I took a jet ski lift.
So imagine the crank on a jetski lift.
I called the local zoo and saidhow do you make your polar bear
tanks?
And I got the same glass thatthey use.
And I had a pool company comein and it was an upside down
(30:42):
cement cup with a right side upcement cup on it.
And then so I had it, so it wasonly 28 inches high so that the
dogs could walk up a long rampand get on, so that we weren't
lifting.
They didn't have any problemswith falling.
We had a security camera thatlooked through the glass, and
then we had a TV monitor, soright so that we could watch
(31:07):
while we're working with thedogs.
We could see exactly what theywere doing.
What else?
And then we learned that youget from a jet ski lift if you
keep doing that, you gettendonitis in your elbow.
So when we did our new boatlift that could hold literally
3,000 pounds and that was that.
So it was.
There was just pushing a button.
(31:28):
It was much, much nicer.
So I actually designed thisbefore there were any of the
tanks.
And then what happened was Ipresented at the first
international symposium onsports medicine and
rehabilitation oh my gosh, andmaybe 2000, 2001, something in
(31:49):
there and I had a video of Nala,who was a patient of mine, a
Rottweiler who has a tail.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
That's Dr Lindsay, the name of Dr Lindsay's dog.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Oh, awesome.
And in the video it shows herin the underwater treadmill
because we had the camera fromthe side, where she's just
dragging her back legs.
And then I find a magic spot ontheir tail about a third of the
way down and all of a suddenshe starts taking steps and
everyone was like what?
And then through the years welearned about central pattern
(32:23):
generators and how dogs and catshave these things that can
actually create stepping motions, even if the spinal cord is
transected, so we can get whatwe call spinal walkers.
But clients don't care what youcall it.
I've had dogs that haveliterally broken their back and
been paralyzed, no pain, and getthem back to walking five or
(32:44):
six miles on a trail with theirowner, because that's what the
dog lives for.
Because of this spinal walkingOkay, and it's not gonna save
everybody Helps a lot of dogs.
And then we saw the geriatricdogs were like taking the weight
off their joints, the buoyancy.
And then we had our athletesand we're like look, we can put
(33:04):
jets in there.
So water and air are blowing atthem at different amounts so
that we can increase theresistance.
So water can be up to 60 timesmore resistant than air.
At the same time, we havebuoyancy, and then you have
hydrostatic pressure, right.
So if there's inflammation, thepressure of the water actually
decreases, it increases thecirculation and decreases the
(33:28):
inflammation and the edema orswelling in the tissue.
So it helps so so many things.
And now, believe it or not,they sell more underwater
treadmills for dogs than they dofor horses and humans.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Oh my gosh, wow, I hope.
Did you patent it?
No, Okay, are there any dogsthat you come across that don't
that are just too terrified todo the underwater?
I mean, I know my dog inparticular.
He's not a fan of water.
He'll take a bath, but that'sabout it.
I tried to teach him to swimwhen we were younger and he was
(34:02):
not interested.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
So and I know I have some clients who are absolutely
terrified of water yeah, I haveonly had one dog that was a
Border Collie that wentabsolutely crazy and like
flailed and we couldn't calmthem down for anything but like
there's things like the Samoyedsor the really overweight
(34:24):
Goldens and what they'll do isyou put them in the underwater
treadmill and they pick theirfeet up and they go look, I can
float, yeah.
So enough.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Right, I was just thinking about a golden who a
client of mine once he said thatwho passed not too long ago at
15, but he would have loved thatunderwater treadmill.
But he would have probably donethe same thing like, oh yeah,
Just floated yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
But like, so we work with them, right, right, so we
make the water only carfus orwrist tight, yeah, and then as
they are walking, then we slowlyincrease the height so that it
goes up to either the point ofthe shoulder, the point so in
the underwater treadmill, if youwant the most resistance with
the least buoyancy, so you wantto work this dog, you put the
(35:10):
water at you can't see me, butat the elbow height, right, you
don't have the body in the water, so you don't have the buoyancy
, but they have all theresistance In humans.
You take your arms straight outand you make little L's with
your hands and you touch yourthigh.
If you were at that height inthe water, you're going to have
the most resistance without thebuoyancy.
Right, for your old dogs thathave a lot of arthritis.
(35:31):
We're going to put him at justabout, maybe a little bit above
shoulder height.
If you go too high, have youever been in water up to here
and you go up on your tippy toes?
Yeah, right up to your chin,yeah, yeah.
You can't take long strides.
You're up on your tippy toes intiny steps, so you don't want
to go too high, because then thedogs don't take normal strides.
You want them to have nice longstrides in the underwater
(35:55):
treadmill, got it?
That makes sense.
Yeah, I can tell you all kindsof tips to make dogs work.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
OK, my last question is and I don't know if you have
other questions, dr Lindsey, butmy last question is what if you
have just a dog that doesn'twant to exercise?
Let's say you got a bulldog and, not to generalize it, all
English bulldogs are lazy lovers, but they are like a lot of
them don't like to do a lot ofwork or I have a lot that will
(36:23):
maybe like pancake we callpancake.
They just don't want to walk,they just you go outside and
they just stand right there andthey're like yeah, no, I'm good,
I'm not interested in this.
How do you motivate a dog who'sunmotivated to exercise?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
So we look for what motivates the dog.
So I have literally traineddogs to re-walk when they were
paralyzed.
We had one option that the onlything he would walk for was
coffee.
So he's only told us he wouldwalk, so we'd take a spiral cup
and cut it down like acentimeter of coffee in there,
and then we'd have him walkthree steps.
(37:00):
He would get to go lap, lap, lapand then we would move it.
I had one dog that the onlything he would walk for was
caramelized popcorn.
It couldn't even be cheese orsome other flavor, it had to be
caramelized.
So interesting I had one dogthat had no food motivation at
all but had done agility andloved the tunnel.
(37:20):
So we literally put a tunnel upand then every time she did an
exercise then she was allowed togo through the tunnel tunnel
tunnel back to an exercise.
Oh, that's cute.
I've had a St Bernard who hadcruciate injury and decided that
she was going to die becauseher knee hurt and she, at
(37:43):
140,000 pounds, refused to getup and we put her on a support.
We can put them on a peanut ball, like more of a round ball
that's shaped like a peanut, andwe rock them back and forth
until they realize they canstand, or in a standing
apparatus or a cart so that theydon't have the ability to lay
down, and then we can tickletheir toes.
(38:05):
And it's very, very importantthat you communicate with the
dog.
So imagine I pushed you, Ipushed you, I pushed you, you
turn around and you push me back.
But if I pushed you and said,thank you, charlotte, I so
appreciate you taking that step.
And then I pushed you and youtook a step and I said, oh my
gosh, charlotte, thank you, thatis awesome.
(38:27):
And then I pushed you.
Before I even get to the push,you're going to take a step.
So working with the dog andpraising them for everything
that they do is so simple andimportant than just trying to
correct them or ignore thethings they do wrong.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Positive reinforcement.
It works, you guys.
It works with people and pets.
Yep, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I will do almost everything for chocolate.
It definitely works.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
That's true.
I don't know how we can talkabout this, but the other thing
I really appreciated about thewet lab was the way that you
just very organically integratein energy medicine into what you
do, because that is so.
That really has made a hugedifference, like for myself as a
person, for a lot of thepatients that I've worked with,
and I feel like, of course, inthe holistic community it's a
(39:14):
lot more accepted, but on theconventional side you know, they
, they think we're who and let'sjust all these terms that
they'll throw around but it is.
It is so important, I think,probably almost even more
important for Our animalcompanions then for humans,
because they don't havepreconceived notions, are just
open vessels.
So I didn't know if you wantedto touch on that at all, because
(39:35):
it's it's very refreshing tosee someone that is as as
accomplished as you that seesthe importance in that.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
I would love to tell you the story about how I
figured I won't say I didn'tfigure it out how I learned
about this, about energymedicine.
I always listen to.
To me it's God, it could be theuniverse, whatever you've got,
feel whatever.
And I was in general medicineand I was at a great clinic and
I had a parvo golden retrieverand everybody thought she was
(40:07):
going to die.
And it was Friday night and sowe did the responsible thing
right, you can't leave her atthe clinic.
We were closed for the weekend.
So we took her to the emergency, or her parents took her to the
emergency clinic and I kepthearing you got to go visit that
dog.
I'm like it's a 45 minute drivefor me from my house on the
weekend to go visit that dog.
(40:27):
And I kept hearing you got togo visit that dog and like why
would I go visit that dog?
It's not going to live.
But I had to write deep insideof me and I'm like, ok, these
people don't know me, I've neverbeen to the emergency clinic,
but I drove there.
I'm like, all right, god, nowwhat do I do?
And I had no clue.
(40:47):
So I just sat and I just heldthe dog, put my hands on the dog
, held the dog and spent like 15minutes just loving on the dog
and I'm like, did I do what Iwas supposed to do?
I don't know.
And I left and Monday morningcomes and I'm thinking we're
going to get the phone call.
Oh, I'm sorry she passed awayand we get the phone call from
(41:08):
the owner.
Thank you so much.
The emergency clinic told usI'm going to cry from the moment
you left.
That dog turned around and gotbetter and she was up and she
lived and I said there'ssomething to this.
Ok, god, take me, teach me andI continue to learn.
I just learned about I don'tknow if you've taken Patrice
(41:30):
Corsica's class on osteopathy Todo, to do, and I am so, so, so
excited because I teach part ofthe pain management course for
Vin Right.
The people take to getcertified in pain management and
I went to.
We had a full meeting and I'mlike guys, I know this isn't in
(41:53):
the exam, but this is reallycool, the things I can do with
this tuning fork.
And I thought they were goingto be like yeah, no.
So you know, 10 years ago theywere like laser, I'm not sure.
And then, you know, eight yearsago they were like PEMF, I'm
not sure and they were like allright, laurie, you're on, learn
about it as much as you can withFASHA.
And by 2025 there will betuning for a lecture, including
(42:17):
tuning fork with FASHA in theVin pain management course.
Tell me, that is an exciting.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
That's amazing.
And, for those that don't know,vin is the veterinary
information network, so it's areally robust resource that we
all use collectively,professionally, to communicate
with each other.
There's specialists on there,there's general practitioners on
there, so that just goes toshow that the conventional, our
conventional colleagues areputting more weight into a lot
(42:45):
of the things that have beendisregarded and discredited for
a really long time.
That's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
It is and in fact we, you know, every year we teach
and Jan Huntingford and I havethe non pharmaceutical part of
it, and this year they're likeOK, it looks like we want to
increase.
Right, there's more and morepeople that are wanting to take
this course.
We want to increase our timeand they asked us specifically
(43:12):
they want to increase palliativecare, hospice which just warms
my heart and more rehab, painmanagement, rehab and I'm like
that is amazing here, I thoughtthey're.
You know, every year I'm like,oh, my god, are they going to
say they're going to cut usbecause you know it's not drug
related?
And they actually increased ourtime, which, again, just one.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Can we circle back really quickly and explain what
tuning fork is?
I have heard that term beforeand I'd like to know how it
applies to veterinary medicineor how it applies to healing.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
A tuning fork.
In general, medicine is used ifyou think you have a bone
fracture and it causes avibration.
So if it's put it on there, thebones vibrate and you can tell
there's a fracture because allof a sudden it's painful.
But, as I'm learning, there'sdifferent frequencies, which
makes sense, right?
I actually just heard a of aresearch article I have it ready
(44:07):
, yet I have it on using soundfrequencies to treat some kind
of cancer like holy cow.
That's cool, but this is atuning fork at a specific
frequency that releases fascia,so trigger points.
I just for the first time usedit on.
I had a patient last week thathad like half inch thick scar
(44:32):
tissue.
She licked her tarsus, her, herheart joint and that had an
ulceration and that's healed.
But there's so much scar tissueit's uncomfortable and
literally we use the laser andgot it in half.
And then I'm like let's try thetuning fork and it got in half
again.
Wow, so I'm still learning andamazingly cool that's super cool
(44:57):
, you do sound therapy, drLindsay.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
I do, yeah, so, yeah, so I.
I have one patient inparticular that the reason the
pet parent reached out to me wasbecause the dog, because she,
uses an animal communicator.
The dog requested aveterinarian that did
acupuncture and sound healingand Reiki and we happened to
connect and I have never Ireally should record it the
response that that dog has.
I'll put acupuncture needles inher and then I have a singing
(45:23):
bowl and a gong and a chime thatI play and she, just her whole
body melts.
Sound healing is incrediblypowerful because I mean we all,
frequency is is life.
I think we just don't knowenough about it to be able to,
you know, stay in a conventionalscientific way.
Yes, it's doing this, but I'mso excited that there are
studies that are coming out thatare helping to support that, so
(45:46):
that we can give thatinformation to more people,
because it really is so simple.
There's no side effects, right,yeah, so it is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Well, I know what my next episode is going to be.
I mean, dive deep and deeperinto this, because this is
amazing and I'm getting chillslike talking about all of this.
So I mean, I know I'minterested in all those same
things for myself, so whywouldn't I be for my pet, right?
So can.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
I take one step further and this may be more
than you want to know, but Ireally just came out with a
course called optimum lasertherapy.
No, I'm sorry, at home lasertherapy because when I look at,
I teach at LSU, the LouisianaState Vet School, and I see
(46:34):
these kids coming out andthere's not enough veterinarians
right now to take care, right,everybody, covid, everybody got
a dog, yeah, right, or cat, yeah, and then all the veterinarians
that were of retirement age arelike I'm not doing this anymore
and they left.
They sold their practices.
Corporates are buying it up,yeah, so I was led to her at
last year at the pet innovationsummit, which is the veterinary
(46:58):
feel.
It was a conference not for theveterinarians but for the
companies that support theveterinary field.
So Merck, amazon, chewy, a lotof the those kind of companies
and one of the big thing, theinsurance companies.
One of the big things they saidis pets are the new kids and
(47:20):
plants are the new pets.
Right, so there's not.
People are more and more like mydog.
He sleeps in my bed under thecover.
I there's many nights I fallasleep holding his paw.
His tent is on my pillow halfthe time.
Right, he is my kid.
My kids are grown up rightthere, adults now.
He is my kid right now.
Yeah, I want what's best forhim.
(47:42):
Yeah, and the veterinary fieldisn't there Again.
I work with a lot of, a lot ofagility people and a lot of
people whose dogs are their kids.
Yeah, and I say 50 to 70% ofthem own a laser and at the time
, zero of them knew how to useit appropriately.
So I created this program sothat they could learn how to use
(48:05):
their lasers.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
How do we like ingrain in people how important
this is, how important like the,the, the being proactive about
our the, the, the, the healthand wellness of our pets.
So they don't, so we're nothaving to put them down at like
10 because of the osteoarthritis, right?
So I mean, that's a whole otherepisode.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
But it's exactly what you're doing, yeah, you're
educating people, you're gettingthe word out so people
understand.
One, we can do this, yeah.
And two, they're not alone,right.
So the more people you havethat listen to your podcasts
yeah, and the more peopleunderstand, they realize there's
lots and lots of people likethem who love their dog yeah,
(48:46):
and it's okay and we supportthem and that's a wonderful
thing.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Well, thank you so much for jumping on and doing
this with me.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
I appreciate you inviting me on.
This was wonderful and again, Ihope it helps pet parents
everywhere.
Thanks for doing what you do.
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