Bernese Mountain Dog - NOT.
Elliott continues to progress in his recovery from ACL surgery. One of the biggest problems we have right now is that he has lost a lot of muscle on the surgical leg. He still goes to therapy and does work on the underwater treadmill, but we are now trying new ways to challenge different muscles in his leg and rebuild the muscle. One of the things we have been given the ok to do by our rehab vet, Dr. Leslie Woodcock, is to work sets of stairs every day as exercise. Another way to get him to dig in on the surgical leg in a controlled fashion is to have him pull a weight. She suggested a wagon or a toboggan with some books on it.
A great friend at work who is very sympathetic to Elliott and his rehab, and who has a whole passel of human children, loaned me one of her kids' toboggans so we could try having him pull it on our lawn. This morning Paul and I got Elliott suited up in his harness and set about trying to get Elliott to pull this toboggan. For now we are not putting any extra weight on the toboggan because it in itself weighs about 8-10 lbs. That's enough to start with.
Hooking up his harness to the toboggan with 2 leashes through the holes on the toboggan.
I was quite surprised that Elliott did not mind in the least when we hooked this thing up to him and did not freak out or even blink twice about us asking him to then pull it around the yard. I could see that it definitely made him work his surgical leg in a new way, but still in a controlled way. I think we will try to do this every other day to see if it will help to build up some muscle in his leg. If he becomes very good at it we can add a little more weight.
Quite the sight to see an English Springer Spaniel pulling a toboggan! Maybe this is an area for future competition!
What are you doing back there?
Coming, Dad!!!!!
