Curly’s Journey

Curly was just coming up for 5 years old and had always been a very active dog along with my Patterdale Terrier and did lots of stairs to the flat I lived in and I didn’t give it a second thought. One day we were out on our morning walk and she was being, what I thought was a madam! She didn’t want to walk and just stopped and I had to hurry her along… she managed a few stairs when we got back but then just stopped so again, I thought she was being a madam!

I thought it was a bit strange so I asked my dog walker to keep and eye on her on her next walk and report back to me if needed.

Unfortunately when my dog walker arrived Curly had what we know as the drunken walk and wasn’t able to walk properly so immediately I took her to the vets and we were referred to a specialist vet in Derby for scans.

Curly had suffered a mild disc extrusion and the advice was conservative treatment rather than an operation and I was in for a long period of crate rest which ended up being 10 weeks.

I was referred to Karen for physio after the crate rest and we had great success!

We started off with a some small exercises on the wobble board using her trusted primula cheese as a tool and it worked a treat!

We also used some hoops for her to use to life her legs up to get over them and we built it up getting her to step and and down off the wobble board.

She also had laser therapy which she seemed to take to.

Sadly, I lost my Patterdale through this period and Curly her best friend but the exercises were such a good distraction for her and we made it a daily routine for a good 6 months.

She is great now with no subsequent episodes (fingers crossed) and is fully active and chases her ball and walks for miles, at a very steady pace.