Sharing essential skills to keep dogs safe and healthy is fundamental to the K9HS ethos. It embraces our core philosophy that we are “all about the dog.”

A proactive approach to canine healthcare involves exploring a wide range of essential key skills to promote the best possible care.

This ensures canine therapists and those working with dogs are up to date with both emergency procedures and canine health knowledge, alongside their practical hands-on skills.

Therapists, veterinary professionals, trainers and owners all wish to offer the best possible canine care.

We know how important it is to regularly update and up-skill in a constantly evolving veterinary world.

A professional mindset embraces the idea that there is always something new to learn. This links seamlessly to a proactive, dog-centred practice and a deep desire to keep dogs safe.

Early Detection of Muscle Injuries

Canine injury detection using a proactive approach is always the ideal clinical path. It is far better to minimise and prevent issues from arising rather than responding to problems only once they become established.

A dog-centred approach to general fitness uses a wide range of health checks as an integral part of monitoring every dog’s health status.

These health checks are utilised in canine rehabilitation, physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, general healthcare, and in the athletic dog as part of conditioning, fitness, and optimising performance.

The Engine of Canine Movement

When we talk about muscles, we are talking about the force capacitors of canine movement. They provide the true power. However, muscle power is not just about the physical size of the muscle.

Power is determined by the specific architecture of the muscle fibres and how the body turns those muscles on. Think of the dog’s muscles as the engine of a car, and the proprioceptive system as the computer that tells the engine exactly when and how to fire.

Not all of the engine has to work at its maximum capacity for every single movement. The dog uses graded motor unit recruitment to ensure the movement is smooth and efficient.

Understanding Muscle Contractions

Isotonic exercise is dynamic, and isometric exercise is static. Successful rehabilitation requires both of these types of exercise within the treatment programme to positively influence the quality of canine function.

With isotonic exercise, there are two types of muscle contraction to consider:

• Concentric Contraction: This is where the muscle shortens and gives out power.
• Eccentric Contraction: This is where the muscle lengthens and gives out power.

A Clinical Fact

Eccentric contraction actually has a higher power output compared to concentric contractions.

We know that canine movement consists mainly of eccentric muscle contraction work. For example, when a dog runs downhill or when an agility dog corners tightly, those muscles are working eccentrically to brake and stabilise the dog’s body.

Therefore, it is essential to incorporate this type of loading into all treatment programmes once the dog is ready.

Individual treatment plans require closed-chain and open-chain kinetic exercise, as well as dynamic joint stability work.

The Tissue Healing Process

The tissue healing process for a muscle injury follows the exact same biological mechanism as other tissues.

The dog will go through an inflammatory phase, a repair phase, and a remodelling phase.

The primary goal of our rehabilitation is to encourage organised scar formation.

If an injured muscle is left to heal entirely on its own with prolonged immobility, the muscle fibres will heal randomly like dropped matchsticks. This creates excessive, disorganized scar tissue that physically interferes with the muscle’s ability to contract later on.

Conversely, if we push the dog to move too much, too soon, we increase granulation tissue and damage the healing environment.

The clinical sweet spot is controlled motion and appropriate stress at the right stage of healing. This promotes functional, parallel orientation of the regenerating muscle fibres so the dog can return to peak power.

Working With Canine Biomechanics

The dog is biomechanically designed to go forwards in the sagittal plane. Research evidences that backward movement is not a natural motion pattern and puts the canine biomechanical system under duress.

Using a car analogy to demonstrate these facts: the car is designed to primarily drive forwards, and reversing is simply a limited supplementary manoeuvre.

Research shows the importance of always working within the biomechanical design to limit additional unwanted forces through structures, which ultimately leads to design failure.

As clinical therapists, we choose techniques relevant to each dog’s specific needs to achieve positive outcomes.

We must always work in harmony with the canine biomechanical design to optimise their function, movement, and long-term health.

Curious to Delve Deeper?

If you are ready to review your clinical skills, problem-solving strategies and functional anatomy, we invite you to explore the K9 Therapy Hub.

It’s packed with advanced clinical training and resources designed specifically to support you in advancing your practice and achieving the best outcomes for the dogs in your professional care.

Explore the K9 Therapy Hub Here

Produced, owned and copyright to Barbara Houlding – K9HS Courses.