Faith tends to play hard and has hurt herself a few times, nothing we couldn’t take care of ourselves.
This time, she was limping pretty bad. I was sure she just pulled something. We stopped allowing her to do any jumping, stopped her walks, and no obedience for a little while. I heated the area, fascia blasted it (don’t ask) then massaged and iced. She always felt better after.
Since she was not able to go on walks, I didn’t walk, because I felt bad for her being in the house while I was out walking. But I needed my exercise, so I broke out Mauser‘s buggy.
Slowly started her back going for walks, which was basically going out to potty, one trip up the driveway (which is long) and back.
She would walk one trip then get in the buggy for my walk.
You can see that the wheels flip up the leaves on to her and the inside of the buggy so I decided to put the top on. Isn’t she so cute playing with her toy ball on a string entertaining herself while her mother gets exercise.
She decided that throwing her ball out of the buggy while we were walking and making me pick it up about every 5-10 feet was a cool game to start playing. I got extra exercise but wasn’t impressed with her new game.
Getting back to normal
I would allow her her 1, 2, 3…. trips up and back, and then she would get in the buggy and get pushed. She would get built back up to normal walking time this way.
I started her back doing easy obedience commands, things that didn’t have her running.
Her mind wanted to work because she’s a working dog with very high drive but if she did too much she would start limping bad again.
Additional feature
The buggy can also connect to your bike but that’s not needed in our driveway. Maybe in the future she will get to go on bike rides in the buggy. I ‘ll just use the stroller attachments for now.
This buggy was expensive, but we bought it when Mauser had osteosarcoma and wasn’t able to walk, it was worth every penny! We were still able to take him places, and he went on many bike rides on our “West Virginia Rail Trails” and even went to the “Mothman Festival”.
So glad we bought it, and I hope to get Faith out on the trails.
The cart/buggy
Unfortunately the company that made this one, is out of business, but you can find carts on Amazon that are strollers or you can pull behind your bike. I haven’t seen anything as well made as this. But, have a client that may be getting one, and I’ll update if that happens.
Certain obedience commands that can help
Having a dog that has good obedience can help when having them enter and exit a cart/buggy, especially if they are hurt. A “down” command helps, so when the get in they lay down. Mine has a loop in the floor to hook the dog to, but I don’t need to use it. If they know a “hup” command or maybe an “in” command and a release command, and if you position the cart where they don’t have to jump in, it will help as well.
We can help with these commands and more! Precision K-9 Services