Well - it was bound to happen... Brisco injured himself and is now on rest orders in order to get back to 100%. At the Feb. ACAT NADAC trial, Brisco slipped coming out of a tunnel. I didn't even notice the slip until I watched the video, and I didn't think much about it until I got him out of the ex-pen at the end of the day and he was limping. The more he moved, it seemed to loosen up, so I gave him an all-natural pain reliever that night and he rested well. The next morning, he looked pretty good, so we did a couple more runs. He ran more collected, but wasn't limping. I assumed that he had pulled a muscle, so the next 2 weeks were spent resting.
After a week and a half of rest, I took the pups out for a walk to see how he was doing. Brisco was allowed off-leash time and showed no signs of being sore. Yeah! He wasn't even sore that night, so off we went to flyball the next weekend.
At the flyball tournament, Brisco warmed up just fine and raced normally in the first race. As soon as we finished and were leaving the ring, Brisco had a very noticable limp. It wasn't a good one either... I took him over to our friend who is a vet. She said based on the basic appearance of not wanting to put weight on it and toe-touching, there was a possibility that it could be an ACL tear. Needless to say, I pulled him for the rest of the weekend and started stressing over the thought of ACL surgery, etc.
As soon as places opened the next Monday, I was making calls to get Brisco in for x-rays and consults. Our first appointment was in Colorado Springs at Colorado Canine Orthopedics. They took x-rays and looked him over. X-rays looked good with no extra fluid around the knee, so if it was an ACL tear, it was very small. No official diagnosis there, but it was good to have x-rays. I even had them take a quick shot of his hips to see how those look - and they looked good.
The second appointment was with Dr. Fitch at VCA Loveland. We started with a basic gait analysis and a basic overall structure check. Then we went back inside and Dr. Fitch went over both of Brisco's back legs and checked every muscle from toe to hip. (Dr. Fitch was really good and he spent about an hour with us going over everything. I don't think I've ever had an official doctor spend that much time with my dogs!) He said his knee was nice and strong and as he worked through the muscles, he got a reaction when he felt the Adductor muscle. So - the official diagnosis is a strained adductor muscle! He said we could start doing rehab and they had an appt open that day, so we stayed in Loveland for a few more hours to get started. In rehab, they treated the leg with the laser to stimulate the muscle, worked on strength, balance and stretching, then Brisco got to try out the underwater treadmill. He did great and actually seemed to enjoy it. We'll be headed back to Loveland once a week for the next few weeks for rehab.
Since we want to get him back to 100% sooner rather than later, I was sent home with homework. Every day I'm supposed to work on weight shifting exercises, stretching, then ice the muscles. He's on a few suppliments & meds and is supposed to take it easy. The taking it easy part hasn't been to bad (for a BC), I just have to make sure Mariah can't go running outside barking because that's what gets Brisco running around. She's a bad influence... When I'm at the office, Brisco gets to stay in the garage/dog run without Mariah. Having our Feb NADAC trial last weekend made his therapy a little tricky. We were at the trial site from 7:00am and didn't get home until after dinner around 8:00pm. When I just wanted to go home and relax, I had to go home, convince Brisco to be good and stretch/balance/ice which takes around 30 min. Now that the trial is over, I can focus more on my boy and spend more time stretching him. He resists sometimes, but I'm finding tricks to get him to relax. I know he's feeling better since he's not limping much anymore, but being a soft tissue injury, he still needs a lot of time off so we can make sure it heals. We're planning on taking it easy in March and April and we'll see if we can start doing agility again in May and flyball in June. Until then - he'll be Mariah's support crew while she competes.
