USDAA live streaming now at www.cynosport.tv!

Sport Dog Owners Intro to Prescription Medication!

Sport Dog Owners Intro to Prescription Medication

Sports dogs work as hard as their human counterparts. They compete in different events which test a dog’s speed, endurance, strength, and intelligence. Nevertheless just like human athletes, sports dogs are susceptible to injury. The most common forms are muscular trigger points, back and neck problems, and cruciate ligament injury.

Although prevention is always better, by maintaining the dog’s health and fitness, sometimes injuries are just unavoidable. And when they do happen, the injured dog must get the most appropriate treatment. These injuries affect a dog’s mobility and may contribute to the early development of dog arthritis.

To treat muscular trigger points, physical therapy and massage will suffice. Neck and back pain can be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs or painkillers. In some cases, surgery may be needed. However, a cruciate ligament injury will require surgery. There are many procedures available to remedy the injury such as extracapsular suture, tibial plateau leveling osteotomy, or tibial tuberosity advancement. It is important that dog owners discuss all available procedures carefully with their veterinarian as there is no one superior procedure; all have their advantages and their drawbacks.

Prescription Medication

For sport dogs, pain is almost an unavoidable hazard of the job. Prescription medicine is an important aspect in the treatment of injuries and in the rehabilitation process after surgery or injury. There are many anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers available. What is important is choosing the right drug. Efficacy must be balanced with safety. Therefore, a dog’s overall health should always be the top priority.

The following are prescription medications that are commonly used in veterinary medicine:
• NMDA antagonists or neuropathic pain medicines help reduce pain by “calming down” overactive neural pain pathways. Common NMDA antagonists include Gabapentin, Amantadine, Ketamine and Amitryptaline.
• Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs are drugs which inhibit the pro-inflammatory action of COX-enzymes. Nonetheless, they have side effects such blood thinning, renal failure, and gastro-intestinal damage that can be fatal for some dogs.
• Opioids provide stronger pain relief than other prescription painkillers and have very few side effects. They work by decreasing the brain’s awareness of pain. Examples of opiods are Tramadol, Morphine, Fentanyl, Buprenorphine, and Codeine. Most states and countries consider opioids as restricted substances, which make the sale and purchasing of the drug tricky.
• Cortisone is a more potent anti-inflammatory than NSAIDs. It can help to settle “acute on chronic” pain. However, it should rarely be considered as a first option since it can exacerbate bone degeneration. Also, it should not be used for more than two to three times a year.

To learn more about prescription medication, you can download a free copy of my e-book, The Risks of Prescription Medicines in Dog Arthritis. Just click on the following link: http://www.facebook.com/l/55829fqVuRU8CufxxcDYyVQuZZg/www.dogarthritisplan.com/.

Risks of Prescription Medicines B « Dog Arthritis Plan www.dogarthritisplan.com Prescription medicines on non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as Rimadyl, Metacam, Previcox or Deramaxx Article provided by Mr. Christopher Durin, Veterinarian and Author. http://www.facebook.com/christopherdurin

Forward Momentum!

Last weekends beside the skills of rear cross or back switch, we also did some forward motion or momentum training. This skill is good for new dogs and also the advance dogs. Passion, Toby, and Sky all go through this forward momentum training grip.

Forward momentum skills allow your animals to focus on what is ahead and drive towards it and not so handler focus. You are unable to release the velcro dogs if their keen attention is on you and only you. This is a good problem, but you will need to teach your velcro dogs that sometime you need to focus on what's ahead and keep driving at it. In Agility, some trainers teach the ability to teach your dogs to be both handler and obstacle focus.

Happy training and always stay positive!

Hershey unexpected retirement

Just a few weeks ago, both Deb and myself were dreaming of Hershey debut in our 9th USDAA Sanctioned Trials in late July. Deb have spent so much time training Hershey and she is good and ready for action. Now we have to prematurely retire hershey from Dog Agility.

3 weeks ago, she had raptured her ligament. Thanks to an inconsiderate neighbour, who let their dog out to roam close to my gate and resulted in Hershey charging on their dog one morning. After that she has been limping ever since. Deb brought her to a Vet and was diagnosed of raptured ligament and was recommended surgery. But after reading so much information on the internet, we decided to give hershey more time to recover than to subject her to surgery which might or might not guarantee recovery.

At this moment, our prime concern is her quality of life. She must have the ability to walk, run and jump at a later stage. If by the 8th weeks, she is not making effort to use her injured paw, we will have no choice but to subject her to surgery.

Now, she has progressed from using her injured paw to walk, run, stand, and putting weight on her injured paw. This is very encouraging and we will start brining her to therapy, swimming in heated water to help in her recovery process.

We won't be rushing her back to active activity or training, we will observe thoroughly and see if external helps is require.

Let's pray for hershey full recovery, thanks.

Rear Cross or Back Switch!

This week it is the exciting week in WAO (World Agility Open) Championship in England. Our friend Toshi-san and Queen Bee from Japan and Gina O'keefe and borrowed dog from down under will be competing. We will be following very closely on their results.

We are very lucky, even though the weather is hot, at least the haze is not very visible. Our focus this weekends is Rear-Cross or Back Switch. These Rear-Cross exercises allow the dog and handler focus on following objectives;

1. Rear-cross over two jumps,

2. Rear-cross over tire jump,

3. Rear-cross through tunnels,

4. Rear cross to weavepoles,

5. Rear cross to broad jumps.

All the above mentioned objective allow the dog and handler, manage the skill of rear cross and allowing handler to better handle their dog over the designated agility course designs.