A new breed - The Mexican Water Dog

Heidi had her first physical therapy appointment today with Dr. Burke at Paradise Animal Hospital. Dr. Burke was amazed at how well Heidi is doing only 15 days after surgery. I am constantly reminded of how blessed I am that Heidi’s recovery is going as well as it is.

Dr. Burke first did some exercises with Heidi that I can do at home with her. The focus of the exercises is to get muscles in Heidi’s back and groin to relax and to force her to begin shifting her weight to her back legs. Right now, she carries most of her weight on her front legs in order to compensate for the weakness in her back legs.

After doing some expercises, they then,dressed Heidi up in life jacket and headed for the pool.

After a little bit of warm up in the pool and applying warm towels her to back and groin, they lowered the treadmill into the water and attached Heidi to a lead so that she wouldn’t slide off the back of the treadmill once it started moving. Of course, there was a person in the water with her the whole time and she was perfectly safe on the treadmill.  From the look on her face below I can only assume she's saying "Mommy, PLEASE RESCUE ME!!!"

After they got her all hooked up, they started the treadmill and she started to walk. It was hard to get a clear picture because she was moving the whole time. But, what I like about the picture below is that you can see how hard she is concentrating!

And this last picture is my favorite. She’s a little more relaxed and chugging right along. She’s such a trooper! And a very special little girl  :)

Next week, we have another therapy appointment on Monday, her surgery follow up appointment with Dr. Jarboe on Tuesday, and another therapy appointment on Saturday.