Forward, Cautiously

Reyna had her first dry-land physical therapy session today. The vet said she did well, but the hard part is still to come. Dr. Sherman spent a few minutes chatting with me this afternoon, giving me a brief update and a few reminders. He measured her for her wrist braces today, and she’ll have those Wednesday. He said that he had to double-check his chart and make sure he was working with the right dog, because her attitude and behavior were so different than they were during the initial consultation. She was perfectly fine letting him mess with her wrists today and, more importantly, she didn’t try to bite him. That tells me two things: one, she’s learned to trust Dr. Sherman and his techs; and two, her wrists aren’t nearly as painful as they were six weeks ago. Both of these are good things. Dr. Sherman did provide a cautionary reminder, though – since Reyna’s feeling good, she’s more likely to hurt herself. He said she’s done wonderfully in the water and she’s okay moving in a straight line on land, but she still can’t do the torsion work (think walking in figure eights). They’re going to be doing a lot of torsion work over the next several visits so she’s likely to be more sore than she has been, but we should continue seeing improvement as long as she’s not allowed to do anything stupid here at home. Paws crossed...