6 weeks. It’s been 6 weeks since Guinness was limping. We’re now 5 weeks into our recovery program.

The vets diagnosed it as a knee strain. They recommended Hills JD food or injections, 8 weeks rest and suggested that a referral to Physio-Vet might help. I took the JD food, 8 weeks rest and a referral to see David Prydie at Physio-Vet.

A week later we were in Physio-Vet. David watched Guinness walk and noted that he paces. He started to check him over from the top of the spine but Guinness was too crowded with both of us around his head. Only a few minor scratches there, thanks Guinness.

Instead we abandoned the spine and went straight to the back legs. 2cm of muscle difference between the two legs and David diagnosed it as a cruciate strain. He said that it had happened a little while ago, perhaps a few months!

Later on I was looking through agility videos with Lydia and we noticed that his jumping style changed a couple of shows ago. Obviously changing due to the tweak as he was jumping differently to protect that leg. I hadn’t a clue, it’s hard to watch their jumping when running alongside, and he was showing no other signs.

David gave Guinness a biomagnetic and laser treatment and a short session in the water treadmill, which he took to really well. We were then sent home with lots of exercises to be doing such a sits to stands, cookies stretches and standing on one leg.

The exercises were easy enough and Guinness is quite familiar with some of them already. It gave us short training sessions to be doing throughout the day and as a bonus he loves the JD food so was happily eating kibble as training treats.

A week later, back to Physio-Vet and David was happy with his progress. He said to continue as we were and he would see us every fortnight.

At the next visit we were told Guinness could now have 10 minutes off lead exercise during our 30 minute walks.  This week, we were told we could do a little agility training again! Medium height jumps, no contacts or weaves, only half an hour max.

I’m very apprehensive about taking him back into it. I’ve started working a little more on his fitness again and proprioception. David wants to see him a few days after his training to see how he copes so next week we will do a few straight lines of jumps and gentle reward only.

How exciting is that! Back to agility so quickly!     Good, steady progress!  I’m positive.