530 Canine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation
a working dog during diagnosis and rehabilita-
tion, and to improve the likelihood of a success-
ful outcome.
Individual animals will naturally have dif-
ferent thresholds wherein an external stimulus
will change a particular response. A rehabilita-
tion therapist caring for working dogs should
be very familiar with canine behavioral theory.
Understanding working dog temperaments
and reading an animal’s responses quickly
allows for appropriate adaptation of goals dur-
ing rehabilitation sessions. For example, if a
responsive, high-drive, low-threshold dog
(especially one suffering from a fairly fresh
injury or that is new to rehabilitation) starts to
become overwhelmed by therapy tasks, the
therapist should know when to reduce the
pressure on the dog, letting the dog take a
break or even cutting the session short.
Maintaining a rigid schedule in which therapy
is forced on an animal that is shutting down
will almost guarantee a more difficult patient
at the next therapy session. It might even create
a situation in which the dog experiences sig-
nificant musculoskeletal and neural fatigue/
degeneration.
A good therapist is aware that any individual
dog might have variations in its responsiveness
to therapy in any given session. Sometimes a
dog can lack energy during a particular stage of
the healing process. The ability to listen to a
handler’s observations, evaluate the willing-
ness and ability for a high-drive dog to com-
plete therapeutic tasks on a given day, and to
have the flexibility to admit (despite a busy
schedule) that perhaps an individual animal
just is not ready for an intense rehabilitation
session, is a sign of a caring and successful
working dog therapist.
It is the authors’ experience that many
high-drive, responsive dogs, especially those
in patrol, apprehension, protection, and
guarding disciplines have high pain toler-
ances and do not like to be touched—two
aspects that can make evaluation of patient
responses difficult. Additionally, the need to
use a muzzle can compromise the ability to
work in water or perform other rehabilitation
exercises. For example, working dogs with
high pain thresholds may not quit when mus-
culoskeletal structures start to hurt from
overuse; they might just adaptively change
their gait. There is a joke with marathon sled
dogs that “if a dog has his leg fall off in a race,
he’ll just pick it up on the way back and tell
you that he is fine.” This is descriptive of an
attitude that carries across many disciplines
besides racing sled dogs. For the working
dog therapist, this means that strict attention
must be paid to minute clues of posture, gait,
and muscle tension to determine whether a
healing tissue boundary has been exceeded,
since typically high-drive working dogs will
not stop working until an injury is very
advanced.Other factorsIt is critical to obtain a thorough job-orientated
history to understand a working dog’s stress-
ors, especially as the dog begins to resume
work. If a dog wears a harness, vest, or boo-
ties, the therapist should request that the han-
dler bring the equipment to an appointment,
and watch the handler place the equipment on
the dog. Uneven packing of supplies in search
and rescue dog harness pockets or poorly
designed harnesses that are restrictive or cre-
ate areas of increased pressure can block full
return to function and even lead to continuing
injury (Figure 21.7). Harnesses, vests, and boo-
ties should be observed for all activities in
which a dog participates because some
design problems only manifest in certain
conditions (Figure 21.8). As therapy pro-
gresses, the dog should wear its working
equipment during rehabilitation sessions so
that fit can be evaluated and progressive
conditioning can take place in a manner sim-
ilar to that which the dog encounters on the
job. A thoughtful approach to the ergonom-
ics of canine clothing and equipment design
should be taken, and changes made as
needed.
Additionally, veterinary rehabilitation thera-
pists should try to determine whether there are
other environmental factors that a dog faces at
work, and rehabilitation protocols should be
adapted appropriately. If a dog is required to
work outside in heat and humidity, then having
therapy sessions occur only in an air-conditioned