Front Matter

242 Canine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation

undertaken by dogs with acute back pain or
chronic back pain of unknown origin.
Diagonal leg lifts. From a standing position,
one of the dog’s thoracic limbs should be
lifted into an elbow‐flexed position with the
client holding the dog at the distal radius and
ulna so that the carpus is not in flexion. At the
same time the client should lift the diagonally
opposite pelvic limb into flexion under the
body holding at the distal tibia (Figure 10.18).
The client should be sure not to abduct the
limbs. The dog should be held in this posi­
tion for 30 seconds and then the legs placed
gently on the ground and the other two limbs
lifted. This should be repeated twice for each
set of diagonally opposite limbs. It can help to
place food on the ground in front of the dog so
that the dog does not laterally flex the spine.
If the dog starts to lean on the client’s hand,
they should briefly drop their hand while still
holding the leg so that the dog recognizes that
it cannot support itself that way. The exercise
is made more difficult by rhythmically then
nonrhythmically perturbing the patient by
gently bumping the dog with the client’s knee
or elbow.
Once the dog can perform three sets of 30‐
second lifts of each pair of limbs with pertur­
bations, the client can extend the thoracic
limb cranially and/or the pelvic limb caudally

to add additional challenge; balance perturba­

tions can then be performed with the dog in

this position.

This exercise can also be made more difficult

by sequentially having the dog perform the

exercise on a soft, level surface (bed, couch, air

mattress), then on hills (facing the dog up,

down, or sideways in each direction), and

finally on an egg‐shaped physioball, as

described for the beg exercise. However, pro­

gressing from one surface to the next should

not be performed until the patient can success­

fully complete this exercise on the surface with

both rhythmic and nonrhythmic perturbations

with the legs in extension for a set of three 30‐

second repetitions on each pair of legs.

One side leg lifts. This exercise is the same as

the above exercise, except that the thoracic

and pelvic limbs on the ipsilateral side of the

dog’s body are lifted.

Roll over. Most dogs will begin to roll over if they

are lying down and a treat is placed near the

top of the scapula, in a position that allows the

dog to nibble on it ( Figure 10.19). As the dog’s

nose reaches toward its shoulder, the food is

moved toward the dog’s spine slowly, always

letting the dog keep nibbling. This results in

the dog naturally rolling over. Dogs should

be taught to roll three times in each direction.

To increase the difficulty of this exercise, the

dog can be taught to roll up an incline. This

is another exercise that, like begging, requires

Figure 10.18 Diagonal leg lifts. Diagonally opposite
thoracic and pelvic limbs are lifted into a flexed position
and held there for 30 seconds. The exercise is then
repeated for the other diagonally opposite pair of limbs.

Figure 10.19 In the early stages of training a dog to roll

over, food is held at the dog’s shoulder to encourage the

dog to roll over.