What is your dog's normal?

This post is related to one that I made not too long ago - on collecting baseline data.  So what I want to know, is how well do you really know your dog, and their body?

Here's some thing's to think about. Because for many people this doesn't occur until their dog is sick, or injured and the healthcare professional asks 'Is this normal for your dog?'  You know what, this is one of the thing's I LOVE about fitness work. You get to know your dog really well, and understand what their normal is. And many of the thing's that we look at for your dog's normal isn't necessarily wrong, but if these things change can indicate a health or orthopedic issue.

So here's some thing's to consider. 

• Baseline bloods. When Brody (my first dog) starting having seizures, we did a series of blood tests to look for any potential causes for these. Unfortunately, he had a few readings that were at the extreme range, or slightly outside of the normal range. Because we didn't have any baseline bloods to compare too, we didn't know if this was just his normal, or if this was something significant to him and the seizures.  Unfortunately for many dogs the trauma and stress of having blood drawn can potentially negate the use of having baseline blood information on file. My recommendation would be that if your dog is having any other procedures done (spey, or dental's etc.) and if it is appropriate and possible to get some blood drawn at that time. Alternatively, you can train consent signals and a cooperative blood draw to make this procedure less stressful for the dog. 

Brody's first walk after the surgery to fix a pneumothorax.

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  Muscle mass and use. How muscles feel, how big they are, and if they are symmetrical on each side can have a big impact not only to performance but also to injury. Often in subtle injuries, muscle mass will decrease where there is an injury, and increase in the areas that are compensating for that injury. Also for particular sports particular muscles are very important, for instance, many border collies are either lacking in gluteal muscle (which is the main muscle that produces the explosive hip extension required in jumping) or do not effectively use their glut's in hip extension.  It is important not only to get a baseline in muscle mass, use, and symmetry but also look for changes to the dog's normal.  A physio, rehabilitation vet, or certified fitness trainer will be able to help you record a baseline analysis of your dog's musculature, and track any changes. 

• Weight. This is something that most owners are aware of, but as performance dog owners we need to be very critical not only of weight but weight in terms of muscle:fat. A performance dog should be as lean as possible, whilst still maintaining muscle. This mean's often feeding will need to be constantly adjusted based on activity, training (and the volume of treats associated), and other life features like amount and quality of sleep and stress. Recently Evo's weight has dropped to a very low level, because I didn't account in the increase in activity in the form of extra walking, and playing with the puppy. So now I have adjusted his food to help get his weight back up a little bit. 

 

• Areas of muscular tightness. Every dog that I have worked with has a tendency to get tight muscles with overexertion, and/or training and competition. Every dog has some areas, whether this is from structure, how they use their body, or injury, that tend to get tight more often. If this tightness in muscles is not known and worked on then this can develop into a more serious issue.  Deo tends to get tight across his right side of his neck. This is from a combination of his straight terrier front-end structure, his ewe neck, and the fact that he ran into a wooden post at full speed at 2 1/2 years old and possibly did some damage (this is when one of his ears fell down, after having two pricked ears up till then).  If these muscles are left tights and sore he will often get sore across his left hip (compensating), and will often not weave. He also gets super terrier grumpy! The best people to help you check, and work on muscles are physios. Once you are aware of the muscles or areas that your dog tends to get sore in you can also help with applying thermal energy (heat) with a wheat bag or red light (or similar). 

• Stance and weight bearing. Every performance dog handler should be critically aware of how their dog stands, sits, downs, and bear's weight across their limbs in these positions.  Structurally all dog's are different, and it is important that you are not only aware of your dog's structure, but how they hold their structure. Musculature can impact a dog's stance. For example a dog structurally may have an appropriate length of back (proportional to leg length) and adequate topline, but a weak core could make it's back look like it sags (or has a sway back).  Like musculature often a dog's stance or weight bearing itself is not an issue, rather than if there are significant changes in this. 

Deo's normal is that with his structure his knee's knock inwards a little in a sit. 

Chace's normal stance has some issues. These are that she holds stress in her upper lumbar spine, just after her rib cage. She shifts her weight forwards, and always hold's a little more weight on her hind right than her left. 

• Joints and range of motion.  

Dog's can have a different range of motions in their joints comparatively, this can because of their structure, musculature, or the activity that they do. Like musculature, a physio, osteopath, or rehabilitation vet is the best person to assess your dog's current range of motion. Imbalance between left and right sides, or changes (both in terms of a significant increase, or decrease in joint range of motion) can indicate an injury. 

• Movement. 

How often to do record, and assess movement of your dog's? What is your dog's normal striding in a walk, or do they pace? How do they trot? Do they have even extension of limbs or stride length? Again, like the other factors, it's often a change in striding that can indicate an issue. A physio, rehabilitation vet, or qualified hydrotherapist can analyze your dog's movement and help determine their normal. Below is a video of Chace a few weeks ago with natural striding in the yard, and then trotting in slow motion over cavaletti. You will notice she has quite a bouncy trot - this is her normal.

• General activity, including sleep.  A huge indicator for Chace that anxiety was negatively impacting her life was when I got an activity monitor on her, and Evo, and compared their sleep stats. Chace spent around two hours less a night sleeping, as she was getting up and moving, pacing, and was generally unsettled. After she started her anxiety medication this resolved.  Because of the increase in sleep at night (and less movement) she also put on weight, and I had to adjust her food. Recently I've found that the new FitBark2 activity monitor providing excellent information as Flori grows.  I like this activity monitor as it's easy to access information on my phone, link's to my own FitBit, and doesn't have ongoing monthly fees associated with it. The cool thing is it also sends you alerts if there is variation in any stats that are significantly different from her averages, which helps you recognize any significant changes. 

 

So what information do I collect, and when / how often? 

I video almost every training session and load all these videos into YouTube. This gives me a pretty constant record of how my dogs move, sit, stand, and lie down. 

I'm trying to more regularly get footage (like once a month) of their different gaits in a natural setting, like when they are running around the yard. They also have an intensive analysis of their gait, and also how they are standing / sitting / any area's of muscle soreness / joint ROM each fortnight with their hydrotherapy session for general fitness, as my Hydrotherapist Rachel (Hydropaws) is amazing at picking up any small changes to their normal. 

I try to get them to a physio/massage therapist every month or so to check more implicitly muscles and joints. 

I look at weight bearing, and their stance in positions every day. Both in everyday life, and when training. Once you get an 'eye' for this you can't stop looking! 

I try to collect baseline bloods when the dog's are having any other medical procedures, or before starting any medication. 

I also get Rachel to thermal image my guys once a year, to check for any significant changes. The SyncCanine thermal imaging is very accurate because it is adjusted and checked by external specialist veterinarians, so you really only get any significant issues identified. We use this to look at muscles and joints, but also to check the older dogs teeth, as in his first imaging Deo had two teeth show up red hot in the imaging which needed extraction. 

Flori had her baseline scanning done this weekend, along with the older dog's yearly imaging. This imaging is vital because it's another diagnostic to help me establish her normal, but also because it's a baseline image from BEFORE she starts agility training. There is a few small thing's that we are going to keep an eye on, so we will re-image over Christmas as she (hopefully) grows out of her gangly teenage phase!