Slips and slides

I love it when clients do exactly what you ask!

When I did my initial visit, I recommended that Abbi’s guardians put down more non-slip mats, and when I walked in tonight there they were, lots of new non-slip rugs.

One of the main things I will discuss with you is flooring, dogs are digitigrade animals, that means they walk on their tip toes. Which makes it very hard for them to grip when they walk on tiles, laminate or wooden floors, and they slip and slide, especially when moving at speed!.

Your dog needs to be able to grip the ground with their claws to gain purchase; so it makes sense that walking on laminate flooring, playing on slippy tiles and even getting up from a lying down position is more challenging on a slippy floor to a dog.

Imagine walking down an icy path in the winer, how tense are you?

Now what about when you fall? Apart from your pride, what hurts? Did you try to save yourself? And hurt yourself more? Now imagine this is your dog, on your slippy slidey floor, every day. Imagine how bruised and sore they would be, but their muscles never have a chance to recover and repair, as they have to walk on that floor everyday. You’d get slower, stiffer, less mobile and wouldn’t want to exercise because you were hurting. You may start limping because your shoulder or hip hurts from constantly slipping or you may have to change your posture to cope with the pain.

You will see muscular injury in your dog as:

Lameness

Slowing down overnight/old before their time

Stiffness

Soreness

Coat Changes

Gait and Posture Changes

So what's the best thing that you, as an owner can do... its really pretty simple... anywhere there is laminated or wooden flooring or slippy tiles put rubber backed non slip matting down.

Until you adapt your dogs environment to reduce slips and falls, then you will never begin to start addressing your dogs issues, and no amount of therapy will help!