What is Canine Rehabilitation and Wellness?

Canine rehabilitation and wellness is a growing field that recognizes dogs can benefit from specific exercise programs and other therapeutic modalities to help decrease pain, improve fitness, and restore function. 

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To define canine rehabilitation lets first define rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is care that helps you return to, maintain, or improve your ability to perform daily tasks. A decrease in function may be a result of an injury, disease, or major surgery. The overall goal of rehabilitation is to restore independence and improve quality of life. 
So what is Canine rehabilitation? There are two main aspects of canine rehabilitation: physical rehabilitation and wellness. 

Canine Physical Rehabilitation:  is a branch of veterinary medicine that promotes management and treatment of injuries, pathologies, and functional impairments in canines. It has evolved from veterinary medicine and human rehabilitative medicine, specifically physical therapy. It incorporates human physical therapy concepts and applies them to the canine population. Traditionally this includes non-invasive techniques to rehabilitate injured patients. Non-invasive treatments include exercise, massage, heat/cold therapy, ultrasound, electrical stimulation, laser therapy, and aqua therapy to name a few.   
 
Canine Wellness: aims to assess overall health and well being. This includes regular preventative measures and veterinary care to avoid injury or chronic conditions. Wellness screenings performed by veterinarians typically include blood work and heartworm tests amongst others. Canine rehabilitation professionals consider these measures when developing an individualized wellness program to help a dog maintain optimal health and physical fitness. This includes nutrition and supplementation recommendations specific to your dog's needs. Wellness programs can also be designed to enhance performance of highly active, working or sporting dogs to reach optimal levels of fitness.

Canine rehabilitation and wellness can benefit dogs at any stage of their life to promote good health and allow them to live long active lives. It’s not always about treating injuries but rather preventing them through strategic exercise, stretching, massage and other therapies. In addition, your dog does not have to be working or competing to get injured. There are a lot of physical demands placed on our canine friends every day, like jumping on furniture that can be twice their height or walking across slippery floors. Particularly as dogs begin to age daily tasks can become increasingly difficult or even painful. All dogs can benefit from improved function and decreased pain. Afterall, keeping your dog happy and healthy means you and your dog can do all the things you love to do together!  

Oklahoma K9 PT
Dr. Courtney White, DPT, CCMFT