From Fear to Freedom: Helping Dogs Recover From Fractures and Surgery #32

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In this episode of "Easier Movement, Happier Dogs," Mary Debono delves into the incredible healing journeys of Scooter and Zoey, two dogs who faced life-changing injuries. 

Scooter, a small mixed-breed dog, was hit by a car, resulting in a broken back and pelvis. Despite his bones healing, he remained unable to walk—until Mary applied her unique method of using gentle touch and connection to communicate safety and movement to his nervous system. 

Similarly, Zoey, a small terrier recovering from hip surgery, wouldn't use her repaired leg. Through a process we call "Connected Breathing," and intentional touch, Zoey's person helped her dog rediscover her ability to move comfortably.

Mary emphasizes the importance of creating a safe, anxiety-free environment for healing, showing that even in the absence of traumatic injury, these strategies can be beneficial for any dog. 

By focusing on the quality of connection and using methods that engage the nervous system in a non-threatening way, Mary demonstrates how we can help our dogs heal, improve their movement, and enhance their overall well-being.

Key Takeaways

• The quality of connection between a dog and its human can significantly impact the healing process.
• Even when physical injuries have healed, dogs may need additional support to overcome anxiety and regain their movement.
• Gentle touch and intentional connection can help a dog's nervous system recognize safety and encourage natural movement.
• Creating a calm, safe environment is crucial for effective learning and healing in both dogs and humans.
• Connected Breathing can be a powerful tool for reducing anxiety and resetting the nervous system.

Scooter made a full recovery!

Resources:

Grab your FREE video training. Includes Connected Breathing!
https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

Read about Zoey and her recovery from hip surgery.

Join our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DogHealthAndVitality

Get Mary’s bestselling, award-winning book, “Grow Young with Your Dog,” for a super low price at: https://tinyurl.com/growyoungwithyourdog. Demonstration videos are included at no extra cost. ⬅️⬅️⬅️

All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and doesn't constitute medical or veterinary advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you or your dog are unwell or injured. 

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. Today I want to talk to you about how you can help a dog heal through the quality of your connection. So this was a dog named Scooter who had a broken back and a broken pelvis. He was hit by a car, and we're going to dig into what happened to him and why his healing was, number one, impeded, and how we helped get him literally back on his feet.

And in case we're meeting for the first time, my name is Mary Dibono, and this is the easier movement, Happier Dogs podcast. And I want to say right up front, hopefully this never happens to a dog, you know, or any dog, for that matter. But the story itself can be helpful to learning, like, just the resiliency of dogs and how we can help them. Okay? So it doesn't take a traumatic injury like this for you to be able to apply some of this with your own dogs.

Okay, so I'll tell you a little bit about Scooter. Scooter was a small, tan dog, mixed breed. This lovely person saw him on the side of a freeway in Los Angeles. He had apparently been hit by a cardinal, and thank goodness he was not aggressive. She was able to place him very gently in her car, and she took him straight to a vet, and he was examined right away.

And he had a broken back and a broken pelvis. And they treated him at the vet hospital. And then when he went home, his guardian, his lovely guardian, Angela, and she kept him, by the way. They tried to find if someone, if he belonged to somebody, but no one came forward. She kept him, and she was told by the vet, just, you know, put him in a small room, like a bathroom and just let his bones heal and obviously help him out to go potty, you know, do all those things.

So she followed the vet's suggestions to the letter, and she took scooter back for checkups and all the things, but it was after eight weeks, and he still was not, he had no intention of walking. It's like he wasn't getting up. He would just drag himself around with his front legs. He was so worried about that hind end, right? Because think about, you know, it was his lower back and his pelvis that were broken in several places.

So it was very painful for him. And even, you know, as the bones were healing, he still didn't want to use his hind legs. And she would take him back. He'd get a new set of radiographs. He was x rayed again. It's like the bones are completely healed. Why isn't he walking? So that's when she called me. Now, his guardian angel was a horse person, is a horse person.

And I was coming to Los Angeles. I don't live in Los Angeles, but I was coming to Los Angeles to do an equine clinic to work with lots of horses and riders there at the stable where she kept her horse as well. So this poor little guy, Scooter, he was an anxious dog, which don't blame him. So we decided. So she brought him to the stable. You know, she had called me ahead of time, and we decided not to take him out of the car because he was very comfortable and relaxed on the front seat of her gray Volvo.

And instead, what I did was, I mean, luckily, I'm flexible, because what I did was I just crouched down on the floor in front of him, and that's how I worked, because that was the. That would be the most relaxing environment for Scooter. And it's really important when you're working with a dog or human, a horse or anyone, that you create the right environment for learning and improving.

And so reducing any anxiety is really, really important. Okay. Your brain isn't going to learn useful things generally when you're in that highly anxious state. So we wanted to reduce his anxiety. So I was like, I can. I can. I can get in there and crouch down and work with him. So that's what we did. So now you might be wondering, like, why didn't Scooter stand on his own?

Okay. It's because it's like his. Even though the bones had healed, his nervous system hadn't got the message that it was safe to stand. So my job was, how can I, with my hands, through this quality of connection? Number one, create a safe environment for him so his brain, his nervous system, could actually listen to what my hands were saying. And then, number two, actually give him the sensory information to help stimulate his nervous system to recognize it could stand.

So one way I did this was, and this isn't a how to. You really need to, like, go through a lot more training before you try this at home. And never, I would say, with an injured animal. But one of the things I started doing was just basically creating the sensations of movement from his paws up the leg. And I started with the front legs, which were uninjured.

Right. And then it was just basically like a thought. That's how gentle I was. It wasn't even, but it was just getting that idea and really giving him what I considered, like, a blueprint of how the movement could go through his body from the paw and he's lying on his side. Okay, so not. I'm not trying to make him stand up. No, no, no. Lying comfortably on his side.

But in a way, I was simulating standing, because then I actually use something flat and firm very gently against his foot. It's what we call artificial floor or false floor. And what happens when the brain recognizes that something flat and firm is against the foot? Kind of like organizes for standing. It starts to kind of fire those. Those neural pathways, as if it's coping with this idea of standing up so you can improve.

And I've talked about this in other podcasts I talk about in my book, grow young with your dog, which is right here. This idea of you can improve standing and walking while a dog is lying down. Okay. So. Cause again, we're connecting with the nervous system. So I was giving him, again, a blueprint of how standing could feel good to him, that it did not feel painful or uncomfortable in any way.

And that was really, really important. Right. What we want to do is help his brain rewire now and, like, get the signal that, oh, those bones are healed and I can actually stand. Okay. So it's very, very important that we keep it feeling easy and, in fact, pleasurable. We want to associate standing and moving with ease and pleasure. That's what. That's what's going to allow his brain, not just allow.

It's going to motivate his nervous system to want to recreate that in. In real life. Okay? So, you know, causing him even the slightest bit of discomfort or anxiety, you know, anticipation of pain would have backfired. So we kept it really easy, gentle. And what was so cool was, later that day, after his guardian angel took him home, scooter stood up and took some tentative steps. I mean, how cool is that?

Okay, how cool is that? And then she asked, like, will you see him again? Not that same day, but, you know, in the future, because she was so excited. She's like, we. We have to build on this. Okay? And. And I did. I saw him again another day, and I basically just reinforced what we did in the first session. Okay. I, you know, I now gave him more input into how he could move.

It's like I did different things with my hands to kind of pretend, if you will, to stimulate this idea of walking, of movement of the limbs, of movement through the skeleton, which is what happens when we walk, whether we're a dog, a horse, a human, when we walk, right. We get pressure goes through our skeleton. So I was doing that, and I want to emphasize very, very, very gently.

He was lying down, and he just was amazing. And over the next few weeks, he just got stronger and stronger and walked more and more. And he went on to just be a totally normal dog. So I will link to a picture of Scooter, too, so you can see what he looks like. He's a cute dog. And it just shows, you know, when we learn how to use connection in this intentional way, we can help ourselves because it feels so good to us as well, but we can help our animals so, so very much.

And I'll tell you another quick story. I may have talked about her on the podcast earlier. I know I certainly have a blog post about this dog, so I'll link to that. But this dog named Zoe, who, she was three years old, she had to have hip surgery. She had a problem where the veterinary surgeon needed to actually cut off the head of the femur. Now, she was.

Luckily, she was a small dog. A lot of dogs get that surgery. Sometimes they get it on both hips for various reasons. Sometimes it could be a dislocation that wasn't treated right away, or it could be hip dysplasia. Sometimes they'll do that. It's like a, you know, procedure some. Some vets do. What happens is the body forms scar tissue to create, like, a false joint. They call it an fho surgery, femoral head osteomy.

So lots of dogs get this, and the smaller the dog, actually, the better the outcome, generally. But I've seen german shepherds do well with that surgery. So in Zoe's case, it was similar to scooter in the fact that everything had healed. And his person, Natalie, who was a great therapist in her own right, physical therapist, she was doing everything. She was taking Zooey to rehab. They were doing swim therapy, all the things.

But Zoe wouldn't use the leg on land. She'd use it in the pool, but not on land. And again, she did everything right, and the dog wasn't using it. Well, Natalie happened to come to one of my talks I was giving, and I talked about my book. She went out and got my book, and she did the connected breathing exercise in my book. And I have a free thing of this.

So if you don't have the book and you don't want to get the book, I can link to a free video I did about connected breathing. That gives you at least the foundation of connected breathing. And she did that. And I always say how connected breathing is like a reset for you and your dog. It's like it sort of like, clears the slate in a lot of ways.

And it just, like, quiets the nervous system. And what happened in Zoe's case was she did the connected breathing exercise with Zoe, and Zoe got up and used the leg. It's like her brain needed to have all that noise of anticipation, of pain cleaned out, like, quieted down. So I think of discomfort or even the anticipation of discomfort, like that anxiety as, like, noise, background noise in the nervous system.

And connected breathing is something that it just can really, I've seen this over and over again so many times. It can help you just quiet the nervous system both for yourself and for your dog. So in Zoe's case, again, it was similar thing. There was no medical reason why she wasn't using the leg. It's like her brain hadn't gotten the message that it was safe to use the leg, and she did.

And I have a video, too, that I think I link in the blog post to Zoe doing the zoomies, right? She became, I mean, she just, she was fine after that, and she just got stronger and stronger. She went on to live a long, happy life. She actually starred in a. I don't know if she starred, but she had a role in a. In a music video that there might be a link to that somewhere, too.

I'm not sure if I have that or not, but I did see, it was very cute. So she was very active, very happy. But again, it was like sometimes we, meaning us humans as well as our animal friends, sometimes just need those reminders, and we can do it through this quality of connection with, you know, I like to say it's like a dance between your hands and your heart rate.

You have this intention to help. And once you're trained and you know things, it's not like, I mean, like, like with Scooter, for example. I did very intentional things, right? I created that blueprint of movement so his brain could get it, but it also depended on the quality of my connection with him. So check out the connected breathing. It starts to at least lay the foundation for having that quality of connection with your dog.

So I hope you found this helpful. Let me know if you have any questions. You could always email me marydebono.com. thank you so much for listening, subscribing, and reviewing the podcast, and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye for now.