With all hopes of Tia ever returning to the ring fading fast, we are making one last attempt at getting her sound. I picked her up from the specialists on Friday, she had been there a week. She looked fab. Took her for a lovely walk on Friday afternoon. Then Saturday morning, she was MEGA lame on both back legs! She eased off slightly throughout the walk. Then she was a bit lame in the evening. This repeated itself on Sunday.
I am going to try something new now. I think one of the issues is she is doing all this fitness training at walk or trot, and a lot of problems seem to occur when we speed her up. So, we are now doing a mile of 'interval' training, I have put interval in quotations as it is my version of interval. We go a total of one mile, most of it is on the road. We walk for 2 minutes, then we jog a distance of 2 lamp posts, then sprint for 2 lamp posts, then walk 2 lamp posts, etc. We sprint a total of 3 times, then the last part of it is walking. Part of the sprint is along a park where Tia and Rix chase each other and have a really good run. Tia gets very excited on this run, she loves going faster than my lazy pace. I'm going to try this 5 times a week for 4 weeks and we'll see what improvement (if any) this results in. She's on a flexi lead the rest of the time to stop her running off at the speed of light, which is all she wants to do at the moment as she's got so much pent up energy. I'm not quite sure whether Tia will ever get back to competing now, she is very weak in her movement and her balance is appalling, she is constantly falling over and slipping. All I want to do at the moment is take her on a huge long walk and let her run for hours chasing rabbits and pheasants without cringing every time she goes faster than a jog!
I always said I would give her a year (April) but that is now only 4 months away, and she's certainly not in the state I'd have hoped she'd be in by this stage.
3 comments:
poor you and poor Tia. Nothing I can say except give sympathy. There must be something concrete wrong if she is loosing balance so much - it can;t just be a groin strain surely?
Hi Helen, thanks :o)
The specialists cant find anything wrong with her in that sense, they've checked her eyes etc, however other people have also noticed she slips a lot, but she's always been a bit of a wally and I wonder if I notice it now because I'm so paranoid.
I don't know what else I can do though - MRI etc - would it actually be worth it? She's 6 and a half now, I wouldn't want her operated on, if it was something like warranted it. She was xrayed in May on her back and hips and all was good. Think its one of those things where she's done so much work 'wonky' that now she's straight, her body isn't working properly and thats how she loses her balance.
Sorry 4 the ramble x
6.5 is no age really. If you think an MRi might give you something to go on and you are able to do it, you have nothing to lose. At least you would know you had explored all avenues and have some peace of mind for you. I know with Pop that finding out what the problem is helped me, (as well as making it possible to help her of course tho she still jumps funny even tho she can now stretch out!)
Also, have you thought of trying a new person/specialist??Not sure how many you have been too so far....
I know it isa big strain dealing with this sort of thing and for you it has gone on so long.
What about hydro stuff - treadmills and pool alongside lead walks??Have a feeling you have been there already tho.....
Hx
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