I recently wrote a blog about preventing injury when getting your dog in and out of the car.

Over the last week or so, I have noticed a gait change in my boy. In his left hind limb, he has restricted hip extension and limited stifle flexion. On palpation, there is heat and a noticeable muscle knot at the origin of the sartorial and tension in his gluteals (on the left particularly). There is tension along the length of the gracilis (particularly at the insertion point at the stifle where a muscle knot is present). The pectineal, semimembranous and semitendinous on the left limb are also very tense.

We haven’t changed our training or exercise schedule in any way, so I was a little baffled as to how this injury had occurred. The solution came to me when I watched how he was getting up onto his seat in the car. As I explained in the previous blog, I have trained my dogs to step into the foot well in front of the back seat and then to step up onto the seat. My girl does this elegantly – stepping onto the seat from the foot well by pushing off evenly from her hind limbs – just as they were intended to work. My boy on the other hand, steps into the foot well, then hooks his left hindlimb onto the seat and drags himself up. In so doing, he is straining and overworking the adductor muscles on the inside of his hindlimb and strains his gluteals.

Mystery solved. So, I am off to train a new way of hopping up onto the car seat and to treat a very stiff and sore hind limb!

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, please leave me a comment and share your own thoughts on how we can maintain strong, healthy and free moving dogs.

To you and your canine families, I would like to wish you a very happy and relaxing Christmas break.