Just like human muscle strains and injuries, rest is an important part of the healing process, but is rest alone enough to restore a dog’s muscles to their pre-injury best?

Immediately following a muscle injury, however slight, the dog’s body triggers an inflammatory response to restore and repair the damaged muscle tissues. Externally, we may see muscle spasms, feel heat or see swelling around the site of the injury. Without treatment, with rest alone, the body will heal itself by laying down new tissue in an irregular, disorganized fashion to create a matrix like pattern in the muscle. Muscles healed in this way will lack tensile strength, flexibility and elasticity.

Not only does the injured muscle not perform at its best it can cause other problems for the dog. Compensatory issues can arise – just like when you have a sore knee and favour your other leg, you may develop a sore back or neck from taking your weight unevenly. The same can occur with dogs. I regularly see dogs with sore hind limbs with spasms and tightness in their backs to compensate for their sore hind leg.

Another problem is the risk of re-injury. If a muscle is not performing well after a strain, the likelihood of re-injury increases. At first a dog may just strain a muscle or receive a bump, with rest alone this muscle is weakened and may continue to be develop small insignificant strains until its performance is impaired to such a level that it a more severe injury occurs.

Rest after an injury or strain is certainly important and indeed recommended however being proactive about treating the strain or injury can assist the healing process. Regular maintenance treatments can remove damaging cellular debris from the site of the injury, circulate fresh oxygenated blood to the injury site and assist the muscle tissue to heal in an organised manner so the full strength, mobility and flexibility of the muscle is restored to pre-injury levels.

Please send me an email via the Contact page to discuss how a treatment may restore your dog’s muscles to their pre-injury best.