Welcome to Monty

Hello and welcome to Monty. A rarely seen flat coat retriever. Full of way too many beans!

This is a very unusual story and shows the versatility of an animal physio!

He has been poorly for some time. His life has been a history of itchy skin investigations, that then became a serious head tilt and distress. He ended up down the emergancy vet and having a CT scan. Turned out he had got an inner ear infection. This was not a simple case. It was sever and actually caused some facial paralysis leading to him dribbeling a lot and having to have eye drops as he couldnt blink. 

Over time it has improved and he has learnt to cope really suprisingly well. He eats and is not nautious. But he has now suffered some serious muscle loss on the right shoulder due to improper body use, and the final worry for his mum was when she noticed a lump on the shoulder. 

So he was referred to us. 

This has been a great case to get stuck into. Firstly we must report that in his first trip, he was so hyper and on edge that he was difficult to calm and so difficult to assess, but we perservered. Who can blame him after all his proding and poking. His second session was a different story! He came in like a grade A student and laid on the floor for his full body assessment and massage and stretches, like an old hand. He was so calm. Its always so lovely to see them come round to the idea of physio so quickly! 

On his assessment we saw he had marked muscle loss that needed addressing. The blink reflex was there. The lump on the shoulder was the Acromium, which was a normal part of the shoulder, but it does feel like it had grown a spur, but it was not restricting his range of movememt and was not sore. So we are not worried about that. 

So we set him up with a home regime of some muscle building in the shoulder. We also got mum to do some work with the blink reflex to encourage them neural pathways. 

We are so pleased to say, mum was so impressed. Just 1 week later, the eye is blinking more now and the muscleh has started to rebuild already! There is still a long way to go but we know mum can do it and so can Monty. He is now quite used to life on the wonk so its hard to convince him to walk with his head in a more normal position. But he will lay calmly and sleep straight so he is a happy boy. 

Keep up the good work mum and Monty!