The Importance of Exercise and Strength Training for Pet Health with Dr. Laurie McCauley

We all know that a good workout can do wonders for our health, but the same is true for our pets.  Dr. Laurie McCauley joins us as  we uncover the myriad ways exercise benefits our furry family members, from their muscles to their minds.  We chat about  how to help  them  avoid injury and how to support and be proactive in with our pups health as they age. We also touch on the importance of the emerging field of energy medicine and its role in veterinary care.
Dr. Laurie McCauley graduated from Colorado State School of Veterinary Medicine  where she spent six years in general practice, and quickly became a pioneer in the field of Veterinary Rehabilitation. Dr. McCauley is an International lecturer and contributing author in many textbooks and journals. She was awarded the 2011 Iams AARV Award of Excellence in the Field of Rehabilitation and the 2015 AHVMA Holistic Practitioner of the Year Award.  She does locum work at the Louisiana School of Veterinary Medicine, stepping in as head of the Integrative Medicine Department several times a year.

Useful Links:

Website: https://www.optimumpetvitality.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/optimum.pet.vitality/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OptimumPetVitality
You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkBnCS8-p0eGS6Qn34Km7LQ

Text : 1-866-949-0068 for her free e book  on the Top 5 Exercises for Geriatric Dogs

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So is your dog's name Oliver. So you said, yes, I love that name for a dog.

Speaker 2: 0:05

And he's 14, and he's like standing at the far end of the yard going. Hmm, I mean no.

Speaker 1: 0:13

I'm sorry, that's OK Right here, right here. Good Good job, buddy. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 0:30

There we go. Now we're going to have to worry about him because it's raining and cold outside, oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 0:34

You don't want him to stand out there and just stay there forever you say he's 14. What kind of puppy is he? He's a mastiff cross. Oh my gosh, and he's 14. Good job. Well, yes, you're a longevity expert, so that makes sense. That's fantastic. Oh, how lucky.

Speaker 2: 0:51

So yeah, I lost my dog's at 18 and a half a couple years ago A couple years ago.

Speaker 1: 0:56

Oh, I love that. I'm not too familiar with doxins, but I've been noticing there's been a lot of the long hair doxins in my neighborhood lately. They're so cute. Is there a specific difference between those two? Are they different variations of the breed?

Speaker 2: 1:12

obviously, so there's minis, which are like 10 pounds, and under there's the regular ones that were bred to hunt the badgers, which are like 15 to 30 pounds. There's tweenies, which are the ones that are in between Got it, and they have personalities, and then in each set you can have different coat colors.

Speaker 1: 1:36

So there's a lot of variation Got it. Was your guy in between or was he a?

Speaker 2: 1:41

No, he was a mini. He was only eight pounds Aw cute.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Well, thanks you two for popping on, and Dr Lori, I'm very excited to meet you, Dr Heather, who I've been doing rehab rehabilitation with with my own dog, who is going to be 16 next month. I've been seeing her since he was like seven years old when he was diagnosed with osteoarthritis, and she is one of the. I think 80% of why he's still moving and grooving and trucking along so well is because of our continuous work with her. So you are like the pioneer of veterinary rehabilitation and physical therapy, which I think a lot of people don't even think about when it comes to their pets, unless perhaps they have some sort of like major injury that they need to rehabilitate from right A torn ligament or something like that. Do you want to introduce yourself to my listeners and tell us a little bit about you?

Speaker 2: 2:33

So I'm Dr Lori McCauley. I graduated from vet school in 1992. I did six years of regular practice, fell down the stairs at three o'clock in the morning, hurt my dogs out. Of course I hurt my back. My chiropractor couldn't fix me. I went to the orthopedic surgeon who said you need to go see a PT and it was like a light bulb went off and I went oh my God, this is so cool, this is what I want to do for dogs, and said I'll take a course. And of course there were no courses at the time. So I went. I did some research with a large hospital that had a human PT on staff that was just doing a little bit of work and we did some research together. And then I opened up the world's first rehab center for dogs. I designed the first underwater treadmill.

Speaker 2: 3:20

I've been blessed to be able to write multiple chapters for textbooks and articles. I've lectured all over the world. I have let's see what else. I taught the rehab certification course. I was one of the main instructors for 14 years. I've had interns from 17 countries. I love, love, love teaching and my mission in life is empowering people to help their pets. So whether it be veterinarians that I'm helping technicians, pet parents. Every time I help somebody, help their pet, it fills my cup and warms my heart.

Speaker 1: 3:57

That's fantastic. And Dr Lindsay, you were just mentioning, I think that you took one of her courses recently. Did I get that correct?

Speaker 3: 4:03

I did. Yeah, she offered a kind of it's like a miniature we call them wet labs or a hands-on laboratory during the last holistic veterinary medical association conference and I also have known Dr Heather for years and she has sung your praises since I've met her, so I was very excited and honored to have the opportunity to be able to learn from you. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 4:23

I love, love, love, because I think about it like the ripple effect. Right, I help you and you help pet parents, and then they help their dogs, or you help their dogs, and I'm just so blessed that I have that ability and that opportunity.

Speaker 1: 4:38

Well, thank you for all that you do and all that you've accomplished. My guy wouldn't be moving and grooving if probably if it wasn't for you and all of your work. So I really appreciate it and thank you. And I wanted to talk about. One of the things you often talk about is the importance of exercise for our pets, and I think when we think about exercise, we automatically think of like running, you know, or like fast walking. What does that look like? What is the importance of exercise look like, and what does exercise look like in your eyes for our pets?

Speaker 2: 5:09

So you know there's, if you think about exercise in humans, right. So we have something to compare it to. You've got your marathon runners who can run, run, run, but then you ask them to lift something heavy and they can't Right. And then you've got your what I call gym rats, right, the people who are out at the gym five days a week. They're really built, yeah, but you ask them to run and they're out of breath immediately, right? So there's different types of muscle fibers in our bodies and it's the same with dogs. So there's two important sides of that. We want to be able to increase endurance, whether it be heart, lungs and the muscles, and then we also want to increase strength, and we increase strength to decrease the chance of injury. And, believe it or not, those two things the runner and the person who is doing different exercises, and building the type two muscle fibers. That actually affects the brain as well. So the I'm going to go for a walk, I'm going to walk my dog, I'm going to swim my dog, I'm going to run my dog, and that actually increases the number of neurons in their brain. I'm going to learn something new. I'm going to lift weights. I'm going to do new tricks I'm going to do. That kind of stuff Increases the life expectancy of each neuron in their brain. So by comparing the two, by doing the endurance exercises and the targeted exercises, we actually increase cognitive function in the dog. We increase endorphins so that they're happier, they're less stressed.

Speaker 2: 6:36

There's so many things that we can help with. We can. We can decrease the chance of metabolic issues. A bunch of Canadian physicians have actually have a statement out that says that exercise is the largest underutilized tool for controlling pain associated with arthritis in humans. Right, so we take that and bring that into our pets. So many of our dogs are on supplements or medications and that's great. But if we can strengthen the muscles, tendons and ligaments around the joints, we can potentially get them off of things that may have side effects as well as cost and get them doing fun things. That increases their bond with their owner, increases their happiness, literally. There's tons of research that shows that exercise increases longevity. So we're just talking a little bit off air about, you know, having our pets live a long time. Exercise is a big part of that.

Speaker 1: 7:37

And this is something that we should just implement from the get go. Like, how does it change as they age, right, like, how does it the level of exercise and the kind of exercise, because there's so many different things. You're talking about strength training. How do we do strength training with our dogs, right?

Speaker 2: 7:56

I can't see my dog lifting many ways I wish this was on video, but so my dog Sid, who usually he's next to me now, usually he's behind me he literally came to me with straight knees, straight shoulders and a long back Right, and I'm a rehab mom. So I looked at him and go, you're not going to have a cruciate injury, I will not allow you to have a shoulder injury, You're not going to have a back injury or an iliopsoas injury. So I put together an exercise program for him to help strengthen and support all of that stuff and then I shared it with friends of mine. And one of my friends, who actually lives in Chicago, so a thousand miles away, wrote back and said oh my God, Lori Sophia is a niffer dog, she's a competitive agility dog and I think we started when she was like 10, nine and a half 10.

Speaker 2: 8:51

And she's like I thought my dog was strong, she does hurting. So she does all the running sports right, she does obedience, she does the agility. She's like my dog is probably three pounds this is a small shelter three pounds heavier and it's all muscle Right. And at 11, she was the seventh fastest shelter in agility, in the bad dog agility. So everybody else is like four, five and six and at 11, she was in the top 10, which is just amazing. She's like Lori. You need to share this with others and that's why I created corn more. So the exercise and corn more is your exercise.

Speaker 1: 9:32

But is that something that's available for for pet parents too? Yes, absolutely, oh great.

Speaker 2: 9:38

Yeah, yep, core and more foundational exercises for your dog Okay. And you can get on my website optimum pet vitalitycom, and it's right there, okay.

Speaker 1: 9:51

So what? Here's my question, some of my questions how do we know? How do we know if we're A if our dog is getting enough exercise and B If we're pushing our dog too hard to get exercise right? Excellent?

Speaker 2: 10:09

questions yeah, so facial expressions Okay, right, so when we look for signs of fatigue and I don't want to push it, but it's all in the course right? Signs of fatigue are ears that are perc. Ears will come back and then down A tail that's what they call a gay tail that comes across the back, will actually unravel and come down. Signs of stress, signs of fatigue Heavy panting right, so dogs don't sweat. They literally cool themselves off by panting. And when a dog starts to overheat, their tongue will flatten out so it has a larger surface area. They'll pant and you'll watch their head move, literally because they don't want to breathe in the hot air. They just breathe out. Their eyes will dilate.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Is that why they do that Right, so panting, and they are moving. They move around a lot Interesting. I did not know that, okay.

Speaker 2: 11:06

Yep, they pick places that has cool air Makes sense. Yeah yeah, rob Gillette did that study probably 20 years ago. It's so cool. He did it for hunting dogs, got it? Yep, so there's lots of signs of fatigue. You may see their head come down, their eyes may, like I said, if they're stressed they'll dilate. Their facial features may come flat. They may be looking for a sign of escape, especially if they're on a treadmill or something like that. They'll be like this is really hard, I don't know if I can do this. And they'll look around saying, okay, where am I going to go? So it's body language.

Speaker 1: 11:42

Yeah, learning about canine body language in general is something that we all need to do as pet parents for many different reasons you just mentioned. You just mentioned treadmill. Do you recommend like treadmill work, like putting your dog on a treadmill, or are there certain dogs that shouldn't do activity? Because I know it's hard for a lot of people to even get out and walk their dogs after they work. They're exhausted and they want to work out themselves and maybe your dog does a different pace than you do. Then you have to do like double the workout. You really don't want to do it, so you recommend something like doing a treadmill workout with your dog.

Speaker 2: 12:19

It depends, okay. So if I have somebody who wants to work with their dog and go walking and stuff like that, it's always better for both to walk than to be on a treadmill. I spent 24 years in Chicago where the winters were horrendous. Yeah, right, so a treadmill. There was a wonderful thing I worked with a lot of police dogs, so this way the police could be studying as they were going through their coursework Right? So I worked with them before they were officially on the force and they would work up to an hour and a half on the treadmill three times a week on an incline.

Speaker 2: 12:55

So if you're going to the incline, it actually decreases the amount of exercise than if you're flat. So, absolutely, the strength is to be at an incline. Well, it makes sense, right? If you're going at an incline, the weight is shifted back and the back legs, or your muscles or the limbs of propulsion pushing you forward, your front legs are your deceleration. So if you have dogs that are like agility dogs, where they have to wrap around something right, they have to slow down really fast Then working the front end is super important. But most of the time, what I see with clients is the thought of how many times when I was in general medicine, people said, doc, my dog just couldn't get up anymore so I put him to sleep. Yes, stop Right. One of my goals is to stop that. One of my goals is to take. Right now, 80% of orthopedic surgeries in the dog world is cruciate injuries. I would love to drop that to less than 20%. That's one of my goals.

Speaker 1: 14:00

For those of us who may not know what that means, but have an idea what is cruciate injuries Like a ligament or like a Great question.

Speaker 2: 14:08

So in humans they call it an ACL. Okay, yeah, right. So a knee injury where you tear a knee but the tear one of the leg. It's like a cross. Cruciate means cross. Okay, they're one of those ligaments and in dogs right now to have that surgery is $5,000 to $7,000 and that's without the rehab. Wow, and 50 to 60% of them within the next two years will tear the other one. So strengthening the dog's knees, the tendons and ligaments and the muscles around it that support it, are super, super important. Finding inflammation before they tear and then getting rid of it. Super, super important to try to decrease the chance of doing that.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Got it and what are some of the ways that we can get rid of that inflammation without using, like you know, in addition to using, you know, medication? I personally like to use as minimal medication as I can with chance, Even at his age. We only use, like our medicams and our maloxicams, like whenever he's having some sort of a big flare up. What are some of the ways that we can help our dogs with that inflammation in order to prevent some of these injuries?

Speaker 2: 15:22

So one is simple as keeping them lean, right. So white fat, right. So if you were to look inside the dog and you see fat, that's actually endocrine organ, and just the fat, not just the weight of the dog, but the fat itself will create chemicals in the body that increase inflammation throughout the body. Right, Exercise, just exercising, decreases inflammation in the body, Right. And then if you want supplements, you can use joint supplements. You know the whole glucosamine chondroitin thing, If you want to.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Just one quick tip on that, because there was a meta analysis, meaning one research study that looked at lots and lots and lots of research studies showed that when glucosamine and chondroitin came from the whole animal so greenlit muscles or perna muscles it had a significant effect. When the glucosamine and chondroitin was isolated, so taken out and you don't have the rest of the coenzymes and the rest of the part of the animal, it did not have the same results. So good quality supplements and I don't recommend just one. I tell people, pick four or five, and it's not like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday you're on a different one, but you do one bottle of this and then one bottle of that, because if you're on the same thing all the time, your body doesn't need it, Right. But if you're on this glucosamine and chondroitin, and this one has devil's claw and this one has collagen and this one has, you know, the avocado stuff and all of these different things, then you're getting a whole array to help your dog.

Speaker 1: 17:03

Got it and now I need to mix up chances some of the supplements, because we've been doing the same one for quite some time. And at what age should we start giving our dogs these supplements? Oh, there's your puppy. What's he?

Speaker 2: 17:14

doing? What's he doing?

Speaker 1: 17:15

He's back there, he is looking up.

Speaker 2: 17:19

Where's the acro on my lawn? He may start screaming in a second, because he is the ice, a Carolina squirrel dog, a mountain dog, and his biggest thing in life is to chase crows and squirrels.

Speaker 1: 17:33

Oh my gosh, that is so cute. Yeah, he's ready to go. He's ready to go, oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:39

The other thing I have to say before we get off supplements is omega-3 fatty acids. There is more research on that than any other supplement to help decrease inflammation and that if you're like, ah, I don't want to do any kind of drug, any kind of supplement, something as simple as sardines or a higher fish diet can get you natural omega-3s. And again, just like with the omega-3s I recommend, just like the other supplements, I recommend picking four or five different ones and rotating through.

Speaker 3: 18:06

Before we move off of omegas. I'm actually curious to get your opinion on this, because I've heard kind of mixed things depending on who I speak with. How do you feel about salmon oil versus small fish in terms of sourcing, like for ongoing use?

Speaker 2: 18:20

Not my area of expertise. I don't sourcing. I'm sorry.

Speaker 3: 18:23

No, that's okay. I was just curious because I know that some people have concerns with salmon having some level of heavy metal accumulation over time. So when I talk about omegas, I usually just like to mention to people if you can try for sustainable sourcing, like small fish, usually from Norwegian waters, or micro algae. That's another great source that's popping up. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:49

So, yeah, I have krill oil, I have, like Nordic naturals, I have grizzly polycoil. So, again, staying away from more from the salmon. So I agree with you on that, but I don't have as much information as you do.

Speaker 1: 19:02

I think I wanted to ask briefly what age we should start to. I think we got interrupted by your cutie-petutie behind you. But at what age should we start giving our dogs these supplements to help with the inflammation and help with the keep them from getting any sort of injury, if we can?

Speaker 2: 19:24

For me it's job dependent. Oh, okay, If somebody comes to me and they say I want my dog to be a world team agility dog, we start supplementation at six months. Wow, if I have a dog, that and again that's from a study done by Christian Kirk B Shaw on Atiquan, where they took beagles and they took split litters and half of them they gave Atiquan to and half of them they didn't, and then they ran the heck out of them. Then they looked at their cartilage and the ones that had the supplementation beforehand or as they were going through it had minimal damage to the cartilage and the pup that didn't had tons of damage to the cartilage. Now, if I have a pet and they're not going to be training constantly I don't think they need that Then to me it's half-life.

Speaker 2: 20:21

If you have a dog, that's expected like a great day to live to be seven to 10 years old. You may start at five. If I have a doxin that I expect to live to be 15 years old, we may wait till we're six or seven. It just depends upon that. There's not a problem starting earlier. I want my kids to eat healthy too.

Speaker 1: 20:43

Right as our dogs age, how do we adjust our expectations for exercise and are mindful of not overdoing it in our senior dogs, Also being mindful to actually, I think a lot of people just let their senior dogs lie around because they're like, oh, he's tired, he's old, he's whatever. How do we encourage people to get up and even do just minimal stuff, keep them moving? What are the some?

Speaker 2: 21:20

of the ways that we can do that.

Speaker 2: 21:23

Great point. I have some of my clients that come in where, just like you said, they have like oh, here's my 16-year-old dog and he lays around all day and he may get up. I'm like that significantly decreases life expectancy. There are studies that show that inactivity and lack of stimulation significantly speeds the degeneration of both the brain and the body. I will start those pets on things like I need you to walk to the mailbox three times a day, or if the client's stay-at-home parent, it would be five times a day. Just walk to the mailbox and then it may be some of people like I don't know if you can because I live on a farm you maybe walk around the inside of the house and then the outside of the house.

Speaker 2: 22:11

We have exercises that we can do, like rhythmic stabilization. Again, I hate to bring it in again, but Core War is all exercises that work on stability that are amazing for geriatric dogs. It's nothing pounding, it's the pounding that puts pressure on the joints. It's working on the muscles around it, without the pounding and without the shear force that we worry about with knees or hips, that help build the muscle to help prevent Then again learning new things in humans, something as simple as learning a new language. Learning a instrument increases life expectancy and significantly increases neurons in the brain.

Speaker 1: 22:57

With our dogs. Would that be something like a new game, or even walking in a different neighborhood? I was thinking, maybe if your dog is able to get a plume in the car and take them to a different neighborhood, they're getting a little bit more stimulation in that way, they're getting some mental stimulation that's different than they're used to Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 23:16

If your dog can't walk through them in a stroller or wagon, I'll have clients like with my neuro patients or my really older dogs that will take them to the park and then throw a ball there or throw some leaves around them. They'll be like what's this, what's that? They'll be like. I'm excited that makes them happy and decreases stress, releases endorphins and serotonin and all those happy chemicals.

Speaker 1: 23:42

Right, that's great.

Speaker 3: 23:49

I think the other important thing to note with this, too, is greed differences. Professionally, we know that there are certain dogs that are far more prone to slipping a disc or an vertebral disc disease. Like Dr Laurie mentioned, investing in core strengthening early on can be really, really helpful, because there's very little that we can offer in terms of prevention coming from a conventional aspect outside of proper weight management. I think it's another way for people to think about that. Dr Laurie, I didn't know if you had any other comments just along those lines.

Speaker 2: 24:25

I can tell you again, if you can put this in the notes. I have a book, an e-book that people can get called the Top 5 Exercises for Geriatric Dogs, that people can text the word exercise to 1-866-949-0068. It is my top five exercise that are safe for anything from a 16-week-old puppy to a 16-year-old dog. I can tell you, when I lecture, the two most important exercises and Lindsay, you probably heard me say this. If I can teach you just two exercises, it would be walking backwards and walking sideways.

Speaker 1: 25:07

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 25:08

Right, that's something you can say. You know what we're going to feed Fluffy, so, fluffy, you have to start with walking backwards five steps and then your bowl goes down. Or, fluffy, you're going to walk sideways from the kitchen to the living room and then back, and then your bowl goes down. Or you can be on a walk and say you know what, every five houses, we're going to walk sideways a house and then five houses and then we'll walk sideways the other way. So you can implement exercises into normal daily routine for fun, mental stimulation and to strengthen the most important muscles to help a dog live longer and decrease chance of injury.

Speaker 1: 25:43

And that's because you're moving muscles that you don't normally use. If you're going backwards and sideways, or so you're kind of getting all the you're hitting all the angles.

Speaker 2: 25:54

So when you go backwards, you're using your glutes and your hamstrings and your calf muscles. Okay, so those are the muscles that weaken when the dog can't get up Right. It's the muscles of proposal, got it? It also works the triceps when they're going backwards, which are the major standing muscles for the front end, and it's working the brain, because they have to think about stepping back, and where they're placing their feet Sideways is because a lot of dogs have hip issues or shoulder issues, and we're walking sideways stimulates and strengthens the muscles that support the hips and the shoulders.

Speaker 1: 26:31

Interesting. That makes perfect sense.

Speaker 2: 26:33

Yeah, think about old dogs. What's the most common injury I see is they run, run, run and they do a splay right when either the front legs go out or the back legs go out, whether they're running, whether they're on ice or a slippery, you know, wood floor or whatever. And by strengthening, by doing side steps and strengthening that, you can increase that or take it away.

Speaker 1: 26:56

Right. What are some of the common mistakes that we make when we're implementing an exercise program for our dogs? We can worry your syndrome.

Speaker 2: 27:08

What is that? Yeah, that was when I Lindsay's nodding. She's like uh-huh. It's when the client or pet parent doesn't work with their dog Monday through Friday and then Saturday comes and they go for a 10-mile run, right, right.

Speaker 1: 27:25

So I'm like I'm ready. I'm a cute and ant.

Speaker 2: 27:32

Just because you only have time two days a week. Exercises can be five minutes once or twice a day. It can be 20 minutes three times a week. I always tell people look at your calendar, pick your two to three busiest days in the week and don't do any exercises that day as long as they're not right next to each other, right. But then the other days do something. Even for humans they say you have increased life expectancy and health. So we can talk about lifespan and health span If you go for a walk for 25 minutes five times a week, right. So we can take that into the dog world and say do what we can.

Speaker 2: 28:09

The other thing I'll tell you that's really important to know is people say my dog's overweight, so I'm going to cut their food. But if we just cut their calories, then their dog is going to use in their normal daily life. They're going to use muscle to supply the calories that they need. They're not just going to burn fat. So they will literally lose, pound per pound, the same amount of muscle as they do fat. But there's research that shows that if you exercise while cutting calories, you lose the fat and you keep your muscle.

Speaker 1: 28:46

That makes sense. That makes sense. Can we circle way back to the beginning, when we talked about how you were the first one, the one of the first people, or the first people to develop an underwater treadmill for dogs?

Speaker 1: 28:59

Mostly because I think it's so freaking cute. I know it serves a purpose, but when I've had clients where I've had to take them to, there's a wonderful place not far from me that does like veterinary rehab and I've just had a few clients with many years ago. But I remember the first time I saw all the kiddos in their underwater treadmills. Can we talk A how did you develop that? And B what are some of the benefits of that? I mean, I'm sure it's much like us doing water aerobics, maybe some sort of to relieve some of the pressure on your joints, but I would love to hear a little bit more about that because it's really cute, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 29:34

So underwater treadmill was designed for the first for horses. Because what happened? There were race horses, so they're very, very expensive and they would get hurt when they were racing and then they would have surgery and then they would be in stall rest and then they would never come back. So they said, okay, let's take this idea and let's swim them, and this way we'll keep the muscle. But then what they found was when they were swimming them they came back and they were just as strong and then they would break a bone, because you don't have the pounding which is what strengthens the bone.

Speaker 2: 30:09

So then they come up with the underwater treadmill for horses and then, like I don't know, 10, 15 years later, they came up with it for people. And then I'm like this would be perfect for my geriatric dogs. So we had the first one and literally I took a human treadmill, I took a jet ski lift. So imagine the crank on a jet ski lift. I called the local zoo and said how do you make your polar bear tanks? And I got the same glass that they use. And I had a pool company come in and it was an upside down cement cup with a right side up cement cup on it. And then so I had it, so it was only 28 inches high so that the dogs could walk up a long ramp and get on, so that we weren't lifting. They didn't have any problems with falling.

Speaker 2: 30:57

We had a security camera that looked through the glass, and then we had a TV monitor, so right so that we could watch while we're working with the dogs. We could see exactly what they were doing. What else? And then we learned that you get from a jet ski lift if you keep doing that, you get tendonitis in your elbow. So when we did our new boat lift that could hold literally 3,000 pounds and that was that. So it was. There was just pushing a button. It was much, much nicer. So I actually designed this before there were any of the tanks. And then what happened was I presented at the first international symposium on sports medicine and rehabilitation oh my gosh, and maybe 2000, 2001, something in there and I had a video of Nala, who was a patient of mine, a Rottweiler who has a tail.

Speaker 1: 31:57

That's Dr Lindsay, the name of Dr Lindsay's dog.

Speaker 2: 32:00

Oh, awesome. And in the video it shows her in the underwater treadmill because we had the camera from the side, where she's just dragging her back legs. And then I find a magic spot on their tail about a third of the way down and all of a sudden she starts taking steps and everyone was like what? And then through the years we learned about central pattern generators and how dogs and cats have these things that can actually create stepping motions, even if the spinal cord is transected, so we can get what we call spinal walkers. But clients don't care what you call it. I've had dogs that have literally broken their back and been paralyzed, no pain, and get them back to walking five or six miles on a trail with their owner, because that's what the dog lives for. Because of this spinal walking Okay, and it's not gonna save everybody Helps a lot of dogs.

Speaker 2: 32:56

And then we saw the geriatric dogs were like taking the weight off their joints, the buoyancy. And then we had our athletes and we're like look, we can put jets in there. So water and air are blowing at them at different amounts so that we can increase the resistance. So water can be up to 60 times more resistant than air. At the same time, we have buoyancy, and then you have hydrostatic pressure, right. So if there's inflammation, the pressure of the water actually decreases, it increases the circulation and decreases the inflammation and the edema or swelling in the tissue. So it helps so so many things. And now, believe it or not, they sell more underwater treadmills for dogs than they do for horses and humans.

Speaker 1: 33:42

Oh my gosh, wow, I hope. Did you patent it? No, Okay, are there any dogs that you come across that don't that are just too terrified to do the underwater? I mean, I know my dog in particular. He's not a fan of water. He'll take a bath, but that's about it. I tried to teach him to swim when we were younger and he was not interested.

Speaker 2: 34:03

So and I know I have some clients who are absolutely terrified of water yeah, I have only had one dog that was a Border Collie that went absolutely crazy and like flailed and we couldn't calm them down for anything but like there's things like the Samoyeds or the really overweight Goldens and what they'll do is you put them in the underwater treadmill and they pick their feet up and they go look, I can float, yeah. So enough.

Speaker 1: 34:32

Right, I was just thinking about a golden who a client of mine once he said that who passed not too long ago at 15, but he would have loved that underwater treadmill. But he would have probably done the same thing like, oh yeah, Just floated yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:48

But like, so we work with them, right, right, so we make the water only carfus or wrist tight, yeah, and then as they are walking, then we slowly increase the height so that it goes up to either the point of the shoulder, the point so in the underwater treadmill, if you want the most resistance with the least buoyancy, so you want to work this dog, you put the water at you can't see me, but at the elbow height, right, you don't have the body in the water, so you don't have the buoyancy, but they have all the resistance In humans. You take your arms straight out and you make little L's with your hands and you touch your thigh. If you were at that height in the water, you're going to have the most resistance without the buoyancy. Right, for your old dogs that have a lot of arthritis. We're going to put him at just about, maybe a little bit above shoulder height.

Speaker 2: 35:36

If you go too high, have you ever been in water up to here and you go up on your tippy toes? Yeah, right up to your chin, yeah, yeah. You can't take long strides. You're up on your tippy toes in tiny steps, so you don't want to go too high, because then the dogs don't take normal strides. You want them to have nice long strides in the underwater treadmill, got it? That makes sense. Yeah, I can tell you all kinds of tips to make dogs work.

Speaker 1: 36:02

OK, my last question is and I don't know if you have other questions, dr Lindsey, but my last question is what if you have just a dog that doesn't want to exercise? Let's say you got a bulldog and, not to generalize it, all English bulldogs are lazy lovers, but they are like a lot of them don't like to do a lot of work or I have a lot that will maybe like pancake we call pancake. They just don't want to walk, they just you go outside and they just stand right there and they're like yeah, no, I'm good, I'm not interested in this. How do you motivate a dog who's unmotivated to exercise?

Speaker 2: 36:39

So we look for what motivates the dog. So I have literally trained dogs to re-walk when they were paralyzed. We had one option that the only thing he would walk for was coffee. So he's only told us he would walk, so we'd take a spiral cup and cut it down like a centimeter of coffee in there, and then we'd have him walk three steps.

Speaker 2: 37:00

He would get to go lap, lap, lap and then we would move it. I had one dog that the only thing he would walk for was caramelized popcorn. It couldn't even be cheese or some other flavor, it had to be caramelized. So interesting I had one dog that had no food motivation at all but had done agility and loved the tunnel. So we literally put a tunnel up and then every time she did an exercise then she was allowed to go through the tunnel tunnel tunnel back to an exercise. Oh, that's cute.

Speaker 2: 37:31

I've had a St Bernard who had cruciate injury and decided that she was going to die because her knee hurt and she, at 140,000 pounds, refused to get up and we put her on a support.

Speaker 2: 37:48

We can put them on a peanut ball, like more of a round ball that's shaped like a peanut, and we rock them back and forth until they realize they can stand, or in a standing apparatus or a cart so that they don't have the ability to lay down, and then we can tickle their toes. And it's very, very important that you communicate with the dog. So imagine I pushed you, I pushed you, I pushed you, you turn around and you push me back. But if I pushed you and said, thank you, charlotte, I so appreciate you taking that step. And then I pushed you and you took a step and I said, oh my gosh, charlotte, thank you, that is awesome. And then I pushed you. Before I even get to the push, you're going to take a step. So working with the dog and praising them for everything that they do is so simple and important than just trying to correct them or ignore the things they do wrong.

Speaker 1: 38:43

Positive reinforcement. It works, you guys. It works with people and pets. Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 38:50

I will do almost everything for chocolate. It definitely works.

Speaker 3: 38:53

That's true. I don't know how we can talk about this, but the other thing I really appreciated about the wet lab was the way that you just very organically integrate in energy medicine into what you do, because that is so. That really has made a huge difference, like for myself as a person, for a lot of the patients that I've worked with, and I feel like, of course, in the holistic community it's a lot more accepted, but on the conventional side you know, they, they think we're who and let's just all these terms that they'll throw around but it is. It is so important, I think, probably almost even more important for Our animal companions then for humans, because they don't have preconceived notions, are just open vessels. So I didn't know if you wanted to touch on that at all, because it's it's very refreshing to see someone that is as as accomplished as you that sees the importance in that.

Speaker 2: 39:43

I would love to tell you the story about how I figured I won't say I didn't figure it out how I learned about this, about energy medicine. I always listen to. To me it's God, it could be the universe, whatever you've got, feel whatever. And I was in general medicine and I was at a great clinic and I had a parvo golden retriever and everybody thought she was going to die. And it was Friday night and so we did the responsible thing right, you can't leave her at the clinic. We were closed for the weekend. So we took her to the emergency, or her parents took her to the emergency clinic and I kept hearing you got to go visit that dog. I'm like it's a 45 minute drive for me from my house on the weekend to go visit that dog. And I kept hearing you got to go visit that dog and like why would I go visit that dog? It's not going to live. But I had to write deep inside of me and I'm like, ok, these people don't know me, I've never been to the emergency clinic, but I drove there. I'm like, all right, god, now what do I do? And I had no clue. So I just sat and I just held the dog, put my hands on the dog, held the dog and spent like 15 minutes just loving on the dog and I'm like, did I do what I was supposed to do? I don't know. And I left and Monday morning comes and I'm thinking we're going to get the phone call. Oh, I'm sorry she passed away and we get the phone call from the owner. Thank you so much. The emergency clinic told us I'm going to cry from the moment you left.

Speaker 2: 41:14

That dog turned around and got better and she was up and she lived and I said there's something to this. Ok, god, take me, teach me and I continue to learn. I just learned about I don't know if you've taken Patrice Corsica's class on osteopathy To do, to do, and I am so, so, so excited because I teach part of the pain management course for Vin Right. The people take to get certified in pain management and I went to. We had a full meeting and I'm like guys, I know this isn't in the exam, but this is really cool, the things I can do with this tuning fork. And I thought they were going to be like yeah, no. So you know, 10 years ago they were like laser, I'm not sure. And then, you know, eight years ago they were like PEMF, I'm not sure and they were like all right, laurie, you're on, learn about it as much as you can with FASHA. And by 2025 there will be tuning for a lecture, including tuning fork with FASHA in the Vin pain management course. Tell me, that is an exciting.

Speaker 3: 42:24

That's amazing. And, for those that don't know, vin is the veterinary information network, so it's a really robust resource that we all use collectively, professionally, to communicate with each other. There's specialists on there, there's general practitioners on there, so that just goes to show that the conventional, our conventional colleagues are putting more weight into a lot of the things that have been disregarded and discredited for a really long time. That's very exciting.

Speaker 2: 42:51

It is and in fact we, you know, every year we teach and Jan Huntingford and I have the non pharmaceutical part of it, and this year they're like OK, it looks like we want to increase. Right, there's more and more people that are wanting to take this course. We want to increase our time and they asked us specifically they want to increase palliative care, hospice which just warms my heart and more rehab, pain management, rehab and I'm like that is amazing here, I thought they're. You know, every year I'm like, oh, my god, are they going to say they're going to cut us because you know it's not drug related? And they actually increased our time, which, again, just one.

Speaker 1: 43:32

Can we circle back really quickly and explain what tuning fork is? I have heard that term before and I'd like to know how it applies to veterinary medicine or how it applies to healing.

Speaker 2: 43:44

A tuning fork. In general, medicine is used if you think you have a bone fracture and it causes a vibration. So if it's put it on there, the bones vibrate and you can tell there's a fracture because all of a sudden it's painful. But, as I'm learning, there's different frequencies, which makes sense, right? I actually just heard a of a research article I have it ready, yet I have it on using sound frequencies to treat some kind of cancer like holy cow. That's cool, but this is a tuning fork at a specific frequency that releases fascia, so trigger points. I just for the first time used it on. I had a patient last week that had like half inch thick scar tissue. She licked her tarsus, her, her heart joint and that had an ulceration and that's healed. But there's so much scar tissue it's uncomfortable and literally we use the laser and got it in half. And then I'm like let's try the tuning fork and it got in half again. Wow, so I'm still learning and amazingly cool that's super cool, you do sound therapy, dr Lindsay.

Speaker 3: 45:01

I do, yeah, so, yeah, so I. I have one patient in particular that the reason the pet parent reached out to me was because the dog, because she, uses an animal communicator. The dog requested a veterinarian that did acupuncture and sound healing and Reiki and we happened to connect and I have never I really should record it the response that that dog has. I'll put acupuncture needles in her and then I have a singing bowl and a gong and a chime that I play and she, just her whole body melts. Sound healing is incredibly powerful because I mean we all, frequency is is life. I think we just don't know enough about it to be able to, you know, stay in a conventional scientific way. Yes, it's doing this, but I'm so excited that there are studies that are coming out that are helping to support that, so that we can give that information to more people, because it really is so simple. There's no side effects, right, yeah, so it is beautiful.

Speaker 1: 45:55

Well, I know what my next episode is going to be. I mean, dive deep and deeper into this, because this is amazing and I'm getting chills like talking about all of this. So I mean, I know I'm interested in all those same things for myself, so why wouldn't I be for my pet, right? So can.

Speaker 2: 46:11

I take one step further and this may be more than you want to know, but I really just came out with a course called optimum laser therapy. No, I'm sorry, at home laser therapy because when I look at, I teach at LSU, the Louisiana State Vet School, and I see these kids coming out and there's not enough veterinarians right now to take care, right, everybody, covid, everybody got a dog, yeah, right, or cat, yeah, and then all the veterinarians that were of retirement age are like I'm not doing this anymore and they left. They sold their practices. Corporates are buying it up, yeah, so I was led to her at last year at the pet innovation summit, which is the veterinary feel. It was a conference not for the veterinarians but for the companies that support the veterinary field. So Merck, amazon, chewy, a lot of the those kind of companies and one of the big thing, the insurance companies. One of the big things they said is pets are the new kids and plants are the new pets. Right, so there's not.

Speaker 2: 47:24

People are more and more like my dog. He sleeps in my bed under the cover. I there's many nights I fall asleep holding his paw. His tent is on my pillow half the time. Right, he is my kid. My kids are grown up right there, adults now. He is my kid right now. Yeah, I want what's best for him. Yeah, and the veterinary field isn't there Again. I work with a lot of, a lot of agility people and a lot of people whose dogs are their kids. Yeah, and I say 50 to 70% of them own a laser and at the time, zero of them knew how to use it appropriately. So I created this program so that they could learn how to use their lasers.

Speaker 1: 48:06

How do we like ingrain in people how important this is, how important like the, the, the being proactive about our the, the, the, the health and wellness of our pets. So they don't, so we're not having to put them down at like 10 because of the osteoarthritis, right? So I mean, that's a whole other episode.

Speaker 2: 48:24

But it's exactly what you're doing, yeah, you're educating people, you're getting the word out so people understand. One, we can do this, yeah. And two, they're not alone, right. So the more people you have that listen to your podcasts yeah, and the more people understand, they realize there's lots and lots of people like them who love their dog yeah, and it's okay and we support them and that's a wonderful thing.

Speaker 1: 48:51

Well, thank you so much for jumping on and doing this with me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 48:55

I appreciate you inviting me on. This was wonderful and again, I hope it helps pet parents everywhere. Thanks for doing what you do.