Monday 22 August 2016

Sports Medicine and Rehab

Part of the extended period of radio silence on the blogging front has been because I've undergone something of a career 360 and it's been taking up an awful lot of effort! I originally qualified as a vet, and then for a variety of reasons didn't spend much time in practice, and have done lots of other things instead.

The more dogs I've acquired (four at the last count, but you know, there are SO MANY that need homes... :D) and the more I've been working with them, the more interested I have become in canine sports medicine and rehab. Since it's only very rarely that something grabs your attention and refuses to let go AND could conceivably be a way to earn a living, I've started down the route of qualifying to do canine sports medicine and rehab as a career...and I am SO excited. So far, I've loved every second of the studying and am looking forward to putting it all into practice. It's also given me the impetus to go back to being a vet, and so I've done more studying this last few months than I think I have ever before in my life (including when I passed my exams...)

The next step in the process is going to be to set up my own facility. I'm currently debating between a mobile clinic and my own place. The advantages to mobile are that I can go to my referring vets' practices, which works for everyone. The disadvantage to that is I want to take an underwater treadmill with me, and that's not incredibly straightforward (it can be done - but it's a fairly sizeable trailer to do it, and the size of vehicle you'd need to tow that weight is pretty mind blowing)

I've also been doing a little bit of speaking here and there. Yesterday saw me and collie #2 off to a campsite in the midlands to talk on canine warmups before sport , and also a little bit on conditioning for the canine athlete for Canicross Midlands. I managed to condense a talk that would normally take about 8 hours into 1h 45 mins so I was pretty pleased with that. It did involve talking fast though. We also did a little bit of practical work on core strength and on active stretching, so even the canine attendees had to pay attention...

Tuesday 9 August 2016

Hold them tight

Someone I follow on Facebook posted this comic today. I read it with tears streaming down my face and heart breaking into a million pieces.
copyright ubertool
Give your dogs an extra cuddle tonight. Their lives are so short, but so precious.