When a terrier can’t be a terrier; keeping my dog entertained while on restricted activity

Halley, restricted

Back in early December, Halley injured herself. Again. She was holding her back left leg up like she didn’t want to put any weight on it. Again. I couldn’t tell you how she did it. Again.  

It’s a terrier thing. They’re hard wired to chase, injuries be damned. I don’t think she even feels anything until hours later, when she gets up from a nap and realizes, “Hey, my leg hurts.”

Terriers. Gotta love ’em.

This seemed like a repeat of the injury she had about a year ago, which was diagnosed as soft tissue damage, specifically to her iliopsoas, a combination of muscle and tendon that is probably best understood from a human perspective as a groin pull. You can read more about iliopsoas injuries from the Cornell V Richard P. Riney Canine Health Center.

Last time this happened, it took months of rehab to heal, beginning with severe activity restrictions, progressing through exercises and stretches, and including increasingly long but very controlled walks.

So, when Halley had her deja vu injury, I immediately began restricting her activity. I kept her on a leash for two weeks, way past any continued limping; she seemed to be healed. 

Until she began limping with her right front leg.

So, off the vet we go.

Halley is not a fan of veterinarians; she gets so stressed at the animal hospital that she can’t control her bounce—which is precisely what we don’t want her to do on injured legs. Sometimes gabapentin works, but between the stress hormones coursing through her body and the pain relieving properties of the medication, the vet couldn’t see the limp. Halley didn’t seem to have broken anything, though, so there wasn’t much to do. Later, I was able to catch both limps on video, and sent the recordings to the office. Word came back from the vet that she might have injured her cruciate ligament, and I needed to see an orthopedic specialist. That was the initial (and eventually incorrect) diagnosis last time as well.

By then it was just a few days before Christmas. The earliest appointment the specialist had for Halley was January 22—a month away! What was I supposed to do in the meantime? Luckily, I remembered that Halley’s physical therapist Dave Acciani of Advanced Canine Rehabilitation said I could reach out to him any time in the future. He kindly squeezed us in on Christmas Eve eve—before he went on vacation.

While Dave is not a veterinarian, he knows dog physiology, and gave Halley a thorough exam. So, yes, it looked like another psoas injury, though it didn’t seem as severe as last time. He saw no evidence of a cruciate injury. However, there was a lot of inflammation around her right elbow, more likely soft tissue damage there.

Dave put together a PT program for me to follow with Halley, and we set up an appointment in January for him to assess her progress. 

But here’s the thing. Halley doesn’t just have terrier blood coursing through her veins. She also has lab and Border Collie genes. When I tell dog people Halley’s ancestry, if they know anything about those breeds, their response will invariably be some version of, “Oof.” So in addition to the leaping levity of a lab, and the tenacity of a terrier, Halley is blessed with brains of a Border Collie.

Halley’s restrictions mean no activity that overextends the back legs (protecting the psoas) or stresses the front legs (protecting the knee). This translates to a never-ending list of no’s.

• No long walks.
• No trips to the park.
• No running.
• No leaping.
• No jumping on beds.
• No jumping off beds.
• No jumping on couches.
• No jumping off couches.
• No going up stairs.
• No going down stairs.
• No free run of the house while we’re gone; crate time only.
• No jumping on the window bench to look at birds, squirrels, chipmunks and other barkables.
• No jumping off the window bench to tell us about birds, squirrels, chipmunks and other barkables.
• No looking out any windows to see birds, squirrels, chipmunks, deer, fox, people, the UPS person, the mail carrier and other barkables because it is nearly impossible for Halley to bark and not run and / or bounce.
• No visitors because it is also nearly impossible for Halley to control her excitement, and therefor her bounce. 

So…what to do when an exuburent terrier needs to be contained?

We put gates up throughout the main floor of our house, so Halley has access to only one room at a time. 

Elsa Clair demonstrates the use of the cat door in the hallway gate.

We blocked off access to the couches and window bench and brought a second crate into our family room—and added three dog beds. 

Our family room with all the dog beds, the added crate, cushions off of one couch and access to the the other blocked.

To get on and off our bed, and in and out of the car, Halley must use a ramp. She has to be supervised, harnessed and leashed at all times, even in the house. We only take the harness off when she’s in her crate or sleeping with us at night.

For Brian and I, it’s a bit of an inconvenience. Gates everywhere. Near hourly conversations about who is on dog duty. A moratorium on visitors. Leaving the house at the same time only when necessary, or while crate training. Twice daily exercises and timed walks with Halley. 

Halley in her open crate. Athena is not sure she wants to share what is obviously a cat bed. We use a different crate in the family room. This was one of the ones we used when she was a puppy; she was so stressed, she destroyed the zipper. We keep it out so she stays familiar with the crate concept—and because the cats sleep in it as well.

But for Halley, a dog who loves to watch and move and chase and run and bark, it’s a calamity. For a dog with a history of barrier frustration, the literal and figurative restraint is triggering. She began to regress, showing tension near the cats, becoming less tolerant of their hissy fits, lunging at them when they swat at her.

That regression was troubling. When Halley first came to us, she was a combination of separation anxiety, barrier frustration, prey drive and baby Nazgûl. While I’ve crate trained all my dogs, Halley has always struggled with it, but this is one of the few cases where she needs to be crated when we leave, as we can’t control her activity. Never a fan of a closed crate, she has difficulty settling down the few times we need to leave her alone, sometimes ignoring her Kong until we get home. We’re back to training.

There are so many beds in our family room that there’s enough for the dog and all four cats, and nobody has to argue. I mean, the cats still will have discussion amongst themselves over preferred beds, but they don’t have to.

We even had to block off the bottom part of the sliding glass doors onto our deck because there were birds and squirrels: too barkable. Calvin isn’t too thrilled he can’t see through the paper. 

Once we restricted her movement in the house, as well as many of her avenues of entertainment, we are left with a bored, smart, frustrated terrier.

So…

We play games and puzzles. We have to be careful which ones we use because Halley will slam her paw at things and we don’t want to put her hurt limbs at risk, so we look for ones she can manipulate with her nose. Amusingly, many food puzzles marketed for cats seem to work well.

Halley plays a game.

We play nose games, challenging her to find treats under the boxes. This is good because she is less likely to use her feet, or at least use them gently. 

Halley sniffing out cat kibble under a box. We use cat kibble in all her puzzles and games, to keep the calories down.

We offer her a snuffle mat, another scent-based activity, so she can sniff out kibble.

Halley looking for cat kibble in her snuffle mat. 

We play mind games, where I ask her to touch different colors or choose a named toy.

And we increased her words. I haven’t written much about the word board Halley uses, mostly because I haven’t been able to focus on increasing her vocabulary much beyond “want” and [insert name of food treat]. I added seven words, including “Mom,” “Brian,” “Upstairs,” “Exercises,” and “Hurt.” I’ll write more about this in a future post, but while I was pretty sure Halley understood the concept of the word board, I think it was mostly just to ask for a Kong or a bone. Within a day, she was using nearly all the buttons in an appropriate context, blowing me away.

Halley and her word board

For example, we added a water bowl near her food bowl, which we don’t usually do because it’s in a traffic zone and the communal water bowl is maybe ten steps away. But we wanted to reduce her walking, so it made sense to add one that was closer. Our cat Athena saw this new item, and of course had to test it out, first by putting her paw in it, and then taking a few sips. Halley, who had never exhibited resource guarding, stood up quickly, her body tense, and lunged at Athena. The dog didn’t snap or growl, and the cat was not in any danger, but it was obvious that she didn’t want the cat near her stuff. Halley then went to her word board and just slammed a bunch of random buttons. She stepped back, as if reconsidering, as if it didn’t express her thoughts. Then she very deliberately pressed “No” and “Dishes” and then looked up at me. She was quite clearly telling me she didn’t want the cat by her water bowl.  

She’s one smart dog. 

When we did finally get to meet with the veterinary orthopedist, she confirmed that it was a psoas injury. Halley’s right front leg seemed to be much better, probably due to her restrictions; we knew what to do and we’ve been here before. 

And, as we learned the last time, it is at least a three-month healing time for Halley. So we’re looking at spring before we can start to lift restrictions. We are hoping to get back to our daily two-mail hikes by early summer. 

One step, one puzzle, one therapy session at a time.

Related posts:

I Didn’t Expect Baby Nazgûl: Our first month with a new puppy Three, Again Dog video: Halley speaks; there was a squirrel! Crate Expectations: Why a Crate is Essential for Your Pet #CrateHappyPets