Hamish's Story

At the beginning of October last year, our Labrador retriever, Hamish, inadvertently ran into Pam (my wife), whilst playing in Southwick Country Park with our other dog, Tessa. Pam was knocked over and suffered a severely wrenched knee and ankle, and is still having physiotherapy. There was a delayed reaction in relation to Hamish, and it was not until a week later that he started to limp and was not able to lie down properly in his basket, by curling around in it. Hamish was in such pain that he could only lie down on his stomach, in an upright position with his head resting on his front legs. He could not use his basket or an alternative bean bag because he seemed unable to curl round to accommodate the oval shape of either his basket or bean bag bed.

It was originally thought he had injuries to one of his front shoulder joints from the collision, but after further investigation it was established he had a whiplash type injury to his neck muscles, which meant it was painful to turn his head, and prevented him from curling round in his bed without it hurting him. Hamish also had difficulty reaching down to eat and drink from his bowl on the floor so they had to be raised on bricks until he was better. We had a telephone call from Glenleigh Veterinary Practice to offer assistance in the form of physiotherapy from Liz Tyrrell-Asprey. This was gratefully accepted because at the time Hamish was having pain killers, and we did not want that to continue for too long as we needed to get to the root of the problem. We wanted to restore Hamish’s torn and pulled neck muscles, so that he was fully mobile again.

For six weeks, from the end of October, Liz came once per week to give Hamish physiotherapy treatment. Liz’s treatments came in the form of massage and by the use of a laser machine applied to Hamish’s neck and back muscles. Hamish was always very pleased to see Liz and seemed to enjoy his massages, almost falling to sleep in the process! We hired the laser machine from Liz for this period and supplemented the massage treatment every day in the manner demonstrated to us by Liz. Progress was quite slow to start with, but gradually Hamish started to get on his bean bag for very short periods of a few minutes and to half curl round on it. He also started to lay in his basket at night, with initially only his back legs curled round, but keeping his neck straight. Treatment continued for the next two months with Liz giving Hamish physiotherapy fortnightly, supplemented by massaging from us. All the time Hamish gradually improved, and is now fully recovered and can curl round in the basket. He can also eat and drink from his bowl on the floor again.

We have been very pleased with the service offered by Liz, and Hamish is now back to his normal self for which we are very grateful. Thank you Liz

David and Pam Dulwich (and a Lick from Hamish)