Today on Tripawd Talk Radio #127, learn how behavior therapy and canine rehabilitation therapy can result in success and good health for your Tripawd. Dr. Emily Hall explains on episode 127 of Tripawd Talk Radio.
Before we met Dr. Emily, we had no idea about the importance of working with practitioners who take extra time to get to know your dog’s temperament, likes, and dislikes. But it really makes a difference, as you’re about to learn. Taking time to do things like asking our pets permission before manipulating them can make all the difference between meeting your therapy goals, and just so-so results.
Dr. Emily explains why a whole body / mind approach to canine rehab therapy matters
Tulsa is so lucky to have Dr. Emily Hall! She is a veterinarian and certified canine rehab therapist practicing at Tulsa Animal Rehab and Wellness. She is dedicated to helping the profession grow and collaborate in a direction that puts individualized, whole body/mind care, as the expectation for rehab therapists, not the exception.
Tune in to discover how integrated animal behavior and cognition play a vital roll in the veterinary care she provides, and her canine rehab therapy client results. We know you will love meeting her as much as we did!
Subscribe to Tripawd Talk Radio in your podcast player app!
Listen now, or find the full episode transcript below.
Meet Dr. Emily Hall of Tulsa Animal Rehab and Wellness
In addition to being a Certified Fear Free Professional, Dr. Emily Hall is a member of the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior, and a member of the American Association of Rehabilitation Veterinarians. She is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) that is both a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Therapist (CCRT) through the Canine Rehabilitation Institute (CRI) and a Certified Professional Animal Trainer- Knowledge Assessed (CPAT-KA) through the International Animal Trainers Certification Board (IATCB).
Connect with Dr Emily Hall:
IG: @tulsarehabvet
FB: @TulsaVeterinaryTherapy
Why Behavior Therapy and Canine Rehabilitation Success are a Winning Combination: Learn and Watch on YouTube
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
Tulsa Animal Rehab & Wellness
Fear Free Veterinary Care
Wimba Orthotics
Free Rehab for Tripawds
Tripawd Talk Radio #127: Full Episode Transcript
The Importance of Behavior Therapy in Canine Rehabilitation and Animal Care with Dr Emily Hall
TRIPAWDS: Doctor Emily, it is so nice to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us.
DR. EMILY: Thank you so much. I’m excited to be here.
TRIPAWDS: Your background is really uncommon from for most veterinarians. Can you tell us a little bit about your your training that you had in vet school and, and what you did at Coral World?
DR. EMILY: Yeah, absolutely. So, I went to Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine. It is an AVMA accredited school. So like all AVMA accredited schools, we get great information and knowledge. But everyone has kind of their, their key, ingredient that makes them special. And I would say that one of the main things that makes Ross a special school, is you get so many opportunities, that I wouldn’t have gotten, say, in Oklahoma, to do different things like research with piping plovers, which is a particular bird does a shorebird, and doing, sea turtle monitoring network.
So walking the beaches and learning about sea turtles, helping with their research efforts and moving nests as needed so that we can have a better population of sea turtles. For Saint Kitts. Um, so that’s where Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine is, is the island of Saint Kitts and the Caribbean. Then I also got to work with vervet monkeys that, they’re they’re from a long time ago. They’re not really supposed to, but, they actually have an overpopulation problem there. And so we were working on, ways to help that humanely.
I got to have all those experiences and really opened my world early to kind of more of the zoo medicine route, which is the direction I wanted to go at the time with that going to my clinical year at University of Illinois. They also have a really great zoo med program and rehabilitation medicine program. I got a lot of great hands on learning there.
I did GP in small animal GP for a while when you first graduate. I definitely got some good hands on with dogs and cats, but I always had my love for getting back into the zoo medicine world. And I did, get to work at Coral World, which is actually on the island of Saint Thomas.
They were working on and succeeded in creating a kind of a sea pen sanctuary for dolphins. And so that’s what I was mostly there for, was to help with that transition process. But they also have a rescued South American sea lions. They work with a lot of sea turtles. We got to do a lot of rehabilitation of a lot of different animals.
That’s a different kind of rehab than what we normally talk about when we’re saying canine rehab therapy. But, yes, wildlife rehab definitely was a big part of what I did there, too and it’s just I really could go on forever on all the things, like, all of it!
TRIPAWDS: How did that transition over into your current practice? When did you jump into to Small Animal again? And and how did you bring those experiences over to you, what you do now?
DR. EMILY: Yeah, absolutely. It is a pretty, pretty big change. So I had a pretty big experience there. And I loved getting to learn all that I did, getting to work with the marine mammal specialists so closely because it is a smaller facility. And so I was involved in everything. It was my job to have a relationship with my patients, which were the animals that lived at Coral World.
For the resident animals at Coral World, being in a real relationship with them was priority from day one. And I loved that coral world really focused on that and getting to see how I can’t I can’t do my job with a dolphin or a South American sea lion if they don’t want to participate.
So there really was a shift in how I could do my job, and realizing that the best way for me to do the best medicine was to understand behavior, work with the marine mammal specialists, learn as much as I could from them, too, um, and build a relationship as fast as possible with the animals.
DR. EMILY: And that really is what I carried with me from then on out. It was hard to see anything any different. Your whole world and your whole view of no cookie cutter approach was already there from Ross, because it’s a really great school that does not allow their students to even be like, “This is the standard way.: It’s like, “Well, here’s gold standards” for sure.
But then here’s all the other things we need to be thinking about. So they always had us broaden our mindset and think about things outside the box. And then at Coral World that’s always important. If you live on an island, also, you’re going to broaden your horizons and daily basis. So all of those things is really kind of integral in how I became who I was in veterinary medicine.
TRIPAWDS: We don’t ask wildlife to be part of our world, our day to day life, you know? They’re not expected to be obedient in the same way that cats and dogs are when we bring them into our homes. And these are animals that basically do their own thing, and you’re stepping into their world and trying to understand them. Is that what I’m hearing?
DR. EMILY: Yes! And it’s so important. And it’s something that I might get some kind of rolled eyes about, but to me, if you think about it, we, we have the same principles that we can apply to our animals, where I am trying to do my best for a captive animal.
When we think about our animals, we don’t always remember that they are technically captive to this is their environment. And environmental husbandry concerns are the number one problem in zoo medicine.
And honestly, once I got back into general practice, it was very clear that there’s a whole dynamic that we’re missing when we’re not addressing the home life, the husbandry concerns, um, for our cats and dogs that may not even be recognized by the pet parents. They just don’t have the the information.
TRIPAWDS: I hear you on that. I mean, we’re giving them the love that we think they need, but we’re missing a lot of what they really need, which is a little more independence and decision making on their own. Yes?
DR. EMILY: Yes!
TRIPAWDS: So I have heard stories about people who have taken their dogs to rehab, and it just didn’t feel like it was working for them. They didn’t they didn’t seem to get a good experience. And I can’t help but wonder if it was maybe that the the practitioner and all the hands on people weren’t really reading the animal all that well? they were trying to impose their program on the animal without asking the animal, “what do you want to do?”
DR. EMILY: Yes, I’m glad that you brought that up.
TRIPAWDS: Please tell me some more about that. How how do you address that in your your practice?
DR. EMILY: Yeah I think that’s very critical because there are definitely dogs that I wouldn’t get any results from truly if I didn’t have the mindset that I do. they would have been considered like “Oh they just aren’t good for rehab.”
And again I just I really struggle with that because what it really means is that we aren’t communicating well with that animal. We need to look at how we can set things up for that animal’s success better. That’s one.
One phrase I definitely got from Coral World was what their manager for the dolphins was always “It was never the Dolphins fault.” It was always: “How did we mess up setting this animal up for success?” I definitely carry that every day.
But how can we make it fun for them? Because they need to be enjoying this. We have evidence to show that the enjoyment of an activity can actually help increase the likelihood of that happening again. But then also even you know healing processes and those things neural networks recombining faster those things through having a more positive interaction versus a negative.
If we’re not taking the body language of a dog into consideration when they’re in rehab and what they’re telling us throughout every single thing that we’re doing, whether it be massage whether it be the underwater treadmill.
I have seen so many videos of dogs in in therapy that they’re screaming with their face and their body language saying like “No I don’t like this!”
I know that yes in medicine they can’t always like everything. But with rehab we have so many modalities and opportunities and therapeutic exercises that we can shift things and set the dogs up for success better.
TRIPAWDS: I I love that! I know that our previous dog we were told he was great in rehab and we couldn’t really see how because he was such a challenging dog.
The team at Colorado State said you know we just watch him. And if he doesn’t want to do something we let him take a break and he hangs out. Then we’ll maybe come back to him in a couple of minutes.
But you know a lot of us, we think rehab we’re going to work out. We’re going to we’re going to get the exercises going on and we’re going to approach it the same way that we do with our own exercise programs that we have to have as humans. The problem is that the dog doesn’t see what the end result is going to be. They have no idea why we’re asking them to do these things.
So really it has to be fun for them in the moment. Not “Hey guess what? In a year you’re going to be running around again. You’re going to be doing all the things you love. But right now sorry you got to pay the price and work really hard.” I don’t think we can explain that to our animals can we?
DR. EMILY: Right absolutely. And really that’s step by step moment by moment, it’s very important. I mean also when we’re talking about “Is this animal comfortable? Is this just behavioral or are we showing some pain signs?”
We can catch those faster if we’re paying attention to their actual body language. In rehab the way that you know I do it is very based on we don’t do just so many reps because that’s what you do. We do certain reps based on what that dog is showing me. And when we are at a certain level then we’re going to back off before we get too tired and those things. You know taking care to watch for those behavioral signs I think is critical.
TRIPAWDS: Definitely. And I think our community for the most part as we get deeper into the Tripawd experience we get better at reading our animals. it’s just something you have to do when you have a dog who’s missing a limb.
When you have a four legged dog you tend to ignore a lot of things because you’re they’re just normal and and doing what four legged dogs do. But once that leg comes off everything changes and we tend to hyper focus on them.
I know that a lot of our community is very interested in how they can apply this in their day to day life. Now I want to get back to one of the questions I had for you was: you’re a certified fear free practitioner which is awesome. I love the fear free program that Marty Becker created. You’re also an a member of the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior. You’re a certified professional animal trainer knowledge assessed vet.
You have all of these wonderful behavior certifications. How did all of those come together for you and and how did you incorporate all of that knowledge into what you do now?
DR. EMILY: Yeah. The Fear Free honestly is just so second nature. I was just relieved once it came out because then I felt like I had a platform to stand on to say “No!” This is what I said since before I was in vet school and I was just getting information. I was just you know a tech or a kennel tech where I was like “Well, I feel like the dog hates that and you could do that a different way.” But I was like “No this is how we do it.” So I loved that Fear Free kind of gave us a platform to be like “Well that’s not how you have to do it. Here’s exactly how you could make that better for that patient.”
I always love seeing all the new trainings that they do. So that’s just almost like a fun thing for me. the. Kind of bigger certification is it’s not actually a veterinary certification. It actually comes from more of the zoo world. The certified professional animal trainer knowledge assessed is an actual proctored exam. You have to have so many requirements before you can even sit for that exam. and it has a lot of different animals which was more up on my speed. It would be similar to those that are certified professional dog trainers’ knowledge assessed. There’s a similar proctored exam for that.
But with my background it made more sense to have the whole animal base. So I had cetaceans I had sea lions. I had uh animals like all of it. But that’s really always kind of been my passion is the all all animals. I would say maybe invertebrates a little bit less to be honest. but the the way I went about that one certification was actually I just I wanted to prove to myself that I I had all the information and I wanted to dive in all the different directions needed to say “Okay I do feel like this isn’t just something that I I learned at this job” and I learned some info here and I learned some info there.
I wanted to be completely science-backed and know that I did have my knowledge base, so that was kind of where that came for me. But it it really is applied in all different ways. with you know we’ll talk about Kalina, I’m sure. But she was the first to ever make me push myself when it came to behavioral knowledge. and so that’s really where it all started.
TRIPAWDS: You know it’s it’s really cool because it seems like you were born as you were born to be an animal whisperer. I mean you have this ability to read animals that most of us don’t have and you’ve obviously had that all your life. So to be able to get a certification that says “I am not making this up this is all true. See there’s science behind how I feel!” That’s really cool. And I think that really makes you stand out as a as a practitioner.
So with all of this knowledge behind you now, and you’ve got the certifications, how is it helping your clients who are fearful and stressed? how do you get them to actually enjoy the rehab experience not just tolerate it?
DR. EMILY: Yeah absolutely. to start I would say even in general practice when I came back from Coral World getting to start incorporating some cooperative care for the parents that were interested and that were I mean some of these had had some horrible interactions at vet facilities previously, it almost kind of sworn off veterinary you know visits for their animal because of it. That breaks my heart.
Getting to have some come back in and trust, and build that relationship, for example, one that hadn’t gotten a heartworm test had some health concerns. But we couldn’t get bloodwork for a thyroid test those kind of things. That’s that goes back to my Coral World days where if the dog’s not going to let us, I can’t get it right? And so I worked with different families and we were able to get some cooperative care blood draws from patients that before had urinated out of fear, and were just absolutely having the worst time at other facilities.
In general practice being able to get a cooperative care no restraint blood draw is a really important task. And so that would probably be a highlight example of in general practice how I would love for in the future this to become more of a standard option.
TRIPAWDS: Can you tell me what cooperative care means?
DR. EMILY: Yeah. So cooperative care being that we are having an animal participate in their health care whether that be they are getting an eye drop or whether they’re getting a blood draw, they are active participants who are willing and understand is part of it what they are participating in.
So it’s something that can range from giving them a distraction if you’re careful with that, to actually doing a cooperative care blood draw, meaning that maybe an unrestrained or minimally restrained . Animal is getting blood drawn from it, and it knows exactly what to expect each step of the way.
TRIPAWDS: And can you do this for older animals?
DR. EMILY: I definitely have done it. Yes, because it’s about it’s like we were kind of talking about before, you know, what is reinforcing to that animal.
How are you communicating with that animal? Part of that will may depending on at the age of the animal. If the animal hasn’t had that much kind of agency most of its life, where it really no one cared to kind of communicate “What you would like?” And if they haven’t really experienced that back and forth relationship. We love our animals, and I don’t get me wrong I’m not saying you don’t have a great relationship with your animal. This is kind of a different kind of relationship where you have outlined something and you have checked in with them before moving forward. Not all of us were were raised that way, or started having dogs with that mindset.
We we learn and we grow. And that would be I think where it’s the the harder for the older dogs, is more they might need a little different kind of reinforcement. Or they might need a little bit more time for you to make it a little bit more clear and set them up for success.
TRIPAWDS: So when you work with animals like this in rehab, when they when they come through your doors, is it more a matter of training the owner than the animal and training us how to communicate with our with our dog or or other animal?
DR. EMILY: It’s a combo, because again the way I see it is the entire picture you know you are part of. You’re part of their day to day life. You are part of their husbandry. You are part of their environment. You’re a critical part actually.
So yes pet parents with me, do they learn a lot? And that’s kind of I would say, the only real like “You probably shouldn’t work with me” is I do discovery calls ahead of time to say “Are you interested in learning? Because if you’re not interested in learning, the way that I do rehab isn’t going to be for you.”
There are those other places like you mentioned, it’s like yeah you can just send your dog over here and they’ll do it and then they’ll give you your dog back. And and that has a place for certain dogs that that’s perfect for. Some dogs do well with that, but many dogs don’t. And it is important whether it’s I’m teaching them even how to massage their dog at home, how to do these exercises at home. I can’t have them ignoring behavioral signs.
When I’m saying “Hey massage your dog,” well if the dog is showing that they’re about to be extremely unhappy or even if they’re just a little uncomfortable and would like you to stop, you can’t build on rehab if you don’t give an animal agency to say “I’ve had enough.”
Because it’s something that you need to do on a day to day basis. And if you make it aversive then not on purpose, but just by you not paying attention to their signs then you are going to have that “Oh rehab just wasn’t for my dog.”
TRIPAWDS: I can absolutely see that happening. You know one of the reasons that we created the Tripawds rehab reimbursement program is with the hope that there would be a lot of rehabbers like you out there who would take the time to educate the owner and really get to know them and then provide a framework for which they could rehab their animal at home.
We have heard a little too often lately about people being told “Nah they’re fine!” We got one the other day that told this person to just go ahead and let their dog continue walking and jumping over some kind of agility pole. It was really weird advice, but it just seemed to me that they didn’t really get to know the person or or the dog.
So I love that you do these assessments because that’s what our foundation will pay for, is the first assessment. I wish there were more out there like that. I know that in our own rehab experience with our dogs, one of the first things I learned was the language of dogs.
When you touch them in a certain place, even a little sideways glance is telling you so much. And I didn’t know that until we got introduced to the concept of rehab. And now with Nellie there’s this one spot on her back hip where someday she’ll tolerate it and she won’t look at me. And then other days if I try to go and just pet her in that area she’s like “Don’t go there!” So I think working with somebody like you is so educational for us.
Your dog Kalina has played a big role in how your practice has evolved. Can you tell us a little bit about her and about how you work with her?
DR. EMILY: Yeah absolutely. she’s definitely the reason for everything that I’m doing right now to be honest. How you know a decade with an animal can really change your life. She was a dog on the island of Saint Kitts where I went to vet school. Towards the end of my time there she was rescued by some students in my class.
She had a broken leg that she had been dragging around actually for about a year. She had been hit by a car and the owner on the island is just you know not to say anything horrible. It’s just their culture is a little bit different there, about what dogs are and what their needs are. So he did eventually relinquish her for care.
And so I was just supposed to be her foster mom and help her quietly because I had another dog. He’s just an angel who was always great for fosters and great for just calm situations to help timid dogs just get some comfort before finding their forever homes. So he was a great fit. Next thing I knew they were just so bonded that I couldn’t let them go. Kalina actually started off being terrified of a lot of people. She had a lot of nervous anxiety energy that I didn’t even know how to classify at the time. it was it was really hard to to explain how lost I felt with her. And not only as a Tripawd.
DR. EMILY: I’d never had a Tripawd before. And I definitely appreciated back then, you know I found your website. And I mean I’m in vet school still. Gosh what to do? Everyone’s telling me everything’s going to be fine, but you know. So you guys are are really my heroes. I was completely lost. And that helped me to feel like I had something that I was doing right, by being like “Okay we are going to get rugs and we are going to get runners and we’re going to support her with these things” that no one was telling me.
But then we got that limb amputated. It was we a situation where she had been dragging it for so long. She also had a bone infection, so we couldn’t just splint it or even do pins because of the bone infection. It did have to get fully removed. But behaviorally was her first struggle. And that’s actually where a lot of my behavior background came from, was just trying to figure out how to help her.
You may have experienced this too but when we help other animals we often find we help ourselves. So that was also a big turning point for me, to kind of see the world a little bit differently, to see that anxiety is real and that we can do better for dogs that we may not understand initially.
DR. EMILY: From there I guess Kalina did well and she had that kind of normal life of a Tripawd that is. Oh yeah. They’re doing great. She’s doing magical things. She’s swimming, she’s hiking. She’s doing everything awesome with the support of her brother. You know like I said, that older dog that she loved and you know I went to Coral World and I couldn’t bring her with me. I brought him he was having some pretty serious medical issues. He was older at that point you know even more so. and I lost him there. That was that was really hard for all of us. He was our rock. And so her anxiety skyrocketed when I came home without him.
And then we had a whole new set of challenges. Not only had her anxiety increased but her weight had increased with the people that she was staying with. I love them but they also had the kind of misunderstanding of love and food because Kalina does love food. I came back to an overweight Tripawd with new severe anxiety. She was older now and so I had the new concerns of muscle wasting and things that I hadn’t really dealt with with her. And this anxiety seemed a little different. So I had to really dig in on the behavior side and I did.
But then the combination of realizing that behavior and and pain and it goes together so much, and realizing that I needed to do more than rest and NSAIDs for her arthritis that we found in in all of her joints. Not all of them, but every limb had at least one joint that had some arthritis.
DR. EMILY: What I was basically taught in school wasn’t enough. so I had to go looking for more. And that’s when I got certified as a canine rehabilitation therapist. I actually was just going to take the first course and just learn what I could for Kalina. But when I was learning about rehab I was just, I mean so many patients from your past start going in your head like “We could have done this, we could have done this,” you know? And I had to share it.
Kalina was doing better with rehab for sure. She really got in shape and we went back to having fun. She was a crag dog. We started rock climbing and she would just hang out, leashed at the crag. She loved going on adventures with us whether it was fishing or hiking or just hanging out while we’re climbing. and she was doing really well with it, with rehab.
But then last year in February she slipped on some ice. We had some sudden sleet, and she did tear her cruciate. She’s a hind limb Tripawd, so that’s only one one cruciate. So her knee ligament was torn and that was really hard for multiple reasons. She did not appreciate a wheelchair.
TRIPAWDS: Even even you couldn’t work with her with a wheelchair? Wow.
DR. HALL: Shey’ll still stand and do exercises standing in one, but the step moves because of the way she has been a Tripawd for so long, and hops. That wheelchair kind of hopping with her just freaks her out and she’s not okay with it. I told her like “I have to keep going until we can’t and then you won’t have a choice.” But she’s she’s incredible as a dog. I’m not really sure how she truly moves sometimes. But kind of all that to say we she wasn’t a candidate for surgery because of the way that to do like a TPLO. You can’t have weight on that bone. They cut the bone. And so now you have a fracture, and then she’d be just a Tripawd on a fracture.
We were going to stabilize with an orthotic device, so we went through the process with that, where we just kind of tried to keep her quiet. I’d support her hind in with a harness when we were waiting for that device. Long story short it ended up not working out. There was a lot of time and a lot of effort put into that particular device. And over time she started collapsing on her carpals which are the wrist, so her wrist basically started collapsing.
I was seeing that she stopped wanting to go outside. She would stop indicating she wanted to go outside. We could only get her to be convinced to go outside at certain times. Like it just was so much effort to get her to be excited about life again.
DR. EMILY: And that was really so hard. It’s really hard to explain, watching her kind of fall apart. And so when we found that we didn’t have an option again for her stifle. We thought “Okay what could at least make her quality of life good enough that I feel comfortable with her continuing?”
We were at the point where we were having to consider her quality of life. And I knew that mentally she had been getting better. But the pain and the back and forth was what was making her mentally decline. I thought if we could just give her some support in some way that made her want to go outside again. That’s where she loved life from the beginning.
And so Ifound this company called Wimba.They have really lightweight devices that are custom made. After the first device situation, she was no longer was a great casting candidate. And we had worked really hard behaviorally for that casting. We worked on her sensory. We worked on everything to get the best cast. And then after that didn’t work out, I was pretty done with trying to work her through the casting process. But with Wimba you can do a scan and we can make that a game a lot easier.
And so that’s what we did, was her Wimba scan. It was basically a game to her that we just put in a moment where I just picked her up a little bit extra and she just thought we were progressing the game.
TRIPAWDS: The Wimba scan is with a handheld? It’s basically an app on your smartphone that you use on your dog? Is that how that works?
DR. EMILY: Great question. So the scan is actually, like any Wimba provider like a veterinarian or physical therapist can send a video and it is just a video. They do all the magic on the back end of it. But there’s a mat that’s a calibration mat and a specific dolly that will go around the rotation that we need. You go around in the rotation and she stays still. And all you need is one good scan.
In reality sometimes it’s a little bit harder because they can’t move. So they have 15 seconds where they have to be still and supported. But again we made it a game from the get go, especially since I had the mat because I am a Wimba provider. Every time I’d bring out the mat in the morning we would just be like oh it’s Wimba Time! and do her standing stay.
And you know she just was prepared for it. Kind of back to that cooperative care right? Like if she gets to be the participant in her scan she’s more likely to stay still for it and get the best scan possible for the best device.
So that is how we got her bilateral carpal Wimba orthotics. I just can’t say enough about how it changed her life. She wanted to live again just almost immediately with that support. Her just smiling and wanting to run and “I’m like no you can’t run!” and stuff.
TRIPAWDS: It’s life changing when you get that mobility back for your dog. Now what about her back leg? What did it heal on its own or how did that work out?
DR. EMILY: And we’re still working on getting the best fit. Wimba recently came out with their stifle device. And so we’re still kind of working through with her being a Tripawd there. With all of these devices, sometimes they need, for example, even her carpal orthotic she ended up needing a special reinforced toe on one of them because of the way she kind of angulated differently, it being a hind limb Tripawd. So we are still kind of working on perfecting the fit of her stifle device, but I’ll keep you updated on how that goes. Yeah.
TRIPAWDS: Now I’d like to bring this all home. With all that you’ve learned with Kalina, how can we as parents learn from what you know? What is your best advice to somebody who’s looking for that right fit with a rehab provider? Because obviously you rehabbers don’t approach things the same way all the time. It’s not a cookie cutter formula just like our animals aren’t. So what should we be looking for in a provider?
DR. EMILY: You know what I would look for in a provider?
- Someone who is looking at the bigger picture. The whole picture. Someone who is listening to you and happy and excited to answer your questions. Who wants to teach you how to do things with your dog safely at home to help their long term outcome. Because yes, you can!
- You can pass your dog off and they can play in an underwater treadmill. But at the end of the day you are there day in and day out. Getting to learn long-term helpful skills, like what exercises even long-term after graduation? Ask:
- Are you going to be learning what to do throughout the process?
- Are you going to have homework to get to work on basically with your dog? And you know just checking in about what reinforcement they’re using, and why.
That’s one of the big things that I see, is like maybe they will use a lot of luring with some treats and if they don’t want the treat then they just say they’re not a good candidate. Or they’ll just start kind of doing more manhandle stuff.
DR. EMILY: And that’s not right. You need to then rethink your approach as a provider and or a parent.
See how you can set them up for success because there’s obviously something that’s making them not want to take that treat, if that was a treat that they liked previously.
Maybe it’s just the setting, maybe it isn’t even the exercise. Maybe all of a sudden another dog in the gym was just too much for them. I work at at people’s homes, so they’re just now looking around going “Well the doorbell just rang.” So it’s it’s not as simple. You’ve got to look at the whole picture. Have someone that you feel comfortable with, that can guide you through that process, so that you can have really those long term results.
TRIPAWDS: Thank you for that great advice. It’s so much more than just going through the motions. I mean we need to look at things in a much deeper level with our animals if we want them to be happy.
I’m so glad that you’re out there and I hope you’re giving lots and lots of seminars at vet conferences because people need to hear this. What you’re doing is is a game changer for rehab and for Tripawds especially. I’m biased. but but thank you so much for being here Doctor Emily! I’m I’m thrilled that you joined us today. I know we went a little bit over but I also know that our listeners are going to have a really good time learning from you. So can you tell people where they can find you online?
DR. EMILY: You can go to Tulsa Animal Rehab.com, and then you know if anyone has a question or something I’m still who answers the Tulsa rehab vet at gmail. So even if you’re not around me and still happy to answer questions, especially that kind of line of behavior to rehab. Just to kind of help guide, obviously not going to be able to do any actual medicine across lines. But I’m happy to answer general questions about behavior.
TRIPAWDS: Thank you. And you’re also on Instagram right?
DR. EMILY: Yes. I don’t exactly remember my my Instagram.
TRIPAWDS: That’s okay. We’ll put it in the show notes. It’s a great channel. I get it in my feed all the time. We’ll put that in the show notes. But thank you for for being here. We we really appreciate it.
DR. EMILY: Thank you so much for having me. It’s always always a pleasure to give back to this amazing amazing group. I appreciate everything that you guys do.
TRIPAWDS: Many thanks to Doctor Emily. She’s clearly living up to her promise to improve animal lives with behavioral therapy and a more holistic approach to veterinary medicine and rehabilitation.
Learn more about the work she’s doing at TulsaAnimal Rhab.com. And remember we are such huge fans of rehab for amputee pets that the Tripawds Foundation can pay for your first consultation with a certified therapist. Get complete details and find many more helpful resources at Tripawds.
END OF TRANSCRIPT