Canine Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation

Our Aim: To fully understand what you want to achieve with your dog and identify exactly what is holding you both back, then map out a clear plan to help you meet your goals.

Before your appointment: We will email you a pre-appointment form covering your dog’s history, daily routines, and current concerns. We also review notes from your vet, trainer, or anyone else in your support team, so we can look at the whole picture before we arrive.

We want your dog to have a positive, peaceful experience with us and to trust us. We invite owners to bring their dog’s favourite blanket to lie on, and their preferred treats or toys.

At the visit: To start, we allow your dog time to settle into the environment, and we may ‘ignore’ them initially, until they feel comfortable around us. DDuring this quiet introductory time, we will watch how your dog moves around naturally, ask further questions, and ensure we have a detailed understanding of your journey and where you wish to get to.

Physical assessment:

• Observation of demeanor, static posture, toenail length, body and muscle condition, and skeletal alignment and symmetry.

• Dynamic movement assessment (walk and trot, small circles and turning, sit down, stand up, lie down)

• Palpation assessment of skeletal landmarks, joints, tendons, ligaments, fascia and muscle.

• Manual assessment of functional mechanics in balance, range of motion, movement quality, and flexibility of different regions, structures, and tissues.

We may also assess gear to ensure that it is not contributing to the issues described.

Videos are a valuable opportunity for you to show us the problems you experience at home. Dogs can be very excited (or anxious, which they mask as excitement) at a venue that is not their home and around strangers. This can mean that they do not show their symptoms at their Physio appointment. We encourage owners, where possible, to get photos and videos of their dog, to show us exactly what is happening.

Throughout the examination, we explain what we're finding, and at the end we bring it all together, connect it to the issues you've described, and involve you in the development of your dog’s treatment plan.

Treatment at the first appointment will depend on the complexity of the assessment process and what requires priority.

Our goal: leave you with a clear picture of what we found, what it means, and — crucially — a clear action plan between appointments.

Home programs: We know that we can do amazing things with our treatment on the day, but it is what happens afterwards makes the biggest difference. Your dog’s home exercise and management programme will make sure that those days in between appointments have the highest possible impact.

We will also discuss whether other members of your multidisciplinary team need to be consulted, such as your vet, trainer, etc. 

We build on what we found in the previous consultation and what you’ve achieved since, adapting our work as you progress closer toward your goals.

We focus on resolving pain and improving mobility first, so that inhibited muscles can reactivate, good movement patterns can be established, and strengthening and conditioning can begin (See our 5 steps to Success Framework)

Whether you're rehabilitating from injury or conditioning for performance, the process is the same: we assess where you and your dog are now, understand what it took to get there, clarify where you want to go, and build a clear plan to get you there.

Following a thorough assessment to determine exactly what your dog needs, we select and combine a range of advanced clinical techniques. Whether working at our home-based clinic or on-site at your property, our comprehensive toolkit includes:

• Manual therapies (massage, myofascial kinetic lines, scar tissue treatment, lymph drainage, reflex inhibition, Maitland- and Mulligan-style joint mobilisation, stretches, reflex stretches, muscle energy/PNF techniques)

• Photobiomodulation therapy (Spectravet laser, Photizo Vetcare LED)

• Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (Westville Biomag)

• Electrical muscle stimulation (TENS, NMES)

• Dry needling**

• Kinaesiotaping

• Exercise prescription - this is a VERY long list. Exercises are selected to be specific for what your dog needs at that point in time. We do get creative in order to get the best results. We think of exercises in terms of: 

  • static exercises (standing with your horse), 

  • on-lead exercises (leading your horse),

  • off-lead or sports-specific training, and

  • daily activity modifications (setting up the home, garden, feeding stations, etc., to facilitate some of the movements and postures we want to train, while your dog is performing their normal activities of daily living).

• We are able to assess, prescribe, and measure for custom orthotics & braces (see Pawthotics), mobility aids, and wearable therapy garments (such as the Hiplign garment) where we can see that they may support your dog's long-term performance, comfort, or recovery goals.

**only clinicians trained in this technique will use it

Whilst veterinary clearance is not a legal requirement in New Zealand, we proudly operate under a professional, collaborative care model. We work with with your primary veterinarian to ensure our treatments safely complement your dog’s overall medical history.