I've had requests from people for me to put all of Surplus's feet pics in one place, so here it is...photos of his feets progression. :)
His story: he was adopted by us from WARL (Washington Animal Rescue League) in August 2014 at the age of 6 months. He had already been neutered, and had been on concrete floors for a while (from what I can gather...since his paperwork lists him as being from a shelter in Alabama before WARL). We met him and fell in love with his personality, playful nature and structure...except for his severely flat feet. I took a gamble and figured that I could get those feet whipped into shape. So we adopted him, and I immediately started working on his rehab/conditioning. I've been taking photos every so often to document his progression.
Now, many people ask why we'd bother with his feet...it's about avoiding injury. Stronger more flexible toes are less susceptible to injury...flat feet aren't very strong. He's an athletic dog, and we expect him to be able to play flyball down the road, so I want him as sound as possible!
Since I have the ability to take him with me each and every day while I work, it was easy to find new ways for him to build strength in his feet. I didn't use any rehab/conditioning equipment (for the most part)...even though I own some, it's at our training facility, so it's not easily accessed every day. Most of what he did was what I call "being a dog". He ran on many different surfaces, climbed on many obstacles, jumped, ran, dug in the dirt, swam, etc. All with the goal of building those feet up. And it worked. I'm very pleased at what he's got now, after 4 months of working on them (he's currently 10 months old...November 2014).
I'll keep updating with pics and progress!
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