Post-Operative Care

Just like us, dogs and cats benefit from rehabilitation therapy after an injury. Rehabilitation therapy has multiple goals. The first is to help improve your dog’s comfort. If your dog is more comfortable he/she will be more willing to use his/her injured body part and permit other rehabilitation therapy exercises. The second goal of rehabilitation therapy is to help restore your pet’s limb and overall function faster and more completely by preventing loss of muscle mass and improving range of motion. Muscle is lost when a limb is not being used. It has been proven that muscle cells will start to atrophy (shrink) within 24 hours of surgery. Intensive rehabilitation therapy in the first few weeks can minimize this atrophy and accelerate recovery.

Many animals will benefit from starting rehabilitation therapy before surgery. This allows both you and your pet to become familiar with the exercises needed before his/her body part is uncomfortable because of the surgery performed. “Prehab” can also help regain some lost muscle mass and improve muscle comfort before the onset of surgical discomfort, which will accelerate your pet’s recovery process. A specific rehabilitation program can be designed for your pet by our rehabilitation staff. They will be able to apply more advanced rehab techniques to further facilitate your pet’s recovery. We strongly encourage you to enlist the rehab staff in assisting your pet’s rehabilitation process. You may contact the staff of the Animal Rehabilitation Center of Rochester at 585-663-4262.