Guest post: Every injury is problematic in a different way. For pet owners, one of the worst things you can do to yourself is injuring your leg. It can be especially challenging if you have a dog or another pet used to long walks. However, walking your pet is not the only problem you will encounter.
Being unable to stand or walk by yourself for an extended period of time can prevent you from doing some basic tasks like reaching for a higher shelf or going up the stairs. So, in this situation, you may wonder how will you even be able to take care of your dog?
Fortunately, we’ve prepared this guide to help you figure out what you can do to make your injured life easier. In the following article, you will find some tips, including hiring help, using specially designed leashes, or buying interactive toys that can help your dog have fun without going out.
Hire a Trainer
Hiring a local trainer specializing in training the “Mobility Assistance Dogs” is a perfect solution for people who have to struggle with a severe injury for a long time. A skilled trainer will be able to teach your adult dog basic things in about 4-6 weeks. It will go even faster if your dog already knows commands like come, down, sit, stay, heel. A properly trained assistance dog will also help you carry your things, go up the stairs, or bring you something you point.
No US law forbids you from training your own assistance dog, so if you feel like you can manage this training, you can do it yourself and save yourself some money. You can see more useful dog training tips on My Sweet Puppy or ask some of your local trainers.
Rent a Wheelchair
When you injure your leg, one of the biggest problems you will have to deal with is walking with your dog. If it isn’t perfectly trained, it may be hard for you to walk with it while using crutches.
Imagine that you are walking calmly, and then your dog sees something far away, gets excited, and hits the end of the leash while chasing another animal. It can seriously disturb your balance and cause a fall. It can be dangerous for both of you, as you may injure yourself even more, and you can injure your dog or let the leash slip your hand and let it run away.
If you know that your injury will heal for a long time, the best thing you can do is rent a wheelchair. The average cost of renting varies from $8-$15 per day, but you might be provided with a multi-day discount if you want to rent it for a longer time. This means you start receiving deals from 2-day rental onwards, with deeper discounts as the duration increases.
Buy a Bungee Hands-Free Leash
If your injury isn’t that serious and you can keep your balance, you might want to think of purchasing a hands-free leash. Those are mainly designed for runners, but you can also use them to have free hands for crutches.
The Bungee leash is a shock absorber and creates a cushion from any sudden moves made by you or your pet. When the dog pulls suddenly, the Bungee leash stretches and pulls the dog back to you.
This leash can be handy when you have smaller dogs that don’t have enough strength to make you fall. However, if your dog is bigger and stronger, you should think about other solutions.
Hire a Pet Sitter
If you cannot take care of your dog because of an injury, you should consider hiring pet sitting help. Such a person can help you take care of your dog, feed it, wash it, take it to the vet, etc.
The biggest downside is that you will probably have to pay a significant amount of money to hire a professional. However, you can always ask your neighbors if their kids or grandchildren don’t want to earn extra cash. It all depends on how your dog behaves. If it still requires training and isn’t disciplined enough, hiring a professional is a must.
Interactive Toys
If your dog is used to longer walks and lots of fun, you can think of purchasing interactive toys like iFetch. It’s an automatic ball launcher your pet can use by itself. The iFetch original runs on AC Adapter or six batteries; once powered up, you can select the distance that best suits your space. iFetch has three distance settings, 10, 20, or 30 feet. All your dog has to do is drop the ball into the top. Then, the machine launches it for your pet to chase and collect.
Ask Your Family for Help
At last, if you are close with your family or some friends, you can always ask them for help! Maybe you could ask loved ones to come over and take care of your four-legged friend when you need to rest? Or you can go all the way and ask them to take your pup for few days so that you can take care of your help. Just remember that you have to tell them precisely what your dog requires. You don’t want anyone to get hurt as well.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, injuring your leg isn’t the end of the world for you and your pet. There are various solutions you can implement in order to make your life easier. The last thing you should do while injured is neglecting your own health problems in favor of taking care of your dog or going outside for walks every now and then.
It’s OK if your pet has to a little bored for a couple of days while your leg heals but ignoring your own injuries can lead to heart infections or worse conditions over time. So, always remember – it’s your health that should always come first.