Mattie
Sadie
We have two dogs, Mattie is 11 and Sadie is 12 years old. Mattie had to have CCL surgery last July as she could no longer walk. The surgery went well. I asked the surgeon if she needed physical therapy afterwards to build back her muscles. He said that she did not need it, and was 100% ok. During the 2 month healing phase, after the surgery, Mattie did not want to be left behind on walks so we drastically shortened the length of Sadie’s walks to get back to Mattie. What a HUGE mistake! Soon thereafter Sadie started falling down a lot and losing her footing. She also started to cross her back legs in order to stand up (like a tripod) to gain stability. It turns out she now also had muscle wasting! She also had lost the feeling in her back feet. We were afraid we would lose Sadie soon since she was getting so weak so fast. Also, to top it off, Mattie tore her other CCL shortly thereafter. We were desperate and willing to try anything.
Our neighbor’s dog, Max, has stomach cancer. Last summer he looked as if he needed to put down. His fur fell out, he walked around all day outside as if he had to poop constantly. Months later he looked healthy, his coat had grown back, he walked normally around the neighborhood. My neighbor highly recommended we try Dr. Royal for our dogs.
In November we made our first appointment with Dr. Royal. We entered the clinic and neither dogs exhibited that “vet fear” upon entering. Our initial appointment last 3 1/2 hours long. Our dogs were not afraid of her since she kept giving them treats to get to know her, meanwhile, she was observing everything about them. Both dogs had muscle wasting and needed help. We started with a diet change, supplements, acupuncture weekly, laser for the injured CCL, and twice a week treadmill therapy. Well, Sadie got up easily after the first acupuncture and walked better than she had in over 2 months, no straining to get up!
It is now 4 months that we’ve been in treatment. Sadie is a lab/beagle mix with long floppy ears and has had problems with yeast infection for 2 years. Changing her diet off of commercial dog food has eradicated the ear problems totally. She also had bad dandruff which is also gone now. Mattie had her first chiropractic adjustment this week with Dr. Maria VonderHaar and is walking normally for the first time in a year! If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed the difference! Our dogs look forward to their vet visits! We call it going to the Spa to go swimming and see their friends. They get just as excited to go to the Royal Treatment Center as going to our lake house in Michigan! Our elderly dogs now are back to their activity levels of 6 years ago! We just can’t thank everyone there enough! We were hoping to get them through the year and now we look forward to many more wonderful years with them thanks to everyone at the clinic. We appreciate all of the staff members that work with us: Alex, Tash, Zoe, Veronica, and Nancy, who showed me how to massage and do acupressure to get the feeling back in Sadie’s feet. We are forever grateful!
Donna and Judi