Yesterday’s epiphany about what is causing my lower-back imbalance blew me away. It really did. It was so obvious! As someone who considers herself pretty self-aware, I feel a little silly about not recognizing what was causing the imbalance. The massage therapist, chiropractor, and physiotherapist were all wondering what I was doing to cause such lower back problems. They surmised that perhaps I was sitting consistently incorrectly while at work or that I was turning one way more than another. That sort of thing. However, not one of them asked, “Do you have a puppy that pulls you one way consistently?” If they had, I would have answered, “Yes, yes I do!” I suppose Dr. House is right: everyone lies. It may not always be conscious, but we do lie.
In order to deal with this predicament, I have decided that I must reduce the number of walks we go on that enables Clifford, my big red standard poodle dog, to pull on my arm and making the left side of my lower back stabilize to stop him from pulling me over. This posed a problem because I can’t just not walk my dog. So this morning at the crack of 7am, I took Clifford on our first bike ride. It was a little scary, I have to tell you, but it worked out pretty well. By the end of the 20-minute ride, he was lagging behind panting and he had no pulled on my arm not even once. We had a couple of scary incidents with some other dogs on our route, but it was pretty painless and I think with a new collar it will occur less and less. I am going to do this for the next few weeks while working on stregthening the right side of my lower back and continuing with physiotherapy. Hopefully in the next 2 months, I will be HEALED!
my husky-shepherd mix used to pull me along on runs and yank off the sidewalk resulting in shoulder pain. in order to keep taking him out, i got an extra long leash (6-9 ft) and would tie the leash to my waist. he’d run in front of me (took some practice!) and if i needed him to turn one way or another, i could pull on the leash with the appropriate hand. now it looks pretty funny, but i’ve since seen other people running with their big dogs this way. good luck and heal fast!