Canine rehabilitation
Canine Rehabilitation Therapy
Expert orthopedic care combined with tailored exercises to enhance recovery and mobility, built around Bethany's water treadmill room.
Chapter 01
What the water treadmill actually does, and which dogs are sent to it
Canine rehabilitation at Bethany combines expert orthopedic care with tailored exercises built around a single piece of equipment most general practices in the area do not have: an underwater treadmill. Being in the water takes weight off a joint while a dog still has to move it, which is the point when the joint in question has recently been operated on and simply resting it would let the muscle around it waste away.
Referrals come mainly from Bethany's own orthopedic surgical team, most often after a dog has had a TPLO or another orthopedic procedure and needs to relearn how to bear weight on the leg. The practice's own social feed follows this work by name: Ozzie, Hank, Ivy, Mickey, Lexi and Vinny have all spent time in the water treadmill room, session after session, which is about as plain a way as a practice can show its own rehab program actually running.
A grey and white pit-mix dog with a blue bandaged paw resting on the exam room floor at Bethany Animal Hospital
Why recovery is planned by the same people who did the surgery
Orthopedic surgery, the imaging and laboratory work that leads up to it, and the rehabilitation room that follows it are all in the same building, worked by the same team. A dog that needs a TPLO and then needs to learn to walk on it again never has to change hands, and nobody planning the recovery is reading a surgical report written by a stranger.
That matters more in rehabilitation than almost anywhere else in veterinary medicine, because the exercise plan has to answer to what was actually done in surgery, not to a generic timeline pulled from a textbook. The orthopedic surgery service this room supports, with its own digital imaging, laboratory work and post-operative pain management, is covered on its own page below.
Chapter 03
What a course of rehabilitation looks like, visit by visit
Jodie, a certified veterinary technician who has been with Bethany for eighteen years, runs the rehabilitation program and works with each dog directly in the water treadmill room. Sessions build on each other. What a dog does in the water, and how it moves getting in and out of the tank, both get watched and adjusted from one visit to the next, rather than following a printed schedule that ignores how the individual dog is actually recovering.
Bethany does not publish a set number of sessions or a promised recovery time for this program, and none is quoted here. What stays consistent is who runs it: the same rehabilitation therapist, in the same room, working from the same surgical notes, for as long as the exercise plan calls for it.
Bethany — AAHA accredited. Cat Friendly Practice, Silver. Fear Free certified staff. Call (815) 239-6938.
Getting started
Setting up a rehabilitation referral.
Most dogs come to Jodie's program through Bethany's own orthopedic surgery team, using the Canine Rehabilitation Referral Form kept on the Patient Center page, downloadable and fillable online. If your dog was operated on somewhere else, or you think water treadmill work might help a mobility problem that has nothing to do with surgery, call the office at (815) 239-6938 and ask about a rehabilitation referral.
Non-urgent questions and appointment requests can also go by text to (815) 991-4556, the only number here that receives messages, or in Spanish if that is easier. Hablamos espanol, y mensaje de texto es preferido para preguntas no urgentes.
Related to this room
Call the office on (815) 239-6938 to ask about rehabilitation, or text (815) 991-4556 if it can wait until we are between appointments.