LESSON LEARNT
After severed tendons and a bionic alternative, here is how our mountain canine lived to ski tour one other day…
It was nearly precisely a 12 months in the past, on eighth December that our lovely 2-year-old Husky/Collie cross had a catastrophic accident, colliding with a pal’s ski whereas touring with us in Serre Chevalier.
Ullr (named after the Norse god of Snow) needed to be carried down the mountain (no imply feat as he is 25 kilos), dripping blood from his hind leg the place his tendons had been sliced. On the native vet, he was instantly sedated and operated on to stitch his severed tendons collectively. There then adopted six weeks of restoration whereas his leg was made motionless in a splint with a Robert Jones bandage. So he was off video games and, having the excessive vitality of each his mother and father, grew to become a really pissed off three-legged canine hopping round our house.
He remained very reluctant to place his leg down and we feared it wasn’t proper. Our misgivings have been confirmed when the vet took the bandaging off and, with a tragic shake of his head, declared that the tendons had retracted moderately than becoming a member of collectively. It was heartbreaking information, to know that our full of life snow-loving canine would by no means ski tour once more.
However, wait, there was a faint ray of hope. There’s a vet in Hole, about an hour from us, who has labored with Noel Fitzpatrick, the Supervet, and has mastered lots of his methods together with making a carbon prosthetic to bionically join bone and tendons. It was a protracted shot however, following an operation with the French Supervet on the finish of January, and after full relaxation, ice packs, physiotherapy and delicate train, Ullr lastly started to place weight on his again leg once more. And over the previous six months, Ullr has improved in leaps and bounds. Actually.
And so, yesterday, after an honest snowfall, we headed to the Col du Lautaret for the primary ski tour of the season with Ullr within the van. And I admit that I used to be a tad nervous about snowboarding with Ullr. We’ve got ski toured with canines for years, accompanied by our trusty Jack Russells, who in a short time learnt the essential trick of at all times staying behind us, following in our ski tracks up the hill – and down – so we by no means needed to fear about snowboarding into them.
Ullr, nonetheless, is a long-legged highly-energetic canine, who likes to race in every single place so that you by no means know if he is behind or going to leap forward and probably lurch throughout your skis. Had he learnt his lesson? Had we?
As we headed up Galibier we have been the primary up the hill, so Gav needed to manfully break path. By at all times getting in line behind Gav, our Jacks (who at the moment are 11 and 14 years previous so now select sofa-touring) not solely stayed protected but additionally diminished their vitality expenditure (which is why I am additionally glad for Gav to paved the way). However not Ullr. He was operating like a loon, breaking his personal path zigzagging throughout the mountain.
His leg, although, was wanting pretty much as good as new however after round 400m vertical, he lastly began following our monitor, clearly tiring within the deep powder so we determined to transition. And that is after we put our plan into motion.
Whereas Gav descended for a half a dozen powder turns I held Ullr by his harness. He wailed like a banshee till I let him go after which tore like a demon by the powder downhill after Gav. And repeat for round 5 instances as we descended.
As you’ll be able to see from the GoPro video, he caught up fairly fast however stored his distance till Gav stopped. So, sure, you’ll be able to train a brand new canine previous tips…
