I'm starting this blog because about a year ago we adopted Austin "De Oh Gee" from the humane society and brought him home.  He and my daughter hit it off immediately, and my wife has slowly warmed up to the "shedding drooly mongrel."

Austin on his blanket.

About a week after we brought him home from the humane society we noticed he had an odd gate as he walked.  We got concerned about it, and brought him into a veterinarian who said those dreaded words that no one every really wants to hear, "Gee, I've never seen anything like this before.  I'm going to recommend you to a specialist."

Ugh.

So, we ventured down to the Fox Valley Animal Referral Center and saw a specialist in Canine bone development who told us, "Your dog was hit by something when he was a very small puppy.  If shattered his rear left leg and it was never set properly, so it healed wrong.  I wouldn't worry about it too much, but if it gets shorter than the other rear leg by more then twenty percent he won't be able to compensate for it on his own and we'll have to cut off the leg."

Now if you're like me, you've probably never heard someone say not to worry about something and then talk about amputation of a limb in the same sentence, but I like to think I'm pretty good at rolling with the punches so I nodded and on our way we went with our limping dog.

Until about a month later when Austin was chasing some leaves around in our back yard as they blew across the grass.  They zigged, he zagged, and then down he went.  He didn't yelp, just had an "I'm broken" look on his face.  He wouldn't get up, even for beef jerky.  My wife eventually managed to carry/treat him to the car and brought him to the vet once more.

Long story short, the ball of his hip had healed incorrectly and while he was chasing a leaf, it had broken off his femur.  Our options were 1) Cut off the leg, 2) Leave it alone and let it heal messed up again, or 3) Femoral Head Ostectomy... which is a fancy way of saying "Cut off the ball of the hip and smooth out the femur."  We decided to go with option three as it would save Austin's leg, and give him the best chance of maintaining his standard of living, as he would still have four legs.

The procedure went smoothly, and we got to see our dog after the procedure was finished as he came out of the anesthesia through the viewing window. 

Austin under the heated blanket in the ICU.

The next day we got to pick him up from the Vet and take him home, with instructions that we were not to let our six month old puppy walk on his leg for a month.  How hard can it be to keep a six month old puppy from wanting to do anything for a month, right?

Austin on the ride home looking fairly drugged up and depressed about being shaved like a poodle.

As we drove home my wife was talking about how the surgeon had recommended rehabilitation via an underwater treadmill to strengthen Austin's leg.  He had said twice a day, every other day.  The price was thirty dollars a session, and it would start up after his muscles had a chance to heal up.  I didn't think the price was bad, but driving back and forth to Appleton every other day for a whole day seemed a bit insane.

Almost instantly my engineering mind turned to solving the problem, and I decided to build our own underwater dog treadmill as it was something that Austin would probably need for the rest of his life.  Of course as soon as I mentioned it to my wife she rolled her eyes and reminded me off all the other projects I still hadn't finished.

Instantly I went in search of DIY underwater dog treadmills on the internet, with google giving me very few hits.  One on youtube, which most closely resembles mechanical set up I used, and then another one on The Working Dog Forum, which is where I got the tank idea from.  I also found a lot of information on commercial models, and the benefits of underwater treadmills and hydrotherapy in general.  Armed with my meager amount of knowledge I set out to build an underwater dog treadmill for under 500 dollars.

Of course, when you set out on that kind of budget Craigslist quickly becomes your best friend.  I managed to find a V-belt driven treadmill less than five miles from my house for the low price of 35 dollars!  I of course then had to talk the guy down to thirty three dollars, because that was two dollars back in my budget.  With a large smile on my face my wife and I loaded the treadmill into the back of our truck and we headed home as my wife became even more certain of the fact that I was going to electrocute either the dog, or myself...  Or quite possibly both of us.

Once home I disassembled the treadmill, and began working on a new frame that would hold the electric motor out of the water.  I used the base of the treadmill for simple ease of mounting the track back down square and then used 2" aluminum angle to mount the motor, on/off switch, and speed control.  The speed control on this old treadmill came from a spring-loaded pulled that separated as more tension was put on the pulley.  The motor was mounted eccentrically, so as it moved via the crank the drive pulley wheel "changed" diameter, effectively increasing the speed of the unit.

Here you can see the frame of the treadmill and the modifications I made to it.  The motor is mounted on the hand rails now, with the speed crank set up on the top, and as you can see a much longer belt will now be needed.