de Jasay Veterinary Physiotherapy

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de Jasay Veterinary Physiotherapy

RAMP & NAVP-registered, master's-level qualified vet physio offering mobile services for horses, dogs and other small animals in and around London.

Services include full static and dynamic assessment, tailored physiotherapy & canine biomechanical analysis

17/05/2026

Beany!

Beany’s been undergoing conservative management following an IVDD episode late last year, and I’ve been working with her since February to help improve her coordination, stability, strength, and overall movement confidence. Swipe to see some of her rehab work, alongside how her movement has changed since starting physio.

One of the main things she initially struggled with was hind limb ataxia — a loss of coordination caused by disruption to spinal cord pathways. The earlier videos show her at her second session (slides 4 and 6), when she showed more pelvic instability, inconsistent paw placement, and difficulty during turning and transitional movements.

She’s made lovely progress since then (slides 5 and 7). Her gait is now much more controlled and coordinated, with improved stability during turning, more consistent hind limb placement, and stronger sit-to-stand transitions. She’s also loading through her hind limbs more confidently, although some residual ataxia is still present.

The exercises shown here are all being used for slightly different reasons:
 • poles — coordination, proprioception, and controlled limb flexion-extension • weight shifting — balance, postural control, and to encourage more even limb loading

Sit-to-stands were being used in the videos for assessment, but she also performs these as an exercise to help improve strength and controlled weight transfer through the hind limbs.

One of the things I look for during rehab isn’t just whether a dog can complete an exercise, but how they complete it. Small changes in stability, posture, coordination, movement quality, and confidence can tell us a huge amount about how a dog is progressing.

Conservative IVDD management is rarely completely linear, and dogs often have better and worse days depending on things like fatigue, activity levels, soreness, or flare-ups. A big part of it is gradually building function while avoiding overload.

Small improvements in stability, coordination, and confidence can make a real difference to a dog’s comfort and day-to-day life.

She and her owner have worked incredibly hard - a huge part of her progress is down to what they do between sessions 💫

15/05/2026

Meet Emmett, the ex-racing greyhound.

This lovely boy’s a tripod dog who’s had a tough time. Last year, he was diagnosed with sciatic nerve cancer which required amputation of his right hindlimb, followed by a complicated recovery. Earlier this year, he lost a lot of body condition and muscle after becoming unwell with a nasty viral infection.

I’m now working with his lovely owners to help gradually rebuild his strength, confidence, and mobility again.

As an amputee, Emmett has to work extra hard to stabilise himself and manage increased loading through his remaining limbs, so a lot of his early rehab focuses on building up his core strength and postural control, alongside helping him feel more confident using his remaining hindlimb 🐾

You can see him here thoroughly enjoying his soft tissue work and PROM (passive range of motion), which I use to help ease areas of tension, keep his joints moving comfortably, and support his mobility overall.

Emmett gets his treatments wherever he feels happiest and most relaxed — usually in bed — because frankly, he’s earned it.

Dogs like Emmett have given a lot to people and deserve a fantastic retirement. Charities that re-home ex-racers are always looking for kind, loving homes for these gentle dogs 🖤

06/12/2025

The prize for the best coat definitely goes to this lovely girl... 🦁

She’s a Rough Collie with age-related mobility issues, these were exacerbated by a complicated wound on her elbow earlier this year. Her owners were put in touch with me for support getting her stronger and more mobile overall to help her enjoy her older years. We’re also working on reducing soft tissue restrictions around the recently healed elbow to improving range of motion there.

She’s responding really well to her gently progressive home-exercise routine, environmental modifications, and weekly treatment with soft tissue work like massage, Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy (PEMFT), and Photobiomodulation (also known as LASER). She often dozes off during sessions and can be heard making VERY content little sounds.

More frequent visits are really beneficial at the start of treatment, they help us target specific goals, monitor progress closely, and get on top of any compensatory discomfort or restrictions that may be present. Sessions can be spaced out more a little later in a plan.

18/11/2025

Something tells me this lady enjoys her monthly physiotherapy sessions 👀.

Shes an older girl and her owners are amazing with her: they’re so dedicated to her home exercises between our appointments - really helping to maintain her comfort and mobility.

Get in touch 📞 📧 if you like the sound of working together to give your animal the best quality of life you can. I’ll always adapt your pet’s home plan to your circumstances so it’s achievable 💪🐕.

11/11/2025

This kind of feedback is lovely to read - I work hard to make sure your pet’s first experience of physiotherapy is positive: this is so important for getting the most out of sessions and achieving the best results we can going forward 🏆

17/10/2025

I’ve encountered indirect release techniques like positional release (PRT) and distractions before, including through my human sports massage qualification and treatments I’ve received from but last weekend I attended a great CPD day to delve deeper into them, and how they can be applied to equine (and canine) patients. (Added bonus = catching up with who also attended)

Indirect release techniques can be invaluable for animals who present with strong guarding as they’re gentle and work by moving tissue and joints towards a position of ease and comfort, rather than stretching them away from it. Positional release was developed by human-focussed osteopath Dr. Lawrence Jones in the 50s, who found they were extremely effective for decreasing spasm, deactivating trigger points, and improving range of motion. It’s not clear how long effects last, but such techniques may be effective when used as part of a multimodal plan including, if indicated, management or environmental changes, therapeutic exercise, other manual techniques and electrotherapy.

We additionally covered muscle energy techniques (METs) - also developed originally for human patients - which can be useful after PRT, and I was impressed with how well they transfer to animals!

More research is needed, including on their use for animals, but some studies and papers discussing the techniques mentioned include: Saavedra et al. (2014); Coates (2018); Thomas et al. (2019); Jain et al. (2020); Bethers et al. (2022); Fritz et al. (2023); Waxenbaum et al. (2024); Danazumi et al. (2024); Abdelhaleem et al. (2022).

01/10/2025

This lovely lady will be starting a structured programme very soon, but for today we worked on releasing off areas of tension and discomfort to lay the foundations for more functional movement… as you can see she released off all the way out of the camera frame…

You’ll have to forgive her forehead blemishes - she’s a Hungarian warmblood who’s moved over here recently and she’s been adjusting to changes in her environment but it’s been managed!

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Manual techniques like massage are thought to work through mechanotransduction (pressure being converted into a bioelectric or biochemical signals), effects on tissues’ piezoelectric collagen scaffold, influences on ion exchange, and through heat generation.

These mechanisms may help it:

🔹Increase circulation through vasodilation, thus removal of metabolic waste and delivery of oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood to support cell metabolism (this is also helped by application and removal of pressure mimicking a pumping effect, which may additionally aid lymph flow). These effects help increase tissue-hydration - including of fascia - and reduce adhesions.

🔹Optimise cell function for maintaining homeostasis and aiding damage repair.

🔹Modulate inflammation through reduced release of inflammatory mediators.

🔹Reduce nociception (pain perception) and stress by decreasing local chemical irritants, stimulating non-nociceptive sensory nerve fibres, triggering elevated endogenous opioids, dopamine and serotonin and reduced cortisol.

🔹Reduce hypertonicity (tension) in muscles thus improve extensibility by triggering specific reflex pathways, interrupting pain-spasm cycles, increasing tissue temperature to decrease tissue viscosity (like when set honey melts) and potentially influencing collagen fibres’ crimp and arrangement (which could also help functional scar formation).

As ever, more research is needed, but these effects may support exercise recovery and tissue healing, improve posture and gait, and and have psychological benefits, making massage a great tool during physiotherapy sessions.

Sources in comments…

23/09/2025

Golden boy Bear’s been an excellent assistant - helping me keep polishing the format of my Ekiko Tendiboots™ sessions. Needless to say animals have their own personalities and ideas about what’s interesting (or weird), so won’t always do things exactly as we want them to… but we can set them up to succeed by honing our own processes, conducting assessments as smoothly as possible, being as clear with them as we can be, and keeping their experiences positive.

💡 Bear wore a harness for this session… did you know these can influence biomechanics, for example reducing shoulder extension and forelimb stride length?

🦮 Bear’s harness is a Perfect Fit harness, the idea of these is that they’re modular and measured to the dog who’ll be wearing them: ideally causing minimal restriction. A harness’ effects on movement can vary according to its construction (e.g. Y-shaped vs across the chest), where the lead is clipped, and whether it’s correctly fitted, as well as a dog’s breed and conformation (e.g. limb length, and the length of their shoulder-blade relative to overall limb length). There’s no conclusive evidence on the least restrictive harness - it will differ between dogs - and choosing what you walk your dog in (collar, harness, halti headcollar etc) comes down to lots of factors, not just biomechanics; regardless, it’s important to consider that different options can influence movement in different ways. In this case gait assessment in a collar would be worth doing too for comparison.

Papers informing the above were Lafuente et al. (2018); Blake et al. (2019); Pálya et al. (2022); Weissenbacher et al. (2022); Williams et al. (2023); Dowdeswell and Churchill (2024) and Cavali and Protopopova (2025).

01/09/2025

Dumpling’s a well travelled little dog, coming to London via LA after originally being a stray in China! She hasn’t had physio before but was so good for her Monday evening MOT. Some things her owners will be working on over the next few weeks are improving her loading and movement symmetry, and building hindlimb muscle: aiming to maintain good functionality long term 🐕

15/08/2025

There are still gaps in the research around how gait deviations or lameness influence back movement, and it’s a complex topic given the effects can vary according to different factors. Eg they may differ between individual horses, whether a forelimb or hindlimb is effected, if problems are bilateral, whether it’s a weight bearing or swing phase issue, and whether the problem is acute or chronic.

I’ve focused on how limb movement influences the back to highlight compensatory mechanisms that may cause secondary issues when a horse has an altered gait: these compensations and secondary issues are often part of what we need to help address as physiotherapists.

That said, back movement and possible dysfunction are by no means only influenced by gait: many factors can contribute to abnormalities in the region. These include your own balance and symmetry as a rider, a horse’s discipline, saddle or bridle fit, dentition, overall condition, primary back (or other) pathology, or simply conformation… the list goes on.

If you’re worried about your horse’s back, or have noticed any new (or chronic) gait abnormalities, physiotherapy may help, but you’ll need to have your vet check them first, and follow their treatment recommendations!

Papers informing this post included: Payne, Veenman and Wilson (2005); Gomez Alvarez et al. (2007), (2008); Walker et al. (2013); Clayton (2016); Greve, Dyson and Pfau (2017); Greve, Pfau and Dyson (2017); Martin et al. (2017); MacKechnie-Guire et al. (2020); MacKechnie-Guire and Pfau (2021); Sullivan et al. (2022); Egenvall, Engström and Byström (2023); Domańska-Kruppa, Wierzbicka and Stefanik (2024); Landsbergen et al. (2024); Harrison et al. (2025). If you’re interested in the paper’s full titles I can send them over.

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Opening Hours

Monday	08:00 - 20:00
Tuesday	08:00 - 13:00
Wednesday	08:00 - 20:00
Thursday	08:00 - 20:00
Friday	08:00 - 17:00

Website

http://www.djvp.co.uk/, https://linktr.ee/DEJASAYVETPHYSIO

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