The definitive guide to home care for dogs with back or neck problems
Above: Ethel, Norman and Argie with their new copy of The IVDD Handbook. Photo shared with kind permission of Nadine Feek Miles.
To buy this book, please click here
Recovery from IVDD nearly always involves weeks to months of specialised care at home. For safety and for best results, it’s essential to get the details of home care right.
This comprehensive, fully-illustrated book is the perfect guide to home care for these dogs. Whether or not your dog has spinal surgery, this book will show you how to care for them through recovery. It’s also suitable for dogs with some other spinal problems such as FCE and traumatic disc. We do our best to keep this book as up-to-date as possible: the latest update was on 11th March 2025.
What’s included?
The IVDD Handbook contains:
- clear practical guidelines for each stage of recovery
- illustrated how-to guides for everything from sling-walking to home exercises
- notes on when to contact your vet
- an illustrated guide to understanding your dog’s surgical report
- advice on keeping your recovering dog happy and content
- a section on maintaining your own wellbeing while caring for your own dog
- example daily routines suitable for dogs at each stage of recovery
- hundreds of colour photos showing what to look for and how to help your dog
- an index, glossary and colour-coded chapter to help you find information fast.
It also features a foreword by Ian Seath BSc (Hons), a highly experienced dachshund breeder and communicator who continues to improve the health of the breed through his fantastic work with various organisations including Dachshund Health UK.
Written in British English, The IVDD Handbook contains advice suitable for dog owners worldwide. Use it in conjunction with talking to your own vet.
Reviews
“Amazing, and what a fantastic resource for dog owners!” — PROFESSOR PAUL FREEMAN, European & RCVS Specialist in Veterinary Neurology
“The IVDD bible – having this valuable information to hand will give you the confidence to care for your beloved dog during their recovery”— CHARLOTTE BALDWIN, founder of registered charity Dedicated to Dachshunds with IVDD.
“This book is packed with practical advice. Extremely comprehensive and engaging, it is essential reading for anyone caring for a dog that has back or neck problems” — CAROLINE CLARK, ABTC Registered Clinical Animal Behaviourist and Registered Veterinary Nurse
“A wonderful complete guide for managing dogs with IVDD…” — DR LAURA HAMILTON BVM&S PgC(SAC) MRCVS, Kennel Club breed health coordinator for French bulldogs
How to get your copy
Click here to buy or look inside The IVDD Handbook. It’s available to buy online in the UK, rest of Europe, US and Canada.
The above link should redirect you to your country’s Amazon site.
You can order the book to be delivered to you from the US or UK if you live in Australia, New Zealand or Singapore. For further details, click here for the US option, or here to buy from the UK.
Book update: March 2025
The IVDD Handbook has just been updated! The new version went live on 11th March 2025. Included in this update: we’ve updated the dog recovery statistics based on data from very recent studies, added information about the Cambridge IVDD study on non-surgical recovery, put in two photos of Digit to illustrate posture change through recovery, improved the wording here and there, and added a few entries to the index.
This is not a new edition of the book, just an update. So it is still listed on Amazon as having been published in September 2022.
Links to the book on this page are provided as part of the Amazon Associates program. Buying the book after clicking on one of these links will earn the author a small commission, thus contributing to the ongoing running of this website.