Canine conditioning, where to start?

First things first:

What is canine conditioning? 

Canine conditioning exercises are exercises used to help fit dogs maintain their fitness, help prevent injury and improve performance.  Canine conditioning exercises and ideas shared in this blog should only be used in fit, healthy dogs with no prior injuries/health conditions.  

Does my dog need to do conditioning? 

All dogs can benefit from different forms of conditioning but in this blog we are going to focus on fit healthy adult dogs, especially those who train/compete in high impact sports or do lots of hiking/running.  

So now we’ve covered the basics. Let's get to the fun bit!  Where do we start with canine conditioning? 

We can break it down into 3 main categories:

1. Assessment

2. Creating a plan

3. Executing that plan 

Easy right? 

We always start with an assessment that gives us a base line of where our dogs are currently at.  If we don’t know where our dogs currently are we can’t track their progress and we don’t know where to focus our efforts.  

So first off we do a full head to toe assessment of our dogs looking for any areas of weakness. This could be in muscle mass, joint motion or just a preference for running on one side or always turning in 1 direction.  

Once you know your dogs weak areas or just a new thing you’d like to be able to do such as go for longer runs then you can create a plan focused on improving that area.  

Some exercises like down to stands are great all around exercises but others like paw are more specific to the area you want to improve.  If you need help picking exercises or assessing your dog I recommend you take a look at these blogs and courses that go much more in depth into that area: 

Blogs on conditioning exercises here:

https://www.fitpetphysio.com/post/coreexercisesdoghorse

https://www.fitpetphysio.com/post/5-steps-to-choosing-your-dog-and-horse-s-fitness-exercises

https://www.fitpetphysio.com/post/winter-fitness-plans-for-agility-dogs

https://www.fitpetphysio.com/post/an-inside-look-at-how-a-vet-physio-gets-a-dog-fit-for-agility

If you’re local to Huddersfield and would like to join an in person course here’s the link to book https://northk9.co.uk/product/fit-dogs-canine-conditioning/

If you’re further afield take a look at our online options here https://www.fitpetphysio.com/product-page/from-confused-to-confident-the-ultimate-canine-conditioning-webinar

Once you’ve chosen the exercises you’d like to introduce to your dog the first step is training them in steps. For example if you want to add a down to stand first ensure you have a square down and stand then link to 2 with no walking steps in between.  Once your dog can do all the exercises you want to add start with a few reps 1-2x daily.   

Now you’ve mastered a basic plan you can go through the 3 steps again to tweak and change your plan to focus on a different area or to make the exercises more challenging.    

If you want a bespoke plan done for you email me at zoe@fitpetphysio.com to talk through our canine physiotherapy options.