Tag Archives: canine fitness

10 Reasons Your Dog Doesn’t Lose Weight

The reality is clear  APOP’s 2017 clinical survey, showed that 56% of dogs were classified as clinically overweight (body condition score (BCS) 6-7) or obese (BCS 8-9) by their veterinary healthcare professional.

That equals an estimated 50.2 million dogs are too heavy, based on 2017 pet population projections provided by the American Pet Products Association (APPA). In 2016, APOP found 54% of dogs were overweight or obese. With all of the high quality foods on the market today, and pet owners expecting more for  the health of their pets why is the problem getting worse?HealthPetAssessmentCardNormal_Course

Though you might think it’s obvious, here’s another statistic from APOP. Even though we know that 56% of dogs are overweight, 93% of dog owners think their dog is a healthy weight. And even though 93% of dog owners think their dog is a healthy weight, 43% of dog owners actually admit that they don’t know what a normal weight dog looks like. We can’t help are dog lose weight if we don’t know they need to lose it. Above is a diagram of what a normal dog should look like, but it can vary slight from dog to dog.

So if you see that your dog is overweight and you’re trying to get your dog to slim down but you’re having trouble, here’s 10 reasons as to why that might be happening. Continue reading 10 Reasons Your Dog Doesn’t Lose Weight

Peanut Exercises To Strengthen The Adductors

Online_Training_Phtoos CTA-9

You don’t need a ton of Canine Conditioning gear to keep your dog fit, improve  performance or just have some fun. Using just a peanut, our One Piece Workouts The Peanut will give you a variety of excises & activities you and your dog will love!

Dynamic Hind Limb Awareness And Strengthening

In today’s blog post we’d like to show a great dynamic hindlimb strengthening and awareness exercise that utilizes a donut vertical against the wall.  To minimize the risk of injury we most start off with the simplest version of this exercise and use a controlled exercise progression. We want our dogs to develop enough strength and awareness so at the most advanced level, if the donut rolls, they will not be susceptible to injury.  As well, by request, at the end of this written post, we have an instructional video featuring the exercise progression.
Continue reading Dynamic Hind Limb Awareness And Strengthening

Conditioning Tighter Turns For Agility Dogs

Have you ever noticed your dog leaning when they are taking a tight turn. (If not, just look at the above photo.)  Interestingly, if they’re turning right, they lean on their right side. If they are turning left, they lean on their left side. This isn’t just true for your dog, if you’ve ever seen a person turn on a motorcycle, they lean so much it’s hard to understand how they don’t fall. Runners do it too. Sprinters in the 200 meter are taught to “lean in” to the turn as they come around the track. Continue reading Conditioning Tighter Turns For Agility Dogs

The Need For Canine Conditioning

Proper conditioning  doesn’t just make your dog stronger, it makes your dog more sensitive to the amount of muscle contraction necessary to move most efficiently. Without conditioning, your dog will only be able to perform as well as they’ve learned to while participating in their sport or life activity. Continue reading The Need For Canine Conditioning

Injury Prevention For Dog Agility And Canine Athletes

In an article written by Dr. Sherman Canapp for Clean Run magazine he states, “Traumatic incidents result in active eccentric muscle contraction, in which the muscle is activated during a stretch, such as slipping into a splay-legged position” (read the original article or a revisited article) In short, while the muscle is getting longer (from the movement during Dog_Slipping_On_Dogwalkthe slip) the dog contracts and tightens it in order to prevent continued slipping. The slip alone might cause a tear after the muscle has stretched beyond it’s normal range of motion. However, the contraction of the muscle while it’s lengthening almost guarantees the tear because the muscle is already over extended from the leg slipping.

Continue reading Injury Prevention For Dog Agility And Canine Athletes

The Problem With Canine Conditioning

Canine conditioning as it is generally practiced is not really geared toward canine athletic performance. There are a lot of great Journiexercises that ultimately will not translate to improved performance or injury prevention because the execution will never advance beyond a dog simply going through the motion of the exercises. That’s because the overwhelming majority of canine conditioning exercises never move beyond their canine rehabilitation roots. Continue reading The Problem With Canine Conditioning

8 Reasons To Exercise Your Dog In A Pool

At The Martial ARFS™ we use our pool for a variety of water based exercises that go well beyond swimming.  We call them Open Water Exercises (OWE) or Aquatic Conditioning, and you can have your dog perform them in a pool or any other open body of water. The purpose of Open Water Exercise is to incorporate a variety of exercises into a canine athlete or a companion dog’s conditioning program that use water to provide resistance, buoyancy, instability, challenge, and/or safety. Continue reading 8 Reasons To Exercise Your Dog In A Pool

Functional Canine Conditioning Part 2: Athleticism

The 4 Elements Of A Functional Canine Conditioning Program:
Power. Athleticism. Speed. Endurance. (P.A.S.E.)

Part 2: Athleticism

How do you define athleticism? What are the components? I personally think there’s a difference between being an athlete and having athleticism. A marathon runner is an athlete;  a basketball player has athleticism. Sled dogs are athletes; agility dogs have athleticism. At The Martial ARFS we use four components to define athleticism: Body Awareness, Balance,  Coordination, and Rhythm. Continue reading Functional Canine Conditioning Part 2: Athleticism