Tag Archives: winter activities for dogs

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

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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!

Improve Obedience And Stay Fit

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Behavior, Balance, Fitness Focus. Working on balance discs , donuts or other set ups while learning & practicing a variety of commands like sit, down, stay, come, create a whole new fun and challenging way for you to improve your dog’s behavior, focus, health!

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

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

FitPAWS K9FITBone Review

By Jeris Pugh (Owner, Martial ARFS™).

At The Martial ARFS™ Dog Training & Fitness Center we incorporate stability equipment into every thing that we do.  Do you want your dog to listen better? Get on the stability equipment.  Do you want your dog to do agility? Get on the stability equipment.  Do you have a crazy hyper puppy?  Get on the stability equipment.  RingoThe reasons why we train this way  is beyond the scope of this review, but it is what we do.  However, I am  always looking to integrate a variety of stability challenge pieces of equipment in a multitude of configurations to the curriculum.

Continue reading FitPAWS K9FITBone Review