Tag Archives: dog fitness

Winning against winter weight

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Did your dog put on some winter weight?

Ours did – and so did we!

We’ve been having this discussion in the shop this week. As we get the first hints of warmer weather, we’re getting out more. And we’ve had a few people comment on how their dogs have gained some unwanted weight over the last few months.

Ice & snow make it hard

It’s certainly understandable. It was impossible to go for a long walk when everything is covered in ice and salt. But now we’re paying the price – a few pounds heavier and a out of shape.

We know dogs aren’t, technically, people. But they are a lot like us. (Unlike cats, which are aliens. We know – we’ve had cats.) Just like us, they tend to be less active indoors, moving less, sleeping more, and generally burning fewer calories.

Packing on winter pounds

And just like us, they can get out of shape. Fran is a fitness fan – Hope (me), not so much. I’ll go months without exercising. Then I’ll decide it’s time to get going again. So I do a workout from months ago, when I was “into it,” and be in major pain the next day. The price we pay for that inactivity is sore muscles.

French Bulldog and Boston Terrier puppy cuddling
Torque and Simon in “winter mode.”

Dogs are the same. Their little bodies, just like ours, lose strength, stamina, and fitness.

Don’t go for that hour-long walk the first nice day! Your dog will pay in pain tomorrow. Ease back into a regular routine. If you haven’t done anything with your dog in months, a 10-minute walk is probably enough the first day back. Increase the time and distance gradually.

Take it slow

If exercise, or activity, is one side of the winter weight “coin,” the other face is diet. While we don’t necessarily eat more during the winter, the calories have a tendency to stick around. Increasing activity will help with weight loss, as long as no extra treats are involved. If they are, either as rewards or motivation, you can modify what you’re giving.

Swap out some calories

Remember – your dog doesn’t make his/her own food decisions. We know exactly how hard it is to say “no” to those puppy dog eyes, so we’ve developed some tricks we’re happy to share:

  • Replace a portion of your dog’s food with frozen string beans. We know it’s weird, but they’re low-calorie, nutritious, and most dogs love them.
  • Make a “trail mix” of treats for rewards. Include your dog’s regular food, a smaller portion of his/her favorite dry treats (we use Chicken Heart Treats), and circle-oat-cereal. Stir up a big batch, pour it into a plastic bag, and keep it conveniently at hand. The cereal should be about half of the mix. (True confessions: one of our dogs doesn’t like the plain cereal, so we use the honey-nut flavor. Still low calorie for one piece and all the dogs love it.)
  • Some dogs actually love playing with and chewing ice cubes. We’ve talked to many vets and all of them say it doesn’t hurt the dog to chew ice. Action without calories – it’s a win/win!
  • Carrots and/or celery are also good, low-calorie treats many dogs enjoy.
  • If your dog isn’t crazy about chasing balls around the yard – try a small apple! They’ll get all the benefit of a workout and think they’re getting a treat!

We can do it!

It’s hard to win the winter weight battle. For our dogs’ health – we have to keep an eye on their waists. Last year I didn’t notice when Torque gained four pounds and it took us months to make it go away. I’m paying attention better this year – we started walking as soon as the ice melted.

What “steps” are you taking to keep your dog in shape?

Painless fitness for your pup

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If, for some reason, you had no idea what time of year it was, had no access to a calendar, and didn’t know it was January, all you’d have to do is turn on the television and you’d know. As soon as the commercials started.

Flood of fitness ads

We’re inundated with ads for fitness programs, gyms, diets, exercise programs, exercise equipment, yoga programs, and everything else that could we could possibly spend on to help us keep our resolutions. One of the statistics we saw said that 85% of New Year’s resolutions had something to do with fitness, losing weight, and/or getting in shape.

It’s a noble ambition. We do it ourselves and we wish everyone else good fortune with their resolutions. And we’re here to remind you not to forget your dogs in the fitness commitment.

Dogs’ fitness can slide, too

Just this week one of Hope’s students in her competition obedience class asked for some help in getting her dog slimmed down.

This nice lady is a convert to positive reinforcement training and she’s seen her dog, while improving his obedience skills, gain about a pound every month since she began training. Her boy Rizzo, a Nederlandse Kooikerhondje (read more about the breed here) is a small sized dog. Rizzo (named for the Chicago Cubs 1st baseman!) has lost his waist!

Not alone

We have a feeling that Rizzo isn’t alone in his weight gain. We read that about half of all American dogs are overweight. So it’s time to share what we know about keeping your dogs in shape, painlessly. We’ve found that hungry dogs, like hungry people, aren’t very happy souls. So we want everybody satisfied and feeling full, while still accomplishing our fitness goals.

We’re guilty, too

Because we want to minimize possible injury for our dogs, especially since we enjoy dog sports like obedience, rally, and agility, we try to be aware of our dogs’ weight and fitness. Hope let Torque’s physique get out of control last year, but pulled him back into fitness with these tips.

If you, like Rizzo’s mom, are using lots of treats for training, good for you! Instead of those training goodies being “in addition” to your dog’s regular meals – make your dog’s meals part of training.

Use what you’ve got

It’s simple if your dog eats kibble regularly. After you fill the bowl with the normal amount of food, grab a handful back and stash it in a separate container for that day’s training session. If you think your dog will notice and miss the volume, replace it with frozen string beans. We don’t know why dogs love frozen string beans, but we’ve never met one that doesn’t. You can use other vegetables, but be careful of carrots and/or fruits that contain a lot of sugar. We’re minimizing additional calories, not adding to the problem.

If your dog eats moist food, it’s a bit more challenging to use as training treats. You can certainly give less and add the string beans, but using the food as training rewards if more difficult. One solution is to teach your dog to eat from a spoon. Another is to find refillable squeeze tubes, often available from camping supply places, and fill them with your dog’s moist food. They work just like toothpaste tubes, as long as you make sure they’re tightly closed. We can’t even describe the mess the first time we used one and didn’t close it right.

Getting real

We’re not going to advocate some kind of exercise program where you have to get out there and walk your dog for miles, or even 15 minutes. Mostly because it’s cold, wet, windy, and miserable out today and the last thing we want to do is spend any time in the great outdoors. And our dogs would, frankly, refuse. Even the most obedient dog will dig in its heels when Mom’s acting crazy!

What we will suggest is a few minutes of active play and/or training a couple of times a day. It’s good for everyone, combats cabin fever, and can use up a few extra calories. We do use reward-based training, so we’re careful to use tiny pieces of treats. It’s one of the reasons we like the freeze-dried Chicken Heart Treats. They break up into non-messy, tiny bits that are big on flavor, so dogs love them.

Mix it up

We like to use a “trail mix” of treats for dog snacks, with containers in just about every room. We use some kibble, some Chicken Heart Treats, and some Cheerios, mixed all together. The dog never knows what tasty tidbit she’s getting, so the excitement level is always high. And the higher-calorie treats are offset by the lower ones, just as the not-so-favorite treats are balanced by the high-value ones.

Even if you aren’t going to be training, we suggest you keep a container of your own doggy trail mix on hand. We’re always giving our dogs treats for one thing or another – sometimes just because we can’t resist those puppy-dog eyes. If there’s a healthy snack already prepared, we’re less inclined to share our potato chips with our pups.

Focusing on dog fitness

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Is your pup fit?

There are lots of different kinds of dog fitness, as I’ve been learning recently from my fitness coach (my sister Fran! Check out her Fitness Over 50 blog & Facebook group!).

Aspects of dog fitness:

Stamina

French Bulldogs aren’t supposed to like the heat – but Teddy doesn’t worry about what he’s “supposed” to do!

One aspect of dog fitness is stamina, something I’ve had to work on with my French Bulldog, Torque. He’s the first of the three Frenchies I’ve owned who’s had an issue with heat sensitivity. I know all descriptions of the breed mention it, but he’s of mine who’s actually had it. Dax and

Teddy both adored heat and would lie out in the sun on the hottest days, with no ill effects. Silly dogs.

Flexibility

Another part of dog fitness is flexibility. And it’s another one that Torque isn’t great with, mostly because he’s built like a brick. We’re working on it, hoping to improve his “torquing!” Especially since he’s dipping his toes into the agility arena these days. We’ve also recently found that Booker, Fran’s Boston Terrier, isn’t as good bending to the right as he is to the left. With both of these guys we’re just doing a simple exercise, holding a treat to the side, a little further back as we see improvement, and having them turn their heads to get it. Not too much at a time – we don’t want to do any damage or give them stiff necks!

Tango, Fran’s Brussels Griffon, is possibly the bendiest dog in the world. This boy can practically fold in half. One of his nicknames is “Gumby!”

Strength

So we were really surprised when we realized that Tango doesn’t have much core strength at all. He was having trouble balancing and keeping himself upright. We were shocked!

Tango sitting on the balance disc.

It’s been a while since Tango’s done agility, so it could be his core strength has diminished without the jumping, climbing, weaving practice. But he’s still a very active nine-year-old dog, who loves doing Rally, “killing” his brother, and guarding the house with every vocal cord he has. So we want to keep our little guy in shape for as long as possible to keep him as healthy as possible.

One of the exercises Tango’s doing is sit-stand on an inflatable balance disc. This works his core as well as his legs. He’s getting better, but still falls off occasionally and has some trouble maintaining his balance in a sit. You don’t have to invest in a disc to do this – anything that’s not too firm will do, especially for our small dogs. A couch cushion on the floor would work just fine.

Tango standing on the balance disc.

Fran also has Tango spin both ways on the disc. At first, he just followed her “cookie hand” around in a circle. Again, he’s getting better, but still tumbles off the disc. (Is it really bad that it makes us laugh a little bit when he falls off?) This is another one you can do on a cushion.

Every day we try to have individual time with our dogs. Lately we’ve been playing  dog fitness games. And we love seeing them getting fitter and stronger while they play with their moms!

Creative dog training

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Yesterday it was Torque’s turn for a lesson with our trainer Dee Lulik of All Fours Dog Training. She’s an amazing trainer. I’ve never seen her stumped when presented with a dog issue. She finds creative, positive ways to deal with any issue we’ve ever had.

So I went in to the lesson yesterday with the plea “Torque’s got this weird thing going on, so I must be doing something wrong. Please fix me!” Generally speaking, I take the blame when something’s going on with my dogs. And I’m generally right.

Torque’s been learning to walk on things, climb over things, encounter things, and generally work and play arou90915_torque_officend unusual textures, sounds, heights, motions, etc., so that he’ll be unfazed by all the sights, sounds, movements, etc. that he’ll encounter in obedience, rally, and agility competition. We want him to play and have a good time wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, including being obedient.

So we have these inflatable, squishy things that Torque’s been climbing on forever. He loves them, he’ll play tug on top of them, he’ll turn around, sit, lie down, etc. Completely calm and happy.

He would not, for any price (including cheese!), step foot on a solid board that rocks back and forth, three inches off the ground. It was the most terrifying thing he’d ever seen in his life. With much patience and lots of treats, I’d finally managed to get him to put two paws up on it, but the back feet were not leaving the floor. No way. Uh-uh. Not gonna happen.

Dee saw his avoidance behavior. And created a solution in the works. She put his beloved squishy thing on top of the board. So now it’s even more unstable – and yet Torque climbs right up, balances, plays, turns around, gets rewarded. Because he loves the squishy things and he understands his “job” when he sees them. We’ll transition the squishy thing off the board, when Torque’s ready to try it “naked.”

I learned the lesson. If something’s challenging, it’s worth trying. Just ask Torque.