Does anyone do anything specifically in order to improve their dogs fitness either during recovery from enforced rest or to prepare for something - days in the field, long family walking holidays.... Riley did a long memory retrieve today and was slightly puffing at the end, he recovered quickly though so I'm not in any way worried. I just realised I don't think about his levels of fitness at all and wondered if that should form part of my training plans?... Or will enough training and retrieving get him fit enough? I did think that retrieving is quite like interval training so in itself it's probably good for fitness levels.
Re: Getting dogs fit There's an article here - http://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-exercise-your-labrador/ with a paragraph part way down on exercise. I have the same issues with Lady. Because I'm no longer in the first flush of youth with dodgy knees from too much running or maybe just general wear and tear I worry about giving Lady enough exercise. She definitely runs out of puff if she's hooning around with other dogs, or doing some real retrieving where the distance, frequency and difficulty are a lot more than with dummy work. Looking forward to some good advice in due course.
Re: Getting dogs fit Gosh, I think I have the opposite problem. An almost overly-fit dog, bursting with energy and BORED now that she is on lead walks…
Re: Getting dogs fit I wouldn't say Riley is unfit, he has bags of energy and he's always up for a play or retrieve and definitely does NOT like being on restricted exercise. I think that's different to being truly fit though as a sportsperson might be
Re: Getting dogs fit There are many definitions of fitness. For some it is the speed of recovery and it doesn’t matter if they are puffed out so long as they can go again. Check out 100 meter sprinters, they are puffed out, but surely “fit”. For some it is going and going but not at any real speed; i.e. 10,000 meter runners. Cannot go at speed, but certainly can keep going. I think Ruby is a very fit dog because she can go and go and go for hours. : Never tiring or lagging behind during an all day hike. However, after a couple of “manly” throws with a dummy or ball, she is puffed and will not sprint out anymore. : So it really is a case of what type, rather then level of fitness you want from your dog. :-\ If you need a sprinter you will need to work on muscle development and build up stamina, but if you want continuous running you will need to ensure they remain leaner and build up endurance. It is quite hard to get an all rounder, but to exercise your dogs as you would work them.
Re: Getting dogs fit Thanks for your thoughts Michael. I'm hoping to work Riley next season but I would imagine I'll be lucky to get more than a handful of days between work and family commitments. I'm not planning to compete so I don't need a super fast, flashy dog. Just one that can do a full day and still be enjoying it at the end We generally walk out twice a day and do some training within that walk. The walk might be 45 mins to an hour and the training 15 - 30 mins within that depending what we're doing. I might fit in an extra short training session or two if I'm doing something that needs a little and often approach. The fitness levels Riley currently has would support reasonable duration of low energy with the odd burst but if we had a busy day shooting as David described I think we'd struggle. If there's something I can do in the run up to the season to set Riley up well for big days out then I'm all up for that ;D
Re: Getting dogs fit As the weather gets warmer Barbara, you could do some more water retrieves with him. That really builds strength and stamina, without any undue stress on the joints.
Re: Getting dogs fit Barbara, Unsure where you live, but Karen is absolutely right about water work for strength and stamina. If you are anywhere near the sea, then beach running is very good as well and you don’t have to be working Riley either as just running on sand is good for them as is running in the sea without going in too far. If you are land locked, try mud or bog running him; and this weather is helping. Both are soft on the joints and will certainly build up the endurance levels.
Re: Getting dogs fit I have my programme for increasing Charlie's fitness after his surgery, which won't be want you need, as it starts from too low a base. But the things in it that I didn't really appreciate before are how important it is to build up slowly to hard exercise, and then keep at that level, and not to go from no exercise, to intense exercise, and back to not much etc. And making sure there is a warm up, and a cool down - massaging and stretching on cue are handy. Apart from that, if you can get to a water treadmill, I can vouch for it being pretty amazing doggy exercise. I will also always have Charlie's physio exercises as part of his routine. They are sort of like Callanetics (if you remember that from the 1980s!) and really do help muscle tone, the difference is amazing. Might try it myself! I wonder if there is a book...I bet there is, someone must have written one.
Re: Getting dogs fit Oh interesting...I'm a bit of a follower of the growing canine sports science evidence base (lot about huskies!) given my own interest in sports science, and the type of training I do for long distance triathlon. I go along the same lines as my own training, and I train them differently for endurance, speed, and speed endurance and vary it throughout a week. Speed endurance is what they both struggle with more just now, Brods in particular, but they are both still quite young so I've held off cranking up really intense stuff until recently. I really noticed this in the past week or so when Brodick finally decided at the ripe old age of nearly two that he would play with 'proper' balls - until now he has insited on me throwing daft puppy balls for him, which don't go far but he had great fun leaping after them. In the past few weeks he has realised that proper balls go far and fast and are great fun....however he hasn't done a lot of long sprints before, and while Cuillin was still going strong after about ten of these long sprints, he was starting to flag. Yet he keeps up with her no bother on a head to head short one off sprint (speed fitness) or a long cantering walk (endurance fitness). Being the sports science geek that I am, I mix their exercise so they do endurance stuff, speed stuff, and more and more recently speed endurance stuff. They've been built up slowly in each of the differnet disciplines, hill running for example is great for increasing strength but hard on joints, so they started off with one hill run effort (a minute of running up, thirty seconds down), the next week two repeats of the same hill, the next week three, etc. I have rest days from my own training once a week and the pups observe that too, nothing hard or impactful....I'm quite a geek though so I think as long as you observe the general principles of covering all apsects of fitness, building them up slowly, keeping them slim, feeding them good, watching them and giving them rests when they are flagging, and not hammering things day after day, all is good! and yes swimming is great too, my two swim when they have had a hard hill running session the day before... I'll stop now because I could geek on about this....
Re: Getting dogs fit All very interesting, thanks all ;D As a former full time sportsperson I was heading down the same route Debsie and basing my plans for Riley on what I would have done myself (many moons ago!) Definitely part of the plan and we've done two swimming sessions this week already - no need to wait for the weather to warm up(it's really not that cold) and there's so much water around we don't even need to go that far Beaches will be trickier as we have pebble beaches round here and not sand but it's so true the ground is so wet and boggy soft surfaces aren't hard to come by!
Re: Getting dogs fit Poppy is driving me insane at the moment. She is so bored with being on the lead, and so full of energy. And with the anti-inflammatories she is feeling GOOOOOD.. She charges around the house in the evening, chucking her toys around, squeaking her squeaky pheasant like a creature possessed. She even grabs my sleeve and tries to pull me off the couch, when normally she just snuggles down next to me. She is normally so quiet and calm, this is very different from my usual chilled girl! OH is away on business for a couple of weeks, so she is on her own during the day. I walk her for half an hour in the morning, then she goes out with my cleaning lady walking her for about 30 minutes, then a neighbour picks her up in the afternoon for a walk with her dog, and I am home at around 5, when we go out again for another half an hour. So she is not lacking in company or exercise. Last weekend we only did a few gentle walks. I have cancelled a walk with a friend this weekend, who has a black labrador who is great friends with Poppy, as they would charge around too wildly. But I am thinking I may see if we can go to training on Sunday; just being there with the other dogs might be a good distraction for her, and I can probably get them to do some low-impact work, maybe scent following or searching, rather than long-distance retrieves.. Sorry Barbara, bit off track, but I am just wondering out loud what is the best thing to do, and how best to gently reintroduce exercise. The vet said take it easy until after the weekend.. And I take my hat off to all those of you who are dealing with this kind of situation on a long-term basis. It is NOT easy!
Re: Getting dogs fit No, it really isn't easy - Poppy sounds very similar to Charlie, constantly on the go. For us, the 3 times a week blast on the water treadmill is just a life saver - it was super difficult before this. The physio exercises have made a significant contribution too though, as have finding long play sessions that don't involve jumping about - we had to sort of "re-learn" how to play, as our previous games had been too active. Learning to stand on a wobble cushion, then learning to balance while the cushion was wobbled, filled up about 6 play sessions. I hope we get more exercises to learn today.
Re: Getting dogs fit I don't have any advice having not been in that situation, I just wanted to say I really feel for you Karen and Julie and everyone with long term doggy injuries. You are all amazing people who clearly want the best for their pups
Re: Getting dogs fit I do hope you are going to be posting some photos - or even better, videos - of the wobble cushion training, Julie!
