I'm looking for some suggestions to help raise Lady's general fitness and stamina. I need to be a bit careful about what I ask of her because of her underlying elbow dysplasia problem. Generally looking for ideas of things I can do on normal walks to get her fitter and stronger. Many thanks in advance. ;D Currently we walk about 5 miles a day. We do marked and blind retrieving practice 2 or 3 times a week. We chase after balls and hoon with other dogs but that's about it.
Re: Improving general fitness and stamina Hi David, Well, if you are looking to increase the amount of effort but also take account of the ED then I would have thought that swimming is the ideal outlet. Do you have easy access to anywhere that would permit this? Our dog walker is looking into getting a swimming pool for dogs but the cost has put her off until sometime next year. However, it might be worth a bit of internet research to see if local walkers/trainers/vets have a pool that can be used (or a lake/pond if you have one handy).
Re: Improving general fitness and stamina Swimming would be ideal but there's nothing really suitable nearby other than the Edenbrook which is a small river and although Lady will swim she's not keen on it. Lady's ED is under control - she had both elbows operated on a couple of years ago and is absolutely fine now but I'm always conscious of the fact that her elbow joints have a weakness and also some bone missing now. I thought some exciting exercises involving running might do the trick but other than chasing a tennis ball or retrieving I'm a bit stuck.
Re: Improving general fitness and stamina Hi David, loathe to recommend anything without Lochan commenting on suitability given Lady's ED history, but have you any hills near you? My two do Hill Sessions with me as part of my own training and I think its done the same as it does for me - improves leg strength for speed gains. I THINK uphill running might be ok for her, but better if vets take a view! We run fast up short steep hills, or longer gradual hills, recover by jogging back down ( this is the bit Im not sure about for Lady). Typical session is warm up canter around for all three of us, then we started off with three repeats of running flat out up a hill, jogging down to recover, and flat out back up again etc..building up to ten to fifteen repeats depending on hill length....ten minutes canter again cool down...if u dont think ur knees would be happy joining her ( I think you said you had dodgy knees) you could get a ball lobber and get her sprinting up hills with that.... But I guess she would sprint down too and not sure whether that would be good for her, too much pressure through her joints....soooo, u could build in a stop whistle at top, then you could go and get her, tootle her gently down , and repeat?! Ive never been on a formal shoot, is her day a mix of walking to heel with bursts of hunting and retrieving ( at speed). If you can build her fitness for the hard stuff then it wont have such an impact over the course of the day....another thing - does she get any energy input over the course of the day? I know some folk give their dogs glucose in water part way through a long day working - I imagine dogs will run out of muscle stored energy the same was humans and could hit the wall the same as us long distance runners if we dont take on easiky difested carbs...interested to see what the folk that work their dogs all day do....anyhow, Ive maybe posed more questions than anythibg, sorry!
Re: Improving general fitness and stamina Hi Debsie. Lots to think about there. I don't know about the downhill stuff - need to check. The only real caution that the specialist mentioned after the op was to lift her down out of the car, but that was when he saw we had a Defender so actually quite a large leap. I've parted with that now and got an ordinary station wagon so it's no height at all. I can't run at all these days as my knees won't allow it but the ball lobber would work well. Her working day starts at around 09:45 depending on how organised we are with getting on with it and ends around 15:30 with about an hour off for lunch. I put her back in the car at lunchtime with a bowl of water and a small amount of Burns Alert kibbles to top her up. The day is mixed and normally pretty much a pattern that can include beating on some drives and picking up on others and sometimes a combination of the two if we are really short handed. So some heal walking some sitting for longish periods and quite a bit of flushing and also searching out lost birds. I walked nearly 7 miles yesterday so Lady did a lot more. It was hot and sweaty. I could do a complete diary of the day but I think that might be a bit tedious to read, and I think the bottom line is she just ran out of steam at the end.
Re: Improving general fitness and stamina I would second hill work as long as her elbow could take it. If the hillside is big enough you could do steps.....send her left up the hill for a retrieve then the recall isn't straight back down the fall line.....then redo....I can picture it in my mind ;D
Re: Improving general fitness and stamina She gets a bit bored with retrieving balls and dummies if I overdo it. Any way started as I mean to go on this evening with a whole heap of blinds of around 100m and some woohoo marked retrieves making her sit for a while to get the excitement up. Cracked the "bored with this syndrome" by taking smelly cheesy treats with me and once she twigged she got one after a retrieve we were off. She's just dropping off to sleep now as I type this. ;D We've got a tennis ball lobber somewhere if I can find it and a bit of hill climbing too. Tomorrow .......
Re: Improving general fitness and stamina Spurred on by posts also on the Positive Gundogs FB site I've been stepping up the blind retrieving practice in particular. I have to say she loves it and I've pushed the distance up to a more realistic 150 - 200 yds (paces). I'll hopefully get her going on the hill idea tomorrow. Was going to do it today but got Shanghai'd by a whole heap of dog walking pals, but Lady did get plenty of aerobics playing kiss-chase with one of her boyfriends, Rory the Golden Retriever (aged 2 and a bit).
Re: Improving general fitness and stamina Penny's physiotherapist recommend up hill walking to help strengthen her back legs for her hip dysplasia - I'm not sure if this would help with the front end though. We work on improving core stability mostly with balancing exercises on a balance ball. I certainly found that when we were retrieving Penny was a lot fitter than she is now - she's not really supposed to do repetitive retrieving (ie. Chasing a ball back and forth continuously) but things like marked retrieves are ok as it's less stressful on the joints. I would definitely recommend swimming if you can find somewhere suitable. Do you have a hydrotherapy pool near you? Some offer fitness or fun swims, however you might find that with Lady's history of ED they require veterinary authorisation (mine wouldn't swim Penny without a referral so we just go to the river now).
Re: Improving general fitness and stamina I'm not sure you need to do more than you already are doing. It's not far into the season- as the weeks go by she'll just get naturally fitter and her stamina will improve, I would think.
Re: Improving general fitness and stamina Hi Lauren - I actually got her swimming in the river yesterday evening. A tennis ball incident. ;D I've just emailed Fitzpatrick Referrals and asked if there is anything Lady should be avoiding. I think it's just avoiding jumping from height, but best to check. Hi Karen - Yes I think she will harden up naturally over the next couple of weeks or so. I think the general consensus now though is it was very warm on Saturday and lots of dogs found themselves in trouble as a result.
