It’s National Dog Training Month!
During my self proclaimed Exercise Week, I wanted to be sure to address exercising when we’re living with dog mobility problems. Sydney and Rodrigo have arthritis, which makes exercising a difficult task as we balance getting to get them the exercise they need with keeping them from causing further injury. Rodrigo’s arthritis is under control thanks to the supplements he munches on daily. Sydney has started displaying arthritis and until the supplements start working their magic, she’s on minimal exercise (much to her chagrin).
“Joints hurt because they are unstable. Why are they unstable? There is a weakness in the muscles and tendons that cross the joint. So, how do we increase strength in those muscles and tendons? Exercise, pain control, chiropractic, acupuncture, nutraceuticals, massage, therapeutic laser, swimming, weight control, good food – anything that decreases inflammation in the body.” ~ Dr. Cathy Alinovi
Exercise and Dog Mobility Problems
So what’s a fur mom to do? I reached out to the pet professional community to get some tips to soak in and share with you.
Amy Robinson, a professional dog trainer, and has experience with her own dog who had a spinal disease that slowly rendered the rear legs useless. Amy reminded me that we have learn as much about our dog’s injury / condition as possible so that we can understand the limitations it entails. “If it is spinal, for example, avoid bending the back in any way. Stairs can also be a problem.”
Walking and Dog Mobility Problems
“Walking is usually a safe bet, but you may need to maximize the benefits since your dog can’t go as far as he’d probably like, and the same-old trudge down the street isn’t a thrill anymore. Drive him to a nature trail or shopping area with lots of visual treats. For a rest, sit on a bench and watch the world go by. Bring biscuits to keep him engaged with you. This will not cost the dog too much physically, but will tire him out so he dreams of fun times with you at home.” ~ Amy Robinson
Dr. Cathy Alinovi shared that “if your dog hurts to go for a walk, don’t take him or her for a walk. BUT, motion inhibits pain – directly at the level of the spinal cord. It works because as we move our muscles, the muscles send information to the spinal cord and brain via big nerves. These big nerve signals travel quickly so get there first and block the pain signal that comes in on a small, slow neuron. Bottom line – gotta use it.”
This also explains why Sydney does well on a walk and then is limping like a pirate an hour after she comes back home. It’s so easy to allow her to overdo it, because she’s doing so well and having fun, but we can’t always trust our dogs to tell us when they’ve had enough, because (1) they’re having fun and (2) they want to please us. Dr. Alinovi reminded me that “if it’s worse afterwards, then you did too much.” Sad Panda. But we all know that our dogs will forgive us.
So How Much is Too Much?
The trick is to take it slowly. Instead of starting with a 3 mile walk, start with a ½ mile; if that’s too much, then take a shorter walk tomorrow. If it’s great, then you can work up to ¾ mile walk, but do it slowly.
What we’ve done for Sydney is reduce the walks to ½ mile. Then later in the day, we’ll walk around our property. We live on 5 acres and it’s not completely flat. There are plenty of places for her to walk up and walk down (at a gentle incline/decline) as we make the loop. Rodrigo has been great at doing is job of protecting Sydney from Blue who wants to play. Sydney plays at first, but quickly tires out and Rodrigo steps in to take over. He’s so smart.
One of us takes Blue and Rodrigo on a separate walk while the other keeps Sydney at home. She’s not happy with being left behind, but it’s best for her in the long run and it’s not forever.
Exercise the Body and the Brain
Amy shared that it’s important to exercise a dog’s body and the brain during a time of limited mobility. For the brain part, my boyfriend and I play a game where we hide treats beneath a bowl or cup and let the dogs figure out how to get the treat. Blue always wins, but Sydney figures it out once she realizes mommy isn’t going to help.
A brain exercise Amy Robinson uses…
Start with the Classic Intel Test: place three paper cups on the floor and put a treat under one. Shift the order around then tell your dog, “Find it!” Watch for his personal style in unearthing the prize. Does he knock it over? Nose it aside? Or wait for you to help him out?
You can combine trick training with food offers, all while the dog is lying down. Show your dog the treat and then close it into your fist. Ask him to “Touch it!” and move your hand around in front of him until he decides to pin it down with his paw. Success! He’ll catch on fast to this one and enjoy pleasing you.
Adjust Our Dog’s Diet
We’ve adjusted Sydney’s diet, because she’s not burning the calories she was before her arthritis became an issue. The adjustment included decreasing our daily serving of kibble, reducing the number of treats she has (we know break up on treat and feed it to her over the course of the evening), and swapping “cookies” for carrots.
When I look at the serving suggestions on a bag of dog food, I ask myself what dog are those suggestions for? I super active dog, a dog with an average activity level, or a couch potato like our Sydney. I doubt that these suggestions are for the coach potato. Taking into account that we add Nature’s Balance to our dogs’ kibble and give them treats and carrots, it was easy for us to make the choice to reduce everyone’s daily kibble serving.
Another thing we’re considering is switching the dogs to a diet of balanced people food and I have a couple of cookbooks to help. In the meantime, we’re going to switch the dogs to a grain free Halo Pets kibble to decrease the carbs our Sydney is taking in daily.
If you have a dog with mobility issues, what changes have you made in diet and exercise to help your pup?
January 23, 2013 at 7:05 am
Excellent post, Kimberly. You have hit on all the key elements of living with dogs with arthritis. Love the picture!
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Dee & Murphy recently published..Murphy, the man of the house
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January 23, 2013 at 7:08 pm
Thanks, Dee
I knew it was a matter of time before Sydney started displaying arthritis and with her tendency to gain it’s so important for us to make sure she gets exercise. She’s doing a lot better. Thank heavens for supplements.
Twitter: thefurmom
January 23, 2013 at 10:33 am
Great post Kimberly…Lots of good info here and though Gizmo doesn’t have mobility issues I’ll be using Amy’s IQ tests on him now just to keep his brain tuned up
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Gizmo ( recently published..BUTTERFLY BIRTHDAY– Mostly Wordless Wednesday
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January 23, 2013 at 7:21 pm
Groovy! Glad that it’s helpful. Isn’t Amy awesome? She always provides great tips for me
Twitter: thefurmom
January 23, 2013 at 11:50 am
Great article Kimberly and one that I can so relate to these days!
With Sherman we have just started to begin going on walks together. Very short walks and we will see how he responds. I’ve adjusted his food accordingly seeing as he is not getting anywhere near the exercise he use to. We have added in a new joint supplement and will be starting laser therapy soon and maybe some underwater treadmill therapy to help with muscles.
Hope Sydney feels better soon:)
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January 23, 2013 at 7:25 pm
It’s so rough and it sucks. Sydney is doing well on the supplements and her limping is getting less and less and she can walk a little longer. The toughest part was finding a walk that would challenge Blue and Rodrigo and keep Sydney from over doing it. We took them to a field and Blue and Rodrigo run off and Sydney stays close and it works out great. She walks a mile and with all their running, Blue and Rigo get 3 miles. We’re just glad that she’s up to a mile.
Hugs to Sherman
Kimberly
Twitter: thefurmom
January 23, 2013 at 11:58 am
Great post Kimberly. We’ve had several dogs that developed arthritis in their senior years. We found several short walks worked well. We had to cut the running completely though. We get our dogs on supplements like fish oil and cosequin early on – just as preventives.
January 23, 2013 at 7:27 pm
Rodrigo has been on supplements for a year and when we started Sydney on them last week we went ahead and started Blue on them too. He gets 1/2 the dosage. We also put fish oil in their food 1x a week. I’ll have to check out the cosequin.
Thanks for sharing!
Twitter: thefurmom
January 23, 2013 at 12:39 pm
This is so tough to deal with – it’s so hard to see our puppies in pain! My childhood dog had arthritis all through her senior years and it hurt seeing a once very athletic dog all of a sudden struggle to get through a daily walk. I think you have provided some great advice here and I am glad your dogs are doing well despite their slight problems. They are lucky to have someone who looks out for them so well!
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January 23, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Thanks, Kristine!
It is hard; especially when they can’t tell you what’s going on. Since Rigo already had arthritis, I wasn’t really surprised when his sister developed it too (near the same area too). She’s doing well. Luckily she’s a coach potato, so it’s easy to keep her from over doing it. But it sucks
She is doing better, though!
Twitter: thefurmom
January 23, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Awesome post gf and so sorry about your babies
Titan has a reoccurring rear gimp leg, despite him being on Dasuquin (joint supplement). When it flares up, we do limit his walking distance and his play/rough housing. It’s hard to do with him though, he goes on like nothing is wrong. I’m with you with those serving amounts on the bags of kibble. We use a weight management food from Castor and Pollux and his recommended serving is way too much. I amped it up and now we are paying for it as when we weighed in today, he gained, not lost. So back to his original serving. Just seems so little. I hope your babes can find some relief. You know as well as me, it just breaks our heart to see them being not-normal. 
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January 23, 2013 at 7:44 pm
Thanks, Brenda
Sydney is doing better, but we now have one more task with our dogs, paying attention to their walk to see how long of a walk they can handle day by day. Rodrigo hasn’t had any issues in a year since going on supplements so I have hope for Sydney too and we went ahead and got Blue started on supplements (a tiny dosage).
It is heart breaking when they’re hurting.
Twitter: thefurmom
January 24, 2013 at 5:06 am
It’s always something, isn’t it. At least your a good furmom!
Keep us posted!
Twitter: PibblesNMe
January 23, 2013 at 9:18 pm
Gotta keep them moving. The movement strengthens the muscles, lubricates the joints, re-distributes the fluid build up.
Jasmine has arthritis all over but she’s always been an active girl, always on the go. And I believe that’s what keeps her going. Except some additional disaster, her joints are doing well. As long as she keeps on moving, she’ll be able to.
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January 25, 2013 at 7:47 am
That’s what amazes me; that you have to keep them moving. I know that I feel better after I exercise; it’s funny that I didn’t apply this to Sydney. She’s doing so much better, because of the supplements and light exercise.
Twitter: thefurmom
January 25, 2013 at 6:19 am
Great article, Kimberly. My Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Rosie, had a genetic condtion called Degenerative Myelopathy. It robbed her of her rear leg mobility. It was a gradual decline, and finally she was in a wheel cart. She hated the cart and it was a struggle to get her to use it. DM is an inherited, incurable and eventually fatal condition in several breeds. Many DM dog owners go miles beyond what I was capable of, with 4 wheel carts when the front legs go, with urine expressing, and UTIs, and breathing problems. Rosie was very depressed and her sparkly personality was gone. I let her go in June, 2011 while she still had some dignity and I have never regretted the decision to do it when I did. There is an excellent, supportive forum on Yahoo called Wheelcorgis, which helped me tremendously. Also, check out http://www.gingerlead.com for supportive leads for dogs with mobility issues.
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January 25, 2013 at 7:52 am
Good bless you, Deena and hugs to Rosie’s spirit.
Twitter: thefurmom
March 24, 2013 at 7:43 am
we recently rescued a lab/german shepherd with mobility issues. Both hind legs were broken and never treated so his hind legs are different lengths and both are shorter than his front legs. We are trying to teach him to heel but since he must bob his head when he walks how do we control him? using a harness puts
in a sled dog mindset and he just drags us along. any ideas appreciated.
March 24, 2013 at 8:00 am
Hi Nancy
Our dogs naturally learned to heal as they got older. We live in a rural area and walk them on trails so it wasn’t necessary for us to teach them to heal, so I can’t be of much help on that one. But we have strong pullers each one, and the harness that helped us with our dogs is linked below. It’s a no pull harness. We don’t use it anymore, but we did when they were learning and it was a life saver. The leash connects to their chest, instead of to their back area.
http://www.keepthetailwagging.com/nopullharness
Twitter: thefurmom