New Year, "New Dog"

​Happy 2023! The New Year is always a great time to start new things, so why not include your dog! Below are a few exercises you can start incorporating into your routine with them. These easy exercises help keep your dog limber and moving. 

Happy 2023! The New Year is always a great time to start new things, so why not include your dog! Below are a few exercises you can start incorporating into your routine with them. These easy exercises help keep your dog limber and moving. They also help with stability, hip strength and overall body awareness.


     Sit to Stand: This a great exercise for maintaining strength in the back legs for our healthy dogs.  Make sure your dog sits nice and straight each time. In general they only need a few repetitions in a row to benefit from this exercise.

     Backward Walking: Walking backward is a great exercises to help your dog with body awareness, particularly of the back legs. Awareness of their back legs can help decrease injuries as they tend to have better placement. This is also a great exercise to strengthen the back legs!

     Side Stepping: This exercise is a little more challenging than it looks. Side stepping is a great exercises to keep your dogs muscles on the outsides of their front and back legs. These muscles are importance for stabilization. This exercise challenges the dogs to move in a direction they do not commonly move it. Start by standing to the side of the dog and get their attention with a treat in front of their nose. Gently start to move toward your dog pressing your leg against their body gently, prompting them to take a step sideways.

     Figure 8: Walking your dog in figure eight pattern causes them to have to shift their weight from side to side. Practicing this can help improve balance and your dog improve leg awareness. You can first try this when you are walking your dog on leash outside. Starting with larger figure eights is easier. As your dog gets the hang of it make your eight smaller and smaller.

​     Cookie Stretch: The Cookie Stretch involves using a treat to lure your dog into a stretch for their spine. This can be done with the dog in seated or standing. First, get your dogs attention with a treat or toy and slowly move the treat towards their side. As they turn their head to reach for the treat they are stretching muscles and joints surrounding the spine. This should not be painful, never force your dog to follow the treat, reluctance could be a sign of pain.

Keep an eye out for part 2 of stretches you can do with your pup!



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