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For those new to canine fitness or just wanting to review the basics, this article covers Foundation Fitness Exercises for Dogs, including cardio, body awareness, strength, balance and flexibility tutorials.
There's a lot of fancy footwork out there when it comes to canine fitness. It can be overwhelming. Where do you start?
We'll cover tips and tutorials for beginners to start cardio, body awareness, strength and flexibility exercises for dogs.
This exercise guide is made for the beginner handler, beginner dog, or experienced handlers who just want to go back and review the basics.
Foundation Cardio Exercises for Dogs
Cardio for warming up: This is important to improve your dog's circulation, deliver nutrients and oxygen to their muscles and get their brain focused on you and the task at hand. Do this before your fitness sessions or intense activity, like agility, flyball, disc, or dock diving.
For warming up, a short walk to trot for 5 minutes should suffice. Sniffy walks where your dog stops to sniff every few seconds do NOT count. Your dog's heart rate does not increase inf they constantly stop to smell the roses. Sniffy walks have other benefits, but cardio is not one of them.
For more info about warming up your dog, please see our post about the Best Warmup Exercises for Active Dogs.
Aerobic Cardio for endurance training: This is the meat and potatoes when we think cardio training, the stuff sled dogs, bikejorers and canicross runners are made of. This is our DISTANCE work. You'll want to break this up into steps for your dog.
Start with a sustained trot for 20 minutes on the flat 2-3 times a week for 2 weeks.
Add 10 min to your run every 1-2 weeks until your dog can trot for an hour.
*This is a suggestion. It's best practice to work with a fitness trainer for a custom plan specific to you and your dog.
If you run or walk on hills, it adds strength training to your cardio and should be modified by a canine fitness pro.
Some really important safety tips:
If YOU are running with your dog, make sure you are healthy enough to run with your dog. Monitor your own heart, joints, and your physical and mental limitations.
Watch for signs of fatigue in your dog.
Use common sense when it comes to your environment. Ideal running conditions are between 40-80 F. Temps below and above this range can cause frostbite on ears and paw pads or heat related illnesses.
Brachycephalic breeds: for pugs, Boston terriers or other cute dogs with smushed noses, it's better to do shorter runs for less time. Instead of one 20 min session, start with two 10 min sessions.
Quick tips for treadmills and slatmills:
Treadmills: these are electric powered. There's usually a program you can set to control speed, incline, decline or other factors. Follow your manufacturer's instructions. Dogs usually have a trot gait on a treadmill. Treadmills are usually for aerobic cardio training.
Slatmills: these are dog powered and the "belt" is made of wood slats. The dog chooses how fast to go. Dogs usually have a gallop gait on a slatmill and they're designed more for sprinting and anaerobic cardio.
Never use a human treadmill for your dog. The deck length and safety protocols on human treadmills are not appropriate for your dog.
Never set up a treadmill facing a wall. Your dog will believe they will run into the wall and shorten their stride. This repetitive short stride can cause multiple muscular and skeletal problems.
Always acclimate your dog to the treadmill before expecting your dog to use it.
The deck length should be 1.5x - 2x your dog's stride length.
Anaerobic cardio for sprinting: This is your agility, disc, and fastcat dogs. This is a big burst of speed in a short time. Some ways to condition your dog's anaerobic cardio:
Mat to mat sprints
Fetching a DEAD toy (one that is not moving)
Uphill sprints
Slatmills
Interval training is when you alternate walking and running.
Other exercises with cardio as a secondary component:
(click to see the video tutorial)
Leg or cone weaves (when done at speed)
This was a short list to give you some ideas of where to start your cardio fitness training. Leave a comment below and let me know what cardio you do with your dog.
Foundation Body Awareness Exercises for Dogs
This is the part where we teach our dogs that they do in fact have front and rear paws.
Body awareness exercises are mentally exhausting for your dog. We are asking for a lot of focus and thinking with these types of exercises.
We mostly use foot targeting exercises for this skill.
Before we expect our dogs to use their fitness equipment, the first thing we have to do is introduce them to the equipment. You'll want to do this separate from the actual targeting exercise, and any time you use equipment that is new to your dog. To do this, you'll:
Sit in the room with your dog and lots of small high value treats
Mark and reward when your dog looks at the new thing (do not cue the dog to look at it. shaping is better here) Place your reward on the equipment if possible.
Mark and reward when your dog touches the new thing with their nose or paw.
Now we want to ask for more duration by marking and rewarding when your dog keeps their paw or nose on the equipment for 2-5 seconds.
Now we want to ask for more paws to interact with the equipment.
Depending on the dog and the equipment, this may take more than one session. This is a great way to improve confidence in your dog.
Please watch the example videos below of how I introduced my hound to the target stick and the puppy to paw pods.
Once the dog is familiar with the equipment, it's much easier for them to put their paws on it. Any time you get a new foot target or platform, take a few minutes and introduce your dog to it before doing any exercises. It's a really important small first step.
We always start with the front foot, then as for the rear foot. This is easier for the dog. They generally have more front end awareness than rear end awareness.
To teach a front foot, you can either lure or shape the dog onto the target.
Then we train the rear foot by asking the dog to walk up to the target and stop with their rear paws in it.
Foundation Strength Training Exercises for Dogs
This is my favorite part of canine fitness training. There's so many options. You can see your dog's muscle tone improve and see them run faster. You may not realize it, but your dog is less likely to get injured and has stronger bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles too. This will save you money on vet bills, rehab or surgery. Who doesn't want that??
Posture
The fancy flashy exercises start with foundations. We start with proper posture. Canine fitness is ineffective and potentially harmful if done wrong. We're going to get you and your dog started on the right foot.
Posture and position changes are great for the dog's core. The core isn't just the abs, it's also the spine, rib (trunk), hip and shoulder muscles too!
No matter what exercise you're doing, your dog should be balanced, with their front and rear legs in correct alignment, weight distributed evenly, and their back should be flat.
Remember our foot targeting from a few seconds ago? We get a nice square posture stand when we combine the front and rear foot target.
Remember your mother always telling you to sit up straight? Well, our dogs should do that too.
And there's a proper way for them to lay down for fitness exercises too.
Position Changes
Now that our dog's the proper forms, we can start combining things!
Such as sits to stands!
And stands to downs!
Abductor and Adductor Muscles
So far, we've just been going up and down and forward and backward. Your dog also moves sideways too. Muscles that move the dog's legs away from them are called abductors (think "aliens take you away when they abduct you". It's so silly you'll never forget it. You're welcome). Muscles that move the legs toward them are called adductors. We want to show them some love too.
How do we do that? My favorite exercises for that word these muscle groups are pivot pod, sidesteps and an ipsilateral (same side) foot target.
Advanced Strength Training Exercises for Dogs
Yes. I know this is Foundation post. I want you to have an example of what it looks like when we put together a bunch of foundation exercises.
Once you have foundations down, you can start adding some flash. Flashy exercises build on the foundations by adding height, instability, and/or multiple movement patterns and multiples skills. They usually require more strength.
Don't try this unless your dog is ready.
Watch this advanced exercise and see if you can tell how many different skills the dog is using:
Leave us a comment with how many skills you saw:
Stillness
Follow a lure
Front foot target
Rear foot target
Square sit
Square stand
Chasing a treat
There are many more exercises with more height or more instability equipment.
Adding Elevation
This changes the dog's weight distribution. Elevating the front puts more weight on the rear.
Watch how much more challenging it is for Echo's hips when we add more elevation.
Elevating the rear puts more weight on the shoulders, neck and trunk muscles.
Strength training is not a race. Work at your dog's pace and advance when you're ready to advance. Don't rush canine fitness.
Foundation Flexibility Exercises for Dogs
What do we do after a workout? We stretch!
Our dogs need to stretch after strength training too!!
Cookie stretches, hip flexor and nose to shoulder, hip, loin and toe are my favorites.
Cookie stretches are luring your dog's head side to side and up and down while they're standing square. It's great for their neck and shoulders.
The nose to shoulder, loin, hip is a great stretch for your dog's rib (trunk), shoulders and neck muscles. Some people call this a standing sidebend stretch or a crescent moon stretch.
Bonus stretches: Spins! This is a great full body stretch. Make sure you do the same number of spins in both directions. It's normal for your dog to be better in one direction than the other.
Cool Down for Dogs
Do short 5-minute loose leash walk so your dog's breathing and heart rate can return to normal. Going outside and letting them sniff can also help decompress their brain. They worked really hard, let them be a dog!
Cooling down also helps their muscles get rid of metabolic waste, like lactic acid, after their workout. Lactic acid is the stuff that makes muscles sore after leg day. This prevents them from being sore over the next few days.
Rest days are important. When I design a fitness plan, I make sure to take off at least one day a week.
What do we do now?
Well, you know how to warm up your dog, how to do a front foot target, a tuck sit, a spin, and a cool down walk. Go play with your dog!
If you want more detailed tutorials, you can always sign up for a fitness plan!
Most exercises in this post are included in the Free Intro to Canie Fitness Plan or the AKC Fit Dog level 1 class. Those are great places for new handers to start.
Comment how many foundation skills you saw in the wheelbarrow tutorial or what cardio training you already do with your dog!
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