Top 8 Benefits of Canine Conditioning for Sport Dogs

Updated: Sep 13

In the world of sport dog ownership, training, and competing, the significance of canine conditioning often remains an underexplored frontier. Just as athletes focus on rigorous training to perform at their best while preventing injuries, our canine companions can benefit immensely from a fitness program.

This step is missing from our sport dog community. We spend tons of time and repititions jumping our dogs or putting them in a focused heel. This repetitive motion without building endurance, strength, body awareness and flexibility can cause injury. Most sport dog instructors just aren't aware of this.

These dogs ARE athletes. We need to start treating them like athletes.

Fitness isn't only for sport dogs. Active pet dogs, rescue dogs and ANY dog can get the benefits of canine conditioning.

A hound in front of blue and orange nosework ribbons. — Daogn with his Elite Nosework and first place ribbons.

What is Canine Conditioning?

A structured comprehensive canine fitness program, including strength training, body awareness, flexibility, balance, endurance and stamina, all contribute to better performance and reduced risk of injury in any activity.

All the exercises are really fun!

Exercise offers valuable mental stimulation for your dog. Stimulating the mind is as vital as physical activity – just a short 10-minute session of mental engagement can be as beneficial as an hour of physical activity.

By engaging in a fitness program, you're not only promoting your dog's physical health but also potentially extending their lifespan, allowing for more quality and quantity of life for your dog.

Keep reading for detailed summaries of the top 8 benefits of canine conditioning

Improves Sport Performance

Imagine your dog effortlessly hitting the contact zone on agility obstacles, executing those stunning turns in heel, and navigating a search area - all with finesse. But it's not just about the flashy moves; it's the scientific precision behind their abilities that truly sets them apart. Training your dog where their paws are, and giving them strength to do this, play a pivotal role in their success.

Our sport events are timed. When our dog crosses the start line, the countdown begins. Power becomes a key equation. Our dogs get more power by having stronger muscles (force), and if we do plyometric exercises with our pups, those muscle fibers can fire faster (speed) thus giving us a fast dog. We want strong, fast dogs for agility, fastCAT, flyball, barnhunt, disc and even scentwork and tracking. This article from the Strength and Conditioning Journal takes a deeper dive into this concept.

Reduces Injury Risk

Strong bones and muscles are less likely to break and tear. Strength training, and overloading your dog correctly, builds strong muscle and bone tissue, and eventually tendons (tissue that connects muscle to bone) and ligaments (tissue that connects bone to bone). Strengthening bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments through strategic conditioning significantly diminishes the likelihood of these debilitating injuries.

Sport dogs are prone to shoulder, iliopsoas (groin), and cranial cruciate ligament (the ACL in humans, have you ever or known someone who tore their ACL? It's not a fun thing. dogs can do that too). These injuries, depending on how severe they are, can put a dog out of commission from 2weeks up to 1 year or more.

Injuries are also expensive, especially if they require surgery and rehab.

Flexibility training helps with injury prevention too. Increasing muscle elasticity is important. The ability of your dog's muscles to return to their correct resting position helps that muscle do its job.

We also want some sort of cardio training here. Cardio conditioning trains your dog's entire circulation system to deliver oxygen and other nutrients to their muscles and remove carbon dioxide and lactic acid. Lactic acid is the metabolic by-product of muscle tissue breakdown. (You know when you're sore the next day after intense exercise? That's lactic acid buildup. Dogs can get that too.) When we cardio condition our dogs, they are less likely to fatigue, less likely to compensate and less likely to get injured.

*Dogs can still get injured. Dogs with a fitness program BEFORE their injury recover faster than a dog without one. Conditioning your dog reduces the risk of injury, not guarantees that your dog will never get injury.

Confidence

Confidence is deeply intertwined with their spacial awareness. They are not fazed by grass, snow, sand, mulch, gravel or other surfaces. This means your puppy is more likely to go outside and go potty when it's 10 degrees outside in the snow, and you want to stay inside.

This applies to our sport dogs too. Their assuredness translates into speed, significantly enhancing their chances of success in competitions. Which means their human gets more ribbons.

By nurturing this confidence through targeted exercises that enhance their spatial awareness and comfort on diverse surfaces, we empower our canine companions to fearlessly navigate any environment, ensuring they perform at their peak in both everyday life and competitive arenas.

Rear End Awareness

Puppies do not come with rear end awareness, that is a skill they need to learn. Focusing on foot targeting, cultivating stillness, chasing a treat, and having the puppy come back to you sets them up for success as an adult dog. Large breed puppies especially need to be aware of their rear feet. This proficiency will help their knees and ankles be more stable as they grow up. Rear foot targeting is especially important for German Shepards, Dobermans, Great Danes and other dogs with pronounced rear end angulation. (When the dog is in a square stand, and its ankles/hocks are vertical, the rear legs are really far back from the dog's tailbone. Angulation is a crazy big topic, not covered here, but that tidbit is important to mention.) These large breeds tend to have more unstable knees and ankles and require more attention to spacial awareness and strength.

All dogs need to know where their paws are in relation to the rest of their body and environment.

Longevity

This is a little geeky, but I'll keep it short.

The little pieces on the ends of chromosomes (telomeres) break off each time your dog's cells divide. When chromosomes get too small, the cell dies. If too many of the dog's cells die, very sad things happen to our canine companions. Engaging your dog in a structured conditioning plan slows down the rate of telomere attrition. By preserving these crucial ends of chromosomes, conditioning extends the life and vitality of your dog on a biological level.

If you want a deeper dive into the biology of telomeres and cell stuff, this article in LiveScience is a great follow up.

Dogs on a fitness program, barring unforeseen illness or trauma, experience a higher quality and quantity of life.

Brain Development

In addition to the physical coordination, teaching a puppy where their paws are helps establish neural pathways and communication between the muscles and the neurons that feed information to the muscles.

Exercising also helps the growing puppy brain develop more connections in their pre-frontal cortex. This is the part of the brain responsible for cognitive function and memory. Your puppy will be smart. This heightened intelligence saves you time later on, because your puppy needs less repetitions to grasp simple concepts like "sit" and more complex behavior chains, such as "heel" and "retrieve."

Conditioning isn't exclusive to young dogs. Providing mental and physical stimulation for your senior dog slows cognitive decline. They will stay smarter, longer. Whether you have an 8 week old puppy or an 8 year old dog, conditioning is important.

Establishing Human-Canine Bonds

Exercising forges an unbreakable bond between human and dog. You aren't just giving your dog a treat when they put a paw on a platform. In these interactions, you're attuning yourself to your dog's movements, investing time with your dog, and establishing trust and companionship,

This aspect of fitness holds remarkable significance for foster and rescue dogs. For these dogs, exercises are a conduit for building trust and companionship in a new environment.

I witnessed this transformation first hand. When we first adopted Echo, we didn't have much of a relationship for a long time. She was "my husband's dog." Her attitude shifted as we engaged more in her canine fitness program. Now she curls up next to me on the couch, and paws at me when I sit on the floor. I do exercises with all our dogs, and I now have ALL the dogs.

You'll be more in tune with your dog's movement and posture as you track your dog's progress and learn what to look for.

A conditioning program isn't merely physical, it's mental and emotional too. It's an ongoing journey that enhances strength, trust, understanding, and the unbreakable bond between you and your canine companion.