Think about this for a moment: Would you go to the gym and immediately jump into lifting weights or a full-on high intensity workout? The answer should be NO! Unless you want to injure yourself. Well the same is true for our dogs. A cold, sedentary muscle is likely to get injured. Current research shows that stretching a cold / inactive muscle can also lead to injury. The key is to “warm up” before adding stress.
Now, does this include just taking your dog for a walk? Of course not, in fact the walk is part of the warm up routine I use. I’ll get to that in a moment. But think about activities like: Agility, Dock Diving, Sport Protection Work, FastCat, Barn Hunt and any other activity that we engage our dogs in. All of these activities require our dogs muscles to fire intensely. And what happens to a dog whose muscles aren’t ready? You got it – INJURY.
I remember years ago Goofy pulled his psoas just before a trial, he could barely stand on his rear legs. We tried and tried, but it wouldn’t happen. I thought it was just a minor stiffness from sitting in the crate all day, but it was more. It took weeks to get him back up to speed. Ironically the same happened to me many years later and I can tell you that pain was intense!
As a person who has been an athlete my entire life, I know the importance of preparing before doing. When I taught martial arts, we always warmed up and stretched. The warm up was most important. So how do we apply that to our dogs?
First off, start with easy movement. The primary movement to warm up is going to be walking. Walk before running. Your dog will want to run straight out of the car when you get to training or the park. Don’t Let Them! Go easy. Build a routine. The very first thing I do with my dog is “go potty.” That will have them focus on walking to find a place, before they start running. It starts on a leash and under control. NOTHING happens until my dog goes potty. After that we begin. There are a series of exercises that I have built into a small routine.
- A casual walk for 5 or so minutes
- Walk Backwards
- Walk Sideways
- Spin
- Positions / SIT / DOWN / STAND
- Yoga Pose
- Neck Stretches and more
I made a short video that you can watch for free. If you find it valuable, you may consider joining my Online Dog Training to see the full version of this and hundreds more full length videos.
