Fitness training can benefit dogs of all ages — but it should be adapted to meet the specific needs of the dog in front of us based on their health and their age. In this episode Kelly and I talk about how to adapt fitness training for puppies and seniors.

 Transcription

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau, and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast, brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today, I'll be talking to Kelly Daniel about fitness for puppies and seniors. Hi, Kelly. Welcome back to the podcast.

Kelly Daniel: Absolutely. To start us out, do you want to just take a moment and kind of remind everybody a little bit about you?

So my name's Kelly and I'm very lucky because I live in the very beautiful New Zealand, which is a pretty cool place to be, especially with the dogs. I've got at the moment a border collie and some spaniels and a little terrier cross. My main sports that I do with my dogs are nosework and agility, but I kind of do absolutely anything that I can have a go at. And my main areas that I really enjoy teaching and helping people with is canine fitness training and more recently, rehabilitation.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. So, as I mentioned, we want to talk about puppies and seniors today. So how do you define fitness when we're talking about a puppy or a senior? And how is it maybe different from how we define it for your typical adult sports dog?

Kelly Daniel: So I think we can sort of define and assess fitness in the same way, but we have different expectations for the different age brackets.

So obviously fitness is about the different physical characteristics of a dog's body. So it's how is their cardiovascular fitness, so how fast and how much can they run and sort of breathe in and out and maintain that? How much muscle strength do they have? Do they have balance and awareness of their body and can they move their body as they should? So they're kind of like the main categories I'm gonna look at for a dog's fitness.

But our expectations of where a puppy should be with those aspects of fitness is very different to an adult sound, fit and healthy dog. And again, we do have different expectations for a dog when it moves into that elderly geriatric phase of its life. It doesn't mean that a puppy or an adult dog or a geriatric dog can't have great levels of fitness, but we do have differences in what we sort of would expect and would class as being sort of acceptable for that age range.

So what additional considerations does that mean we need to keep in mind when we're working with dogs, you know, at either end of that lifespan. So with puppies, the main consideration is keeping it safe and appropriate because they do lack muscle strength. They have a huge amount of mobility. Their bodies are bendy and wiggly, they move a ton, and they don't yet have a full sort of adult range in terms of proprioception or awareness of their body.

That does put their soft tissues and their bones at risk of injury. So the main consideration with puppies is keeping it safe and appropriate and helping them develop those skills that will protect their body in a safe way. Other end of the spectrum, it's about maintaining those levels of fitness. So older dogs lose muscle mass, and that's gonna impact all of the other aspects of fitness. So we wanna try and maintain the aspects of fitness that they've held through the adult life to give them a functional life for as long as possible.

Melissa Breau: So what are, you know, kinda focusing on puppies for just a sec? What are some early indicators that a puppy's movement patterns could really benefit from doing some intentional conditioning?

Kelly Daniel: Well, I think any puppy can, but obviously that there is gonna be, yeah, a range in sort of how they move their bodies. But for me, you know, the old thing of like, oh, it's just a puppy sit, I don't think a sloppy puppy sit should be a thing.

If your dog's not physically capable of sitting, then we don't teach it to sit, or we teach it to sit in a way that engages muscles correctly. A sloppy puppy sit is like, literally like, putting all of those joints out of balance and the musculature out of balance. So how the dog holds positions is an indicator for me of that body awareness, and it does relate into the movement.

And then, like, we know that puppies are uncoordinated and lack proprioception. But I want to really encourage those movement patterns to be smooth and aware of their bodies as early as possible. Again, because that's gonna help develop musculature in the correct way and sort of engage towards correct movement patterns and help prevent injury. So. So the main things I'm looking for for puppies is, like, terrible positions and uncoordinated movement and falling over, which I know is part of puppies, but we kind of want to avoid that.

Melissa Breau: Fair enough. How do you sort of dive into that just a little more? How do you help handlers kind of differentiate between, like you said, that kind of that normal puppy sprawl. Right. And movement habits that are really going to cause a problem or cause an issue later on?

Kelly Daniel: I guess we would expect puppies to improve in those things if we're doing the right stuff and the deliberate things. But also generally, puppies should improve in those things. So if positions and if those movement patterns aren't improving as they age and as you're adding appropriate, deliberate activities to help those, then that would be an indicator of perhaps, like, getting something checked out in your puppy. So we would expect improvement.

Melissa Breau: What kinds of movement or awareness exercises are kind of safe and beneficial for puppies, knowing that their bones and their joints are still developing?

Kelly Daniel: Yeah. So I really like to shape movement patterns with my puppies. It's a skill that you can really manage their movement, and you can manage the setup to ensure that it's safe and appropriate. And it's kind of teaching them to control their body on their own. So proprioception pathways and simple movement patterns around cones are really, really excellent for puppies. And, yeah, you can really control it and keep it safe and appropriate.

Melissa Breau: I love that. I like the idea of something simple, too. Yeah. And it's. And it's such a fun thing to set up, and it's really adaptable to the space that you have. So really, anyone can make it work. You don't need a huge space. You don't need heaps of equipment. You can put couch cushions down. It doesn't have to be fancy. It's one of my favorite exercises for all dogs, but especially for puppies.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. So switching gears and going from puppies to the other end of the spectrum, you know, what changes in mobility or flexibility should handlers kind of expect with old age for a dog that's, you know, getting up there, and what signs, you know, what are the signs instead that a dog would really benefit from more intentional conditioning?

Kelly Daniel: So there are a number of changes that are considered normal with aging. So sarcopenia is one of them, which is a reduction in muscle mass. So a dog's metabolism does change as they get older. And it's really common for, especially for sports handlers to note, my dog has less muscle in their rear end, and I'm seeing these changes in their strength that relates to that. So typically, we see around the hips and around the butt, a little bit less muscle, and that will kind of move up through the spine.

So muscle mass through the rear end and then through the core. And then this often relates to the functional activities. So sitting and getting up from sitting, going up stairs, or going up inclines is often the first things that people note. But it is also really common for older dogs to get a reduction in mobility, so they're losing muscle mass, and often they have a bit of arthritic changes in joints as well.

And when those two things combine, the Arthritis means the joints might not move as much as, or be as comfortable moving. And when they also add to that a reduction in muscle mass, it means they've lost that functional strength to move the joints through range of motion. So they start to get a little bit stiff, stiff and not move as well as they, as they used to because they don't have that full range of motion anymore.

Kelly Daniel: What age are we kind of talking about here when we're talking about shifting into seniorhood? We didn't mention that earlier. No. So all the courses that I've done, all of my qualifications say a geriatric dog is seven. But I think that it's way too hard. There's way too many factors to say every dog, seven is considered an elderly dog. So my criteria is a little bit different because obviously a seven year old, tiny, tiny dog is not gonna look as old as a seven year old giant breed dog.

So I'm looking at size and I'm looking at their structure and how much muscle do they have. So how big are they? The next thing I'm gonna look at when a dog is getting older is do we see a change in functional activities. That's kind of my big indicator to if I would sort of class a dog as that geriatric. The other indicator we're going to look for is if there's any issues.

So medical issues and orthopedic issues, all of those things together, I would definitely start to class the dog as geriatric. So for example, my little terrier, he's 13 and a half, he only stopped doing agility a couple of months ago and he was still running agility at course times of like 5 meters per second, 5 to 6 meters per second, like he was still going really fast. I have seen absolutely no functional changes in his body.

So he's not got any injuries, he hasn't got any lack of range of motion, he hasn't lost muscle mass yet. So I still wouldn't class him as a geriatric dog. Even though his chronological age is he's old, but he's a tiny dog. He's 4kgs, he's smaller than most cats. So my border collie, I didn't start to see functional changes in her until she was about 12. She was sort of a smaller border collie.

She didn't have orthopedic issues. She was very fit and healthy. But I started to see a change, change in her activity patterns. She was slower getting up, she slept a lot more. So for me those were the main indicators for her where I sort of started to class her as geriatric. How do you help handlers kind of support an older dog who maybe they've had some stuff going on for a little while and so they're nervous about, you know, some of the movement that maybe we're looking for with fitness due to fact they used to be painful or something.

Still feels a little stiff. Yeah, it's really hard because it is definitely a balance between we want them to stay functional and happy. But the reality is, and the research shows that adding muscle will help that. So appropriate exercise and adding muscle to joints will actually help interrupt the pain cycle at those joints. It's also going to help the joints functionally move as they were designed to move.

So adding appropriate exercise really should help dogs feel better, like really quite quickly. But that the really important thing is making it appropriate for the dog in its situation. And the reality is, is that lots of older dogs are complex and what they have going on. So usually it's gonna be a combination of making sure their day to day activities are appropriate and don't need modification for that dog.

Also making sure that we're giving them appropriate strengthening and mobility exercises to maintain that mobility. And then also looking at, I mean a lot of these are sports dogs, do we need to consider modifying what sports they're doing or how much of it they're doing? So for instance, for agility dog, I might suggest reducing how much agility they do or if you have the option opting down a height class once they reach a certain stage, I might suggest maybe looking at nose work instead of agility. So being open to modifying what your dog does to keep it functional for longer is really important.

Melissa Breau: With older dogs, are there low impact ways to kind of preserve strength or rebuild strength and range of motion that you kind of recommend for most in your dogs?

Kelly Daniel: Yeah, so it's kind of the same as the puppies. So it's going to be strength based exercises on stable equipment that's going to be the most appropriate and safe for both the puppies and the senior dogs.

Because we can control it. Because we can control the environment, we can control how much of it they do. And doing a lot of it on the stable equipment is going to reduce. If a joint doesn't have muscle and is unstable in both the puppies and the senior senior dogs, we don't want them on wobbly gear wobbling around because that's potential for like creating more instability in a joint. So the stable equipment and getting a really good foundation for exercises to build strength is going to be super helpful.

Melissa Breau: So we're talking about all of this because you do have a new class coming up in April. Do you want to talk a little more about maybe the class and who might want to sign up?

Kelly Daniel: Yeah. So I kind of designed it for all of the people that I got questions from for my classes that didn't fit into the regular classes.

So it's kind of a class for all the dogs that don't really meet the criteria for a normal fitness class. So puppies and geriatric or elderly dogs. But I'm also gonna add in a lecture each week on the special category dogs. Cause I have a lot that technically don't meet the criteria for a regular fitness class because they might have a medical condition or a past orthopedic condition.

So there's gonna be a lecture each week on the special cases. So a lecture on dogs with three legs. A lecture on dwarf dogs with long backs and very short legs. I'm gonna do a lecture on like giant sized dogs. So I'm kind of trying to help all of the people that don't fit into the regular categories have a space to make sure what they're doing is safe and appropriate for their dogs.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. I like that a lot. Anybody in particular that you'd recommend might want to sign up. I feel like this is a little bit of an obvious question, but I'll have to answer it anyway. Yeah, anyone that doesn't fit into the. Whose dogs don't fit into the traditional class. It's really made for dogs with special conditions or dogs that can't just do regular, more intense fitness exercises. So puppies, geriatric dogs.

There will be some dogs with certain orthopedic conditions that would be fine to do this class and medical conditions or just breed specific conditions where they do need special considerations. Because it is a class that is hitting all of those, you know, special conditions. My recommendation is making sure that your dogs do have clearance for fitness work from your veterinary professional. I think that would be a really good idea just to make sure that they're happy with it.

But people can always get in touch with me and ask. But yeah, the whole point of the class is modifying things to keep it safe and appropriate for all dogs.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. Any final thoughts or key points you kind of want to leave folks with?

Kelly Daniel: No. I guess the key thing is, and that's the whole point of this class, is just getting some help to make sure that what you're doing is specific to your dog and their needs and keeping it safe and appropriate.

And the cool thing about our Fenzi classes is it's the perfect way to do that. So yeah, just ask if you're not sure because there's really simple things that we can do to modify what your dog is doing and what is appropriate for them to meet their needs.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. I like that a lot. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Kelly.

Kelly Daniel: Thank you for having me.

Melissa Breau: Absolutely. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in itunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast.

Music provided royalty free by BenSound.com the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio Editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

 Credits

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!