Easy Exercises for Canine Conditioning
Just like us, dogs can benefit from a stretching and strengthening program. It can build and maintain muscle mass, improve body awareness and balance, and provide a physical and mental workout. Canine athletes definitely gain an advantage from this type of conditioning, but senior dogs also need to stay limber. Couch potatoes and bored dogs can reap rewards too, because the activity is mentally stimulating. And some of these exercises can...
Love, Actually: How a Tiny Peptide Drives Passion for Dogs
Oxytocin. Most of us think of it as the hormone that helps bitches whelp and produce milk. And yes, it’s that, but so much more. A series of recent studies have revealed how oxytocin has a major effect on the brains of both people and dogs to strengthen the human-canine bond – that indescribable interspecies attachment that might just explain why you’re reading this. Oxytocin is a peptide hormone that...
Canine Physical Therapy
There are many types of non-traditional therapies that benefit dogs! Canine sports medicine and rehabilitation is a relatively new specialty in veterinary medicine. Physical therapy (also called physiotherapy) has long been used for humans to help preserve, enhance or restore physical function impaired by disease, surgery or aging. What many people don’t realize is that physical therapy and rehabilitation can also enhance and restore function for our dogs. The dogs...
Muscle Actions of Canine Locomotion
Dogs have a great capacity for assisting their human counterparts in their daily lives and are very excited and willing to perform these tasks. This assistance can be in many forms, which include, but are not limited to, physical assistance dogs, guide dogs, detection dogs, military and police dogs, search and rescue dogs and hunting dogs. In the human world, there has been a great deal of research in developing programs...
Gluteal Exercises for the Dog
A note from Laurie Edge-Hughes: The inspiration for this blog came from an article that I read regarding exercises for the gluteal muscles in people. Essentially, the article talked about training the glutes in 3 different positions and how this was key for full retraining of gluteal function. That got my head spinning to think about whether we could do this in dogs. The video blog (vlog) below contains my...
CBD for Dogs and Cats—What’s New?
Cannabidiol (CBD), a nonpsychoactive molecule derived from cannabis, is increasingly being touted as an effective treatment in humans for conditions ranging from chronic pain to anxiety to insomnia. As a result, public interest in the use of CBD on pets has also grown, industry analysts report. But whereas research on the effects of CBD in humans has been ongoing for many years, similar research on dogs, cats, and other species...
Tricks Keep Your Dog Healthy
Teach your dog tricks to keep them healthy While we tend to think of training our dogs to mean walking nicely on a leash and not jumping when greeting people, training tricks can actually keep your dog healthy and active for a long time. Regular exercise, including daily walks, is a vital component of our dogs’ overall health. It helps them to stay at (or reach) a healthy weight, reducing...
Recognizing Soft Tissue Injuries in the Dog from an Integrative Perspective – part 2
Applying rehab and physiotherapy techniques to a dog with a soft tissue injury should be preceded by a proper consideration of how the injury developed and progressed, and how it affects the health and function of the entire body. The care of the canine athlete in performance and working disciplines is finally getting much-needed attention and awareness. With the recent growth of agility, flyball, obedience, herding, sled racing and nose-work as competitive...