Help your puppy become a happy, healthy, strong, and confident adult dog with these exercise tips!
April is Canine Fitness Awareness Month! Starting your puppy on a regular exercise regime will greatly increase their general wellness, happiness, and life expectancy! Consult your veterinarian before trying any of the tips and activities listed in the blog and a professional puppy trainer, like us, for help developing a puppy training and exercise plan!
The Benefits of Exercising Your Puppy
Just like their human parents, puppies and dogs benefit from regular exercise both physically and mentally. Boredom can lead to disruptive behaviors like unwanted barking, chewing, digging, and general puppy antics. And leading a mainly sedentary life is a huge contributor to obesity, diabetes, weak bones and joints, difficulty breathing, and other canine diseases.
What to Keep in Mind Before Starting Your Puppy on an Exercise Plan
Exercise has plenty of benefits but everything should be in moderation! Puppies certainly can have high energy but too much exercise can be damaging to their joints that have not fully fused and later cause diseases such as arthritis and dysplasia of the joints. And overdoing exercise can also build up their stamina, requiring them to need more and more to be satisfied as they grow.
As you begin to plan out your puppy’s daily schedule of activities, consult with your puppy’s veterinarian on what are safe activities and movements your puppy can participate in and do. For example, very young puppies may not be able to do more intense exercises like agility which involves a lot of jumping and could potentially harm their growing joints.
Also, your vet will set up a vaccination schedule for your puppy. Prior to enrolling in group activities, your puppy should be completely up to date with their vaccines. Two of the main vaccines veterinarians recommend that your puppy has before enrolling in daycare or puppy training classes are Bordetella and DHPP.
Easy Exercises for Your Puppy
Start your puppy’s exercise regime with simple moves to help build their coordination, basic obedience command recognition, flexibility, and overall strength! Also, the main thing you want to make sure these exercises include is mental exercise (ie. activities that make them think), which will help your pup tire out faster, while feeling more fulfilled with their physical routines.
One such is “Puppy Pushups!” This simple move involves getting your puppy in a “Sit” and then asking for a “Down”, then asking them to go back into “Sit”. This is a fun routine that helps your pup’s muscles and joints warm up for other activities. It's difficult for most pups to go from a "Down" and pop up into a "Sit", so this a great added challenge for them!
If you are still teaching your puppy the basic obedience verbal commands, this is a great practice routine to try and help create muscle memory. You can use a food lure training method to help your puppy get into the right positions.
For more help with food luring and teaching your puppy “Sit” and “Down”, check out our blogs, “Puppy Training 101: How to Teach Your Puppy Confidence for the Real World!” and “Puppy Training 101: Starting Your Puppy with the Basics!”
Next, help your puppy stretch out with a fun routine doing figure eights! This is something you would see in agility training using cones or weave poles but you can do it right at home. All you need to do is set up two or three objects a couple of feet apart - it can be anything from boxes, chairs, etc! Then, using a food lure, bring a piece of food up to your pup’s nose and have them follow the food while going around the obstacles.
Walking in figure eight is a great low-impact stretch that benefits your pup’s spinal flexibility! In addition, you can help your puppy stretch it out using a stick-target lure! By teaching your puppy to touch the end of a stick and luring them to reach for it, they are naturally stretching their neck, back, and leg muscles. Puppies naturally want to sniff new things, adding a piece of food or a toy to a long stick or rod will motivate them to sniff and investigate.
Another great low-impact activity that works on your puppy’s balance is using tools like a wobble board. (DIY hack: You can attach a tennis ball two a piece of plywood to have your puppy stand on it!) Some dog breeds have a tough time coordinating their back legs, balance exercises really help them think and work on controlling all four legs and paws in unison!
More Exercise Activities for Your Puppy
If you have a very young puppy that still doesn’t know all their commands and doesn’t quite have a handle on their eye-paw coordination, no worries!
Go for a walk with your puppy in your backyard or around the block! Young pups won’t require long walks and can be kept to short intervals throughout the day, think ten to fifteen-minute walking sessions! Don't forget to add in some command training to the walks to keep your pup's mind engaged! This can be as pausing walking to asking for a "Sit" or working on "Down-Stay" as they learn to be calm as they watch what's going on around them. Also, remember that your puppy should be fully vaccinated before going to public spaces such as a park with other dogs! Learn about all our Dos and Don’ts of Exercising Your Puppy in detail in our blog!
Play with your puppy to get them thinking and engaging with you, as well as working on their obedience commands! Tug and fetch are two of puppies' favorite games that work on releasing energy, coordination, and listening skills in a fun way! Learn how to teach these fun games to your puppy and how to properly plan with them in our part one and two blog series!
Puppy training engages your puppy’s mind and gets them motivated to work! If you’re looking for an innovative way to start your puppy’s training journey, check out The Puppy Academy’s Online Puppy School! In our extensive on-demand video library and live training sessions, we offer puppy parents a comprehensive eight-week training game plan! As part of the curriculum, you’ll get access to our Puppy Exercise training course that walks you through exercise routines to try with your puppy right at home! Plus you'll work alongside our trainers every week in our weekly live coaching sessions!
If you are curious about other ways to exercise your puppy to keep them healthy and strong, or just want to learn more about puppy training and raising a well-behaved pup, join our weekly Instagram live “Ask a Puppy Trainer” show. Every Wednesday at 1 pm PT our expert trainers answer questions from puppy parents like you!
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