Get Pumped - Exercising Your Dog

Make no mistake about it: the working dog is a canine athlete. They may have
ordinary names like Nikki and Arno, but these dogs are the canine equivalent
of a Donovan Bailey or Joe Nameth. And make no mistake about this either:
conditioning work, more mundanely called "exercise", is as vital to their
performance as it is to that of their human counterparts.


Just like the human athlete, the exercise program of the canine athlete
requires a coach who possesses: 1. common sense, 2. knowledge about exercise
physiology, and 3. the ability to motivate his trainee to realize his
athletic potential.


Common sense is going to prevent a lot of stupid, unnecessary injuries. In
this category you can include these rules:


1 the dog must be healthy to start with, and at least one year old (and 2
years old for hard conditioning). By way of analogy: your doctor tells you
to get a check up before starting an exercise program, just to make sure
that your well intentioned exercise doesn't accidentally kill you because of
some lurking health defect. Well, your dog (especially one who is older, has
been very inactive or is recovering from obesity or illness) needs the same
caution. As well, just as you wouldn't allow your 10 year old son to pump
iron with the same vigour that a 17 year old can get away with, neither do
you want to risk stress fractures on the bones of a growing pup;


2 the dog's nails must be short;


3 start slowly, 5-7 sessions before you start to escalate the difficulty of
the sessions;


4 when running your dog, be sure that your dog is on grass or dirt, not
cement;


5 when running your dog, never have him gallop DOWN hill. If you are going
down hill the dog must be at a trot;


6 be careful the dog does not become over heated;


7 when running your dog, be sure that all movement is straight forward, not
twisting or side to side. Twisting movements greatly increase the risk of
injury and add little benefit in return;


8 do not feed the dog for a good 3 hours before exercising. As well, you
should wait at least an hour after an exercise session to feed or heavily
water your dog. Controlling food and water intake in this way reduces the
risk of bloat;


9 as much as possible, reduce the amount of impact exercise (like running)
that the dog does. And when your dog is doing impact exercises, follow the
above rules (like running on grass or dirt) so that at least you minimize
the amount of impact, compared to the same exercise done incorrectly.
However, for those who have access to swimming facilities, I recommend
swimming. It is a great conditioning exercise with virtually no stress on
the bones and joints.


Okay, we've covered the common sense; now the coach needs to think about the
physiology of his athlete in training. A canine athlete, like a human
athlete, can be conditioned for endurance or strength. Endurance is achieved
by aerobic exercise and is exemplified by the marathon runner whose heart
and lungs allow him to run for hours on end. It is, to some extent,
conditioning of the heart and lungs. Strength, on the other hand, is
conditioning of the skeletal muscles and is achieved by anaerobic exercise.
It is exemplified by the weight lifter, who hoists a quarter ton over his
head. The coach must realize that to some extent, aerobic and anaerobic
fitness are mutually incompatible. A world champion weight lifter will never
also be a world champion distance runner, and vice versa. You, as the coach,
have to decide where you want to draw the balance: how much strength does
your trainee need to do his work? how much endurance? If you are competing
in a sport like Schutzhund, where your dog is going to be allowed long rests
between the different phases of the competition, you can probably give up a
bit of endurance and beef up the dog's strength for harder hitting bite
work. A Ringer, on the other hand, won't be allowed to take long rest
breaks: the dog in this sport is probably going to need to sacrifice a bit
on strength and build greater endurance to get through that marathon event.


Let's look at how to increase strength and also how to increase endurance.
To do either of these things we have to understand the structure of the
muscles we are going to be attacking. Dogs' muscle (like ours, or like the
"dark meat / white meat" in chicken) is made up of fast-twitch and
slow-twitch fibres. The critical information for you, the coach, is this:
one type of training is best suited for and enhances fast-twitch fibres; an
altogether different type of training is best suited for and enhances
slow-twitch fibres.


On long runs at a trot and long swims, a dog can go for hours (like a
marathon runner). Here he is working aerobically - ie: the muscle is
"consuming" oxygen as he runs along. Obviously this builds the dog's
endurance (muscle endurance and cardiovascular conditioning of the heart and
lungs). The reason these sessions can be long in the first place is because
the exercise is not very intense on the muscles (the exercise is more on the
heart and lungs than the muscle). That is why dogs can do this everyday
without doing harm to themselves (as long as they aren't on cement). These
long sessions will "firm up" a dog's muscle, but do not build muscle nor
make the dog stronger. Like a marathon runner, the dog will be in great
shape (lean, tight and healthy) but not very muscular.


To build strength and muscle size the other fibres must be stimulated by
intense muscular exercise. This is done when the dog gallops or sprints, or
in some other way exerts all out force. These fibres work anaerobically
(without oxygen) and build the dog's strength. But because the exercise is
intense - because it is an all out effort - these fibres can only be
exercised for short periods of time, not for hours and hours like the
others. Also, it is critical to note that it takes about 48 hours for the
muscles to recover from an anaerobic workout (eg: hard galloping). Doing
this kind of workout every day breaks the dog down instead of building him
up. As well, because the hard gallop / sprint is very stressful on the
muscle, it is important to warm the muscle up before starting the session.
Failing to do a "warm up" creates the risk of muscle injury. Lastly,
anaerobic work always creates a chemical byproduct called lactic acid.
Lactic acid causes muscle stiffness and soreness. But there is a way to help
get rid of the lactic acid. Instead of finishing a hard gallop and then
lying down, lactic acid will be better removed from the body if the dog does
a little bit of aerobic exercise after the anaerobic exercise is over. In
other words: finish the sprints and then do a little "warm down" trotting.


From the above you should see that a dog can work "hard" or he can work
"long", but he cannot work both hard and long at the same time. From this
you should also see a couple other things. One is that the dog that needs or
can best benefit from added strength should focus a bit more on the
anaerobic program. The dog who needs greater endurance, however, will be
better served if his coach has him do a bit less of this exercise and more
of the aerobic. Another thing to take from all this is that these two
workouts - the aerobic and the anaerobic - must be divided and done at
separate times.


So, coach: now that you understand what you can expect from different types
of exercise, what kind of program are you going to put YOUR trainee on?
(Yeah yeah, I know that's a dangling participle! What do you want: good
information or good grammar?)


I suggest to you that swimming is probably the best choice of exercise for
developing aerobic fitness, because of its no-stress nature (I mean stress
on the bones and joints, not mental stress). A full swimming program (after
the first 5-7 sessions) involves 25-30 minutes or more (depending on the
dog's ability) of almost continual swimming.


Anaerobic or muscular exercise, on the other hand, is better achieved by
hard running. For this try interval training. Ride a bike with the dog
beside you. The first few sessions are just an easy jog for the dog, of
about 1 mile / 1.5 km. When the dog can jog along at a fast trot (NOT a
gallop) for 2 miles / 3 km and not be exhausted we start something new. Now
go out with the dog and do the fast trot for about 1 km to "warm up"; as you
complete this warm up start to go faster so the dog starts to run / gallop
very hard beside you for about 150-200 meters; then slow down to a trot
again and go on for another .5 km; do one more sprint / gallop of about 150
meters and finish off the run at a fast trot. As the dog's conditioning
improves, increase the number of sprints to a maximum of 4, each of them
separated by a 300-500 meter cool down trot. One of these "interval
sessions" should take about 15-20 minutes and should be done 3 times a week,
not more. Also, they should not be done 2 days in a row. Expect you dog to
be exhausted at the end of one of these sessions. Also expect him to add a
few pounds of solid muscle to his frame from this!

I have found success with this timetable:


Monday, Wednesday & Friday: aerobic work (a long swim)


Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday: anaerobic work (the interval sprints, bite
work)


Sunday: a day to rest.