# Exercise



## bridget246 (Oct 26, 2011)

I hurt my legs again last night doing a little too much with the dog. I waited about a week and half with doing very little in the way of walks so I couldn't wait to get better and push myself again. Apparently I wasn't ready so I'm right back where I started with two pulled hamstrings, ankles are messed up, lower back is slowly getting better and my left ankle isn't so hot either. 

This all happened a few weeks ago. I took a long break from doing any real exercise. I'd still run for about a mile with the dog but nothing real serious. One of my old friends was getting back into the serious training and I decided I wanted to get fit again too. I took it somewhat easy the first week and brought Bridget into the workout. She loved being involved with me. For X-Mas I was giving a fitness game. I couldn't wait to try it but Bridget wanted me to do part my workout with her still. So I worked out with Bridget, then played the game, then Bridget still had a little more energy so we worked out together again. I realize there was a little more in the game I didn't see yet so I did that too... A little later on I was working on getting my flexibility back thinking it would relieve my tension from working too much. Normally I'd have a spotter but I forgot that was required. I jumped up on 2 chairs and brought myself into a split. One of the chairs moved, I couldn't regain my balance so I hit the ground. Messing up my lower back, my pelvis, my hamstrings and ankles. I had quite a few injuries during my life but never so many at the same time. 

Needless to say Bridget isn't happy about the whole situation as I can now barely walk. Doctor says I have about 3 or 4 weeks before getting rechecked and I was very lucky that it wasn't worse. I've been doing my hardest to try to think of things for Bridget to do. Below is the few things I came up with. 

Laser pen: She loves chasing it all around the house. I'm worried that she might like it too much so I wish I could limit the use of it.

Fetch: She doesn't really like fetch. I always have to give her a praise, or treat for bringing me the ball. Even with the treat she is still not overall excited about retrieving a ball. I don't know why she doesn't like fetch.

Eating raw removed most of her toys from the equation. I don't have a backyard, not that she would play in a backyard if given the chance.... My mom has a fenced in backyard. Bridget explored it for a second and then laid down by the door waiting for me to come play with her. If I sit outside then she will sit beside me and still not touch anything. 

Dog parks are out. That itself would be an entire different thread.


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## MollyWoppy (Mar 19, 2010)

Have you thought of a treadmill? Excellent for dogs if you can't exercise for any reason.
Sorry to hear you've gone and messed yourself up so badly, it sucks not being able to do what you want. Hopefully you'll heal quickly!


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

I feel your pain...I have a rescue who is dog aggressive and has to be exercised only with his sister off leash which is hard to find areas that are "only us" or I have to leash walk every day...They won't play fetch, either one of them but they both also like the laser..I don't see anything wrong with using the laser for exercise while your lame...Good Luck!


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## bridget246 (Oct 26, 2011)

MollyWoppy said:


> Have you thought of a treadmill? Excellent for dogs if you can't exercise for any reason.
> Sorry to hear you've gone and messed yourself up so badly, it sucks not being able to do what you want. Hopefully you'll heal quickly!


Watched a few youtube videos of this. Bridget will be going on my mom's treadmill. This is going to be a very interesting experience. Watched a few youtube videos teaching how to introduce it. 



whiteleo said:


> I feel your pain...I have a rescue who is dog aggressive and has to be exercised only with his sister off leash which is hard to find areas that are "only us" or I have to leash walk every day...They won't play fetch, either one of them but they both also like the laser..I don't see anything wrong with using the laser for exercise while your lame...Good Luck!


I thought too much laser would cause a dog to get obsessed with the laser pen. I didn't want her to always be looking for it. She does seem to understand that the red light guy comes out of the pen.


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## MollyWoppy (Mar 19, 2010)

With the treadmill, take it very, very slowly. Don't rush it, she'll get there in her own time, but the most important thing is to make everything about it a very positive experience, heaps and heaps of treats!


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

If you aren't doing it hr. upon hr. and not ALL the time..It's great mental and physical stimulation and your only using it while your healing, right?


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

since i am structurally and muscularly impaired, when the weather is bad or i'm having one of those days, both of my dogs are on the treadmill.

it is a most worthy investment, especially since winters here have gotten colder and it rains..

intro to a treadmill can be tricky. malia is fine with it, even with her all suffering whiny squeak when it's time....and bubba runs and hides and has to be coaxed..

i didn't care for most of the videos, but it does matter about size of the dog and patience of the owner.

for me, it was treats, walk the treadmill with the dog and then sit in front of the treadmill with treats as the dog walked and then putting both dogs on the treadmill and sitting in front so they would look at me and not walk off......

now it's pretty easy and they walk almost every day. drains their energy and would probably help out with bridget.....and some of her behaviours to get her running or walking fast.


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## Maxy24 (Mar 5, 2011)

Do you have any room for a flirt pole? Nothing gets Tucker moving like his flirt pole.


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## Mondo (Dec 20, 2011)

I'm worried more about you than your dog. Two pulled hamstrings? Ouch. Were you doing plyometrics or something? 

Gentle yoga when you can. Start slow. Which you already know. Sorry. 

Every ime my wife starts working out again I remind her about DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). Start slow -- it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Hope you are feeling better soon.


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## PeanutsMommy (Dec 7, 2008)

spring poles work well too. it is tug of war that you are not apart of.


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## Scarlett_O' (May 19, 2011)

How old is your dog again??

Do you have MENTAL exercises to do with her?? This is one of the best ways to tire out a pup, doing MENTAL exercise also tires them out physically AND teaches them while exercising! :wink:


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## bridget246 (Oct 26, 2011)

magicre said:


> since i am structurally and muscularly impaired, when the weather is bad or i'm having one of those days, both of my dogs are on the treadmill.
> 
> it is a most worthy investment, especially since winters here have gotten colder and it rains..
> 
> ...


We did it. Was pretty easy. Followed what I thought was the best youtube video and copied him for success. Treats only introduced problems so I put them away.



Scarlett_O' said:


> How old is your dog again??
> 
> Do you have MENTAL exercises to do with her?? This is one of the best ways to tire out a pup, doing MENTAL exercise also tires them out physically AND teaches them while exercising! :wink:


I use to have a bunch. Then we switched to raw so I don't have a many. I noticed the treadmill did a lot for her mental. I'm not sure if it is a result of how much I'm working with Bridget but her behavior problems are improving weekly if not daily. I'll post about a problem and then the problem will go away the same day... strange. Having my "ah ha" moment really made training Bridget easier. I just had to learn how to read her body. 

How do I make a sig for dog info. She is 9 months now.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

i think perhaps the treadmill would be a great ancillary exercise for her, over and above what she already gets, as she is so high energy.....


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## bernadettelevis (Feb 2, 2011)

i would alo suggest a lot of mental stimulation.

Hiding treats, letting her work for her food.

I have some games like this for rainy days:


















if you google a bit there are many ways to tire yoiúr dog out indoors without a lot of action


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## bridget246 (Oct 26, 2011)

magicre said:


> i think perhaps the treadmill would be a great ancillary exercise for her, over and above what she already gets, as she is so high energy.....


I don't know what the dots meant there? 



bernadettelevis said:


> i would alo suggest a lot of mental stimulation.
> 
> Hiding treats, letting her work for her food.
> 
> ...


Some of those are extremely expensive. Up in the 40 dollar range. I might buy a few over time. Currently I just have a IQ ball that I put some treats into. Hiding treats around the house isn't a lot of mental work. She just sniffs the floor and walks right to the treat. I even put a treat underneath the couch thinking that might be troublesome. Nope, she sniffed twice and then ran right to it. Next I had her in a stay while I hid the treat in front of her. I had 3 towels in my hand and a shirt on the ground. I pretended to put the treat into one of the towels while I secretly put into the shirt. I scattered the towels around the room then told her to go get the treat. She ran to one towel without sniffing. Picked it up and found no treats. She sniffed... then ran right to the shirt. I've done other experiments but they all end after the first sniff or two sniffs if I'm lucky.


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## swolek (Mar 31, 2011)

She sounds like she's good at using her nose. I would Google "K9 Nosework" and see if there are games and exercises you can play with her . Even if it looks easy for her, repeated trials and games will tire her out.

When you say that some of her toys can't be used because of the raw diet, what do you mean? Are they puzzle toys? Ones meant to dispense kibble can be filled with small treats. Kong-type toys can be stuffed with ground meat and frozen. I even know someone who stuffs chicken legs into Kongs and freezes.

Trick training is a fun way to tire out dogs. I fostered a JRT for a while and rainy days were the worst...no walks, no runs, and no agility (even if I wanted to go out in pouring rain, she didn't, ha). So we'd work on tricks instead...she'd learn a new one and we'd practice old ones. An especially easy AND handy trick is "Touch" or "Target". You can make all sorts of games and complicated tricks based on those. There are a lot of great websites and books about trick training.

Does she like to chase things? We have a ball that runs on batteries and it moves on its own. Drives Bambi nuts, haha. She would chase it all day if we let her but she gets so loud that it's become a "special" toy that she gets for like 5 minutes .


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## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

What about sitting in a chair and using a flirt pole? Thats what my lazy boyfriend does :tongue:


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## KittyKat (Feb 11, 2011)

Treadmills are great. We saw one at woofstock and put piper on it, she loved it right away (she loves running). 

My bf's dog goes on the treadmill a lot as well and enjoys it. 

Wish we had one!


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## MollyWoppy (Mar 19, 2010)

And, hiding treats, well, go hard, no namby panby easy stuff. Mol has a good nose on her too, I hide them in the hardest places I can find. Up high on cabinets. In the corners of the stairs, under couches, under mats, on the cat tree, on the cross bars of chairs, on the coffee table, behind the couch, behind doors, window sills, on chairs. Just tiny treats, as big as my little fingernail. I make her wait in the kitchen where she can't see, hide about 20 treats and go on DFC whilst she zooms all over the house finding them.
It still keeps her mind busy, which is what you want.
I think you've got some pretty fantastic idea's here in this thread. I'm going to add a few of them to Mol's routine!


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## Payton Leeroy (Jan 8, 2012)

I would suggest avoiding using the laser pointer if at all possible. My family and I all thought it was amusing to have my dog chase it every so often, and some days I'd use it even during a walk and just run him past me back and forth the whole walk so he'd be super tired.

And then he started noticing reflections from the glass of screen doors. And then the hanging mirror's reflection outside. He actually spent two full days chasing that one in the spring till he was coated in mud and had destroyed part of the lawn before we took it down. We weren't even out there with him, so it certainly wasn't something he was trying to do for attention.

And then my little brat of a dog learned that those pretty tags he wears make reflections he can try to catch or dig up. I'd take his collar off, and he'd instantly ask to go outside since he knew that meant the collar had to go back on. It got to the point where he'd be in a dark room trying to catch those reflections till he was starting to froth at the mouth. We moved the tags to his leash, but I always worry about him getting lost without them [even though he has a chip] so we finally found something to cover them with so he can't make reflections. He still gets way too excited about reflections from the screen door, though that's the only reflections he gets anymore, and it never lasts long.

I do suggest the flirt pole for exercise though, and they're really easy to make. Some people use a stick, a string, and a toy. I actually got a lunge whip to tie the toy I use to, which is nice because it flexes all the way to the handle, so when he catches it he can tug a lot without putting much stress on me. And as everyone has said, mental stimulation is helpful too, even if it's training a lot of new tricks or teaching them to stop and stay right in the middle of going after a toy. If your dog is much of a player you could always hide toys instead of treats, since they don't have as strong of a smell as the treats do [not that my dog has a good enough sense of smell to even find a treat hidden right next to him...]


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## bridget246 (Oct 26, 2011)

We started some more serious smell training. As things got harder she began to show me that she wasn't a complete expert at it. So I made it easier and we will keep working at getting better. Going to put together a flirt pole tomorrow. 

On the other good news. I can walk for the most part now. Still have to do lots of stretches to try to keep the muscles from locking up. It's a long way off from a complete recovery but a lot better than it use to be.

I had thought I could walk just fine before and I aggravated the injury twice trying to do too much to fast.


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## bridget246 (Oct 26, 2011)

I can't use the flirt pole  yet. Not well enough. I built though. I've been told that GSD's don't like the Spring Pole so I may not even bother to build that. 

On other news all I have now is a pulled groin to get out of it. Just recently tore it again. This time my doctor wrote me a letter for physical therapy because walking and stretching appeared to be putting too much stress on it. The good news is a pulled groin is my only problem. Everything else is looking much better. I hate waiting around.


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