What if I told you that many of the canine athletes I assess at my rehab clinic started showing minor, subtle signs of their injury MONTHS before ever booking an appointment with me?
Could you recognize these signs with 100% confidence? I wrote this blog to help owners, trainers, and health professionals identify the subtle signs of pain in agility dogs so that injuries, compensation patterns, side preferences, and weaknesses can be identified earlier. With over 15 years of practice as a physiotherapist, one cornerstone of my approach is educating and proactively managing human and dog health care. When injured dogs come into my clinic, and I review the history with the owners, there are generally many signs that start to show up weeks and even months before the owner notices that something is “off” with their dog and an injury is brewing. Let’s dive into the WHY.
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Welcome to the second and last part of our weight management blog. Did you miss part 1? You can read it here.
To summarise, in part 1, we discussed that maintaining a healthy weight is essential for the sporting and pet dog. An overweight dog is at an increased risk of injury with additional stress on their joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments. As promised, today we will provide you with some tried and tested tips on how to help your dog lose weight healthily and sustainably. What do you think when you see this meme? It's ok if your immediate reaction is to chuckle, but the reality is that the rise in pet obesity is staggering and alarming; it is estimated that over 45 percent of dogs in Canada are overweight.
What do I mean when I ask if your dog is wearing a tank top or a parka? Think about it for a second, when you wear a tank top on a warm summer day, you look and feel lighter. But on the other hand, wearing a warm, thick parka in the winter makes you look and feel heavier due to that extra thick layer. So, in the context of our dogs, are they at an ideal weight (tank top)? Or are they carrying extra pounds (parka)? This blog is part one of a two-part series with facts and research about obesity in pets and, more importantly, what we can do to prevent and treat it. Whether your dog is a sport dog, an active dog, or a couch potato, extra weight is not suitable for them. Attending various agility events and seeing overweight dogs competing in a physically demanding sport is hard for me, so I wanted to write this blog series. Discussing weight management can be a touchy subject, but it's time that we normalize this conversation and not let it slip through the cracks. |
AuthorCarolyn McIntyre Archives
August 2024
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