# Stretching your dog



## melgrj7 (Sep 21, 2007)

Does anyone here routinely stretch out their working/performance dogs? I took Nash to a specialist recently to see about his toe breaking issue (3-4 broke in the last year). He moves a bit odd so I was wondering if there was an issue somewhere else that was causing him to move in a way that injures his toes more. They manipulated his joints and he has full range of motion, they could not get a pain response from moving him around or pressing along his spine or anything. Then they had me move him at a walk and then a trot, they agreed something is wrong. For the moment I am to do regular stretching with him and cavalettis daily. They showed me some stretches to do, does anyone recommend a good book that shows stretches you can do with a dog though? They showed me at the appointment but I worry I didn't remember correctly. 

He has a second appointment with them on September 15th to see how he is doing and the chiropractor is going to take a look at him then too.

I've started doing them with Lloyd daily too, might as well since I am doing it with Nash. I stretch each limb manually, I have them bow, follow a treat to each side to stretch their neck, and I gently hold their tail up and then to each side. Right now I just hold each stretch for about 10 seconds with a goal of working up to 30 seconds. They both seem to enjoy most of the stretching. I'm also having them each roll over a few times each way a day (to help build core muscles), and am teaching Nash to walk up the stair case backwards to improve awareness of where he is placing his feet.


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## LynnI (Mar 27, 2010)

Absolutely I do a warm up & cool down along with stetching and massaging. My performance dogs all see a chiropractor regularly for Wellness Prevention adjustments too. I walk and jog first for 15-20 mins, then do some stretching and massage before they ever see an agility jump and that includes training just not at trials. We also routinely do core abdominal muscle building/strengthing exercises everyday. My dogs are athletes and I treat them as such with as much preventive injury work as possible. There are several excellent books at www.cleanrun.com.
Also another excellent book for anyone competing in performance events is The Agility Advantage by Zink.


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