I hope to add a puppy to our family later in the year, so I am thinking about how I will need to alter our household routines to fit in a young dog. As I start work early and I like to exercise the dogs in the morning, something I am really thinking about is how I will fit in an extra walk in the morning for the puppy. The most convenient option would be to include the puppy in the older dogs’ walk. My boy currently gets a 45 -60 minute off lead run and play with another adult dog each morning.

Should puppies play with older dogs?

While including the puppy in this walk would be convenient for me, I won’t be considering it for a number of reasons. Firstly, the puppy will be too early in the training and relationship building process to have a reliable recall or be able to respond to me in the face of distractions. Secondly, I don’t believe the duration or type of exercise my older dogs have will contribute to healthy musculoskeletal development in young dogs.

In an earlier blog, I discussed the risks of overfeeding puppies and the effect it can have on the puppy’s skeletal development. (See blog http://www.fullstride.com.au/blog/should-i-feed-my-puppy-extra-calcium-and-protein) Another factor that can adversely affect skeletal development in young dogs is inappropriate exercise and activity.

When puppies are born their skeleton is soft and malleable. If you can imagine a typical bone shape, then puppies’ bones grow in two places on that model. The first site is the centre of the bone in which cartilage is turned into bone through a process of “ossification” in which bone creating and destroying cells interact. The second site of bone development is the end of the bone. Cartilage between the primary and secondary sites of bone development, the growth plate, continues to grow until the bones are full formed. Articular cartilage in the joints or between bones remain after the bones are formed.

When can puppies start running?

Puppies’ bones develop from birth to about 12 months. For larger breeds, this process may continue until 18 months.

The cartilage tissue at puppies’ bone growth sites needs biomechanical forces from movement to stimulate healthy growth. However, overloading or applying inappropriate pressure to these growth sites can easily damage the cartilage and cause the bones to grow abnormally and become misshapen and painful. Damaged cartilage and disruption to normal bone growth has been associated with the development of osteochondrosis, skeletal conditions and degenerative joint disease later in the dog’s life.

Puppies’ soft tissues, muscles, tendons and ligaments, can also be damaged by overstressing when they are young which can lead to mobility problems when the dog matures.

5 tips for exercising a puppy safely

1. Avoid overexertion – Puppies can over exercise

Stop and watch a litter of puppies, they will play, wrestle and explore together and then rest. On their own, they do not exercise to the point of exhaustion. They certainly do not take themselves to the beach for an hour and run until they can’t stand up or walk in a straight line, on a lead, at a pace dictated by someone else, on concrete for half an hour.

Overexertion is a major cause of overloading young joints and soft tissues. As puppies exercise, their muscles fatigue, joint laxity increases and the surrounding soft tissue is less able to keep the bones in their joints separated, so pressure is exerted on the growing joints.

During the bone growth stage, it is advisable to avoid exercising young dogs to the point of exhaustion. Watch your puppy, when they are exercising and rest them before they become tired. As an example, if you are walking with your dog, then be prepared to pick them up and carry them or for larger breed puppies to stop and let the puppy rest or go and get the car.

Extreme weather conditions also affects how quickly your dog will tire.

2. Puppy play

One of the best exercise for puppies is play. Encourage your puppy to play appropriately with you and the family. 10 – 20 minutes play in the backyard is perfect exercise for young puppies and it builds a great bond between the two of you which will reap rewards when asking your dog to respond to you in unfamiliar environments.

You can also include some toy play with your puppy. Appropriate toys are chews, tug toys and food balls. Please see blog http://www.fullstride.com.au/blog/is-chasing-a-ball-bad-for-dogs on the risks of ball chasing if considering teaching your dog to fetch a ball.

You might consider organising play dates with other puppies a similar age to your pup. Young dogs have similar play styles and levels of stamina, so if properly managed will play, then rest together and avoid overexerting themselves.

You can make the puppy play session more fun by arranging household objects like unused terracotta planters, timber blocks, pipes or tubs, upturned washing baskets, buckets, or boxes in a pile for the puppies to explore together. Make it more fun by throwing a few healthy treats into the pile to get the puppies using their noses. Walking over unusual shaped surfaces with different textures, puppies co-ordination and sense of their limbs and joints is developed which helps avoid injury in adult life. Further, scenting (to find the treats) lowers the head and engages the soft tissues of the hind quarters.

Finally, scent games are a great way to mentally stimulate a puppy and wear them out safely.

Puppies playing with older dogs is typically not appropriate unless the adult dog is very gentle and short play sessions are very closely supervised. Older dogs are typically heavier than puppies so can injure young dogs accidentally by knocking them and applying downward or sideward pressure to growing joints. Adult dogs also have different play styles to puppies which can cause sudden and jerky movements and damage young joints. Finally, fit and active adult dogs have far greater stamina than puppies, so can play for longer time periods which may exhaust a pup.

3. Avoid letting puppy run on slippery floors

Slick tiles, polished timber and polished concrete flooring seems like an easy clean flooring option when you have a puppy. However, moving over these flooring surfaces alters animal’s gaits. (See blog http://www.fullstride.com.au/blog/are-slippery-floors-safe-for-dogs) When exposed to these surfaces for prolonged periods, combined with an immature musculoskeletal system, the risk of injury and disruptions in skeletal development is worth considering.

4. Puppy training

A great activity for young puppies is training. Gentle, positive and short training sessions of 1 – 2 minutes throughout a day teaches puppy your house rules, builds your relationship and provides safe exercise. “Tricks” you can teach are sit, lie down, follow me, recall, wait, go to your bed, nose touch, paw touch, find it and hand shake. Tricks to avoid during the growth phase are anything that places abnormal load on the joints like standing on the back legs, jumping up or down from objects, or sudden movements. Finally, with tricks training aim for symmetry, so the puppy’s body is loaded evenly. For example, if teaching a hand shake, ask the puppy to shake with the left and right paw – you might like to teach a different cue for each!

5. Bone eating exercise for puppies

The final tip for appropriately exercising a puppy is to give them a raw meaty bone. Even for my older dogs, “big bone” days are a great activity that replaces a walk once a week. The exercise of eating a raw meaty bone loads the skeletal structure normally and provides other benefits too.

Firstly, a puppy needs to lower their head to eat a bone. This stretches the muscles through the neck and torso. It also exercises the head, chest and shoulder muscles as the dog re-positions themselves to reach the meat. Depending on how the pup eats the bone, they can get a good stretch through the hind quarters as they stabilise themselves. Tearing and ripping meat from the bone provides “normal” loading on the puppy’s joints for healthy bone development.

Secondly, bone eating provides the pressure and activity young mouths require for healthy dental development.

Finally, eating on a raw meaty bone is a great mental workout for a puppy. They need to work out how to position their body to consume the bone. This activity aids in the neurological development of co-ordination and perception of their limbs which is critical for a healthy, functioning musculoskeletal system that is less prone to injury or fatigue.

Puppy massage

Rapidly growing puppies can experience discomfort in their bones and muscles as they grow. A puppy massage treatment can reduce soft tissue tension and ease any discomfort. Massage in young dogs can also have the following benefits:

• Acclimatises a young dog to being touched and handled which is important for all dogs when visiting the vet. Some sports dogs also need to accept touch from people outside their family.

• Assist the puppies’ development of spatial body awareness top aid co-ordination, balance and reduce the risk of injury.

How do you exercise your puppies? Leave me a comment below or on Full Stride’s Facebook page.

Until next time, enjoy your dogs.

Sources:

Billinghurst, I 1998, Grow your pups with bones, Warrigal Publishing, Bathurst NSW.

Bottoni G, Heinrich D, Kofler P, Hasler M & Nachbauer W (2014) “Effect of Knee Supports on Knee Joint Position Sense after Uphill and Downhill Walking. A Test Using a Hiking Simulation Method” Journal of Ergonomics November 04, 2014

Kainer, Robert A & McCracken, Thomas O 2003, Dog Anatomy: A Coloring Atlas, Telon New Media, Wyoming USA.

Robertson, Julia 2010, The complete dog massage manual, Veloce Publishing Limited, Dorset UK

Schultze, K (1998), Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats: The Ultimate Diet Hay House, Sydney, NSW