Sports Medicine: Canine Athletes

Dogs competing in sports such as agility, flyball, obedience and herding need proper conditioning to get and stay in shape. Appropriate training for balance, strength, coordination, flexibility and endurance can help your canine athlete avoid injury and perform better. Properly conditioned and strengthened dogs are also able to recover faster if they do sustain an injury.

We offer a Performance Dog Program that begins with an individualized assessment of your dog’s strengths and weakness and development of a conditioning program tailored to your sport, and includes nine additional one-hour sessions of land and water fitness exercises. You will learn principles of an exercise program and how to perform many exercises and stretches yourself so you can continue your dog’s regimen at home.

We also welcome breed dogs who need to increase muscle tone and/or improve their gait and reach for better show ring performance.

If your dog is healthy and only needs aquatic exercise (swim or treadmill) for conditioning, you can consider our K9 Fun Swim Program; this program is not therapist-supervised and does not offer personalized instruction, exercise planning or land work. See What Program is Right for My Dog? for more information.