COACH4PAWS

The old adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" can be true when speaking of our dog's physical condition. Have you noticed something being off with your dog, but not sure how to assess if your dog is in pain? Would you be able to determine if your dog had muscle tightness? Have you noticed slight behavior changes in your dog, or noticed changes with your sport dog's performance? 

For the new year, we are providing for a short time, a free canine condition assessment ebook. All dog owners should be able to generally assess your dog's physical condition, understand if your dog is overweight or underweight, know the signs of pain and how to palpate your dog to determine subtle signs of discomfort, how to perform a range of motion evaluation, how to perform a gait baseline video, how to evaluate posture and establish a posture baseline, and be able to perform a general strength test to detect any significant weakness.  It's good practice to have a...

Are you interested in canine fitness but find yourself overwhelmed of where to start? It looks like so much fun, right?  All those social media pictures and videos of people and their canine partners doing fitness exercises on bright colored inflatable bones, discs and peanuts looks like a lot of fun to do with your dog.  But what equipment do you buy? Which piece of equipment is right for your dog? How do you teach THAT fancy exercise to your dog? Where do you begin?  It can be overwhelming for someone new to canine fitness and they can tend to focus on elements of fitness rather than seeing the overall big picture.

Can we share a secret to canine fitness that may help you focus on what is the most important factor to improving the fitness and health of your dog? You do not need hundreds of dollars in inflatable equipment or expert dog training skills.  To have meaningful fitness results for your dog, you need a commitment to a consistent and balanced program. A...

Maggie was my first sheltie. She was one of 10 puppies, and when I met her at 8 weeks, she was full of spunk and sass which I loved about her. We played fetch in the yard which she loved, I took her for walks, but none of that seemed to satisfy or tire her out. It seemed she could play fetch for hours and never want to stop the game. When I came home from work, she would be bouncing off the walls. She literally would eat the drywall and chew the baseboards. She also had a bad habit of eating other things she shouldn’t, chewing up toys and once ate the stuffing of a toy and had to be hospitalized. Apart from immediately buying a crate, making sure toys were bulletproof and watching her like a hawk, I had to find a way to curb her destructive behavior as well as incessant barking.

At my wit’s end, I joined a puppy obedience class when she was eight months old to see if they could help me. She loved learning new behaviors. The teacher I met later became one of my good...