Entries Tagged 'Dog Sports' ↓

After a day of strenuous work or play, give your dog a cool-down massage. 

It will be pretty much the same as your warm-up massage with three differences.  First, you want a little bit firmer pressure than you used for the warm-up massage.  Where you wanted to wake up the muscles with the warm-up, the cool-down massage helps the blood to move wastes out of the muscles to where they can be eliminated. 
 
You also want your movements to be slower and more fluidly connected.  This helps to relax tense muscles and calm your dog.  Again, use the strokes you did for the warm-up, but make them longer, a bit heavier pressure, and slower.
 
Third, although you will still use an open palm, you want to turn your hands around.  Where you were stroking down the body with your palm leading your fingers in the warm-up massage, now you want your fingers to lead.  This feels like a pushing motion and that’s what you’re doing, helping to push toxins and blood through the muscles.  This helps blood flow assist the body in removing toxins like lactic acid from the muscles. 
 
As with the warm-up routine, you’re using the same pattern.  Down the spine from the crown to rump, around the jaws, and over the snout.  Repeat this sequence three or four time or for between five and ten minutes.  Just slow it down and make the strokes longer and firmer.  Note any tension or “flinching” responses from your dog.  These are areas that may need a bit longer massage or even heat or ice therapy.  If your dog shows marked flinching, check with your vet to make sure it isn’t a pulled muscle.  Check the paws, too, for any injuries.  After the massage, offer your pet clean, fresh water.
 
Contact Information:
 
Stephanie Whitehead
Paws for Health of Virginia, LLC
9947 Hull Street Road, Suite 244
Richmond, VA  23236
804-986-4675
pawsforhealthofva@yahoo.com
 

Remember, although massage is a safe and gentle procedure, you should always consult with your vet before using any treatment he or she is not aware of.  Verify with the vet that your pet doesn’t have any condition that massage might make worse.  Always offer your dog clean fresh water after a massage.  This helps flush out toxins and other waste from your dog’s muscles.  Also, massage is a useful addition to veterinary care, not a substitute.  Always keep your vet informed about any outside treatments.

In this video the dog Louie clearly loves training and doing tricks with his owner. This video shows what can be accomplished when dedicated owners and their pets work diligently together.  Louie is an amazing dog, but he didn’t learn all of these tricks over night.

Doing agility and high jumps can be fun, but don’t start your pooch too young.  High jumps can be extremely tough on a young dogs skeletal structure.  Let your pal finish growing before you start any jumps. Excessive jumping can cause problems for your dog in his adult years, so be careful not to over do it.

When starting your pet training sessions, you may want to limit training sessions to around 15 minutes.  Keeping your training sessions short and fun will keep your dog excited and wanting more.  It’s not training to your pet, just some outside fun with mom and dad. 

With love and a lot of patience you and your dog will be able to accomplish amazing things together.

The dog in this video was trained by www.unleashedunlimited.com.  You can contact them online or by phone 512-518-8062.