How to Exercise your Old Dog

Video Transcript

"An important part of caring for your older or geriatric dog is going to be making sure that your dog has enough exercise but not too much. As your dog gets older, they're going to be walking around a little bit more slowly, a little bit more stiffly. Come on Hann. Let's go for a walk, good girl. You want to make sure that they get out and about and they get plenty of exercise but not too much exercise. If your dog is used to walking in the city, then taking a maintaining the city walks is important. Just be careful that you're going at your dog's pace and your dog's distance at their comfort level rather than your own. If you dog is used to jogging and your run with your dog, make sure you know whether or not the dog is comfortable of stiff after a long jog. Taking woods walks is a great thing for dogs. Let's just make sure that your dog doesn't become disoriented or loses track of you if he or she is in the woods with you. Come on Hannah let's go this way. Let's go. You can see that she has a little bit of trouble making turns. She's a little bit stiffer so I'm going to walk at her pace. If we drop out exercise entirely, the problem is that the dog will lose muscle mass and they will no longer have the strength to hold itself and to keep going. As an older dog loses muscle mass, if there's an injury or just a period of time where he doesn't get any exercise, it takes a lot longer for that older dog to rebuild that muscle. In some times in fact, they never are able to because they're not strong enough to do the exercise that will enable them to rebuild the muscle mass. So exercise is vital important part of taking care of your older dog, but you have to be very careful not to over do it and yet not to under do it."