Functional Land Based Exercise
Your dog is part of your family, when their quality of life or ability to move around becomes difficult, we want to help you get them back on their feet again and feeling better.
Your dog’s mobility may be hindered for a multitude of reasons including injury, degenerative diseases, muscle atrophy or post-surgical issues. Functional exercises are purpose driven exercises to improve muscle weakness and balance the dog’s body for proper gait and muscle use reducing further injury. Exercise therapy increases ROM (range of motion) in the joints, builds muscles, builds muscles to protect joints reducing or prevent the need for surgery.
Exercise programs are an excellent addition to conservative management approaches for injuries when a dog is unable to undergo surgery. The goal of the conservative management approach to injuries with the help of a therapist is to focus on proper muscle use, weight management, stretching and a gradual progression to normal activities.
Functional land-based exercises are used with post-surgical dogs to improve the healing time and return the dog to normal actives quicker. Targeted exercises strengthen affected tissues and teach the dog how to properly use muscles, limbs and affected areas again. Proprioception exercises engage the brain/muscle pathways to reteach dogs to have ideal weight bearing on all limbs.
Dogs can also suffer from neurological conditions and spinal injuries which can affect balance, coordination, use of limbs and in sever situations complete loss of mobility. We work with your vet as a team to assist with maintaining or improving your dog’s level of function and quality of life.
Incorporating FitPaws equipment; balls, peanuts, wobble boards and many other types specialty equipment will allow targeted muscle conditioning and strengthening. Each program is tailored to the individual animal and its condition. Exercises are described and demonstrated so that you can be an integral part of pet's rehabilitation process by completing these at home for a faster recovery rate and exceptional bonding experience for you and your pet.