Hydrotherapy

 

I have attended a course in physiotherapy with regard to "Warming up" your dog before training and competing, this is an essential part of agility, athletes always warm up before they compete, and warm down afterwards. also they put on track suits so they warm down at the proper rate, otherwise they lose body heat too quickly, dogs are athletes and are no different, too often we just get them out of our vehicle, take them straight to the ring to run, this could mean more chance of injuries occurring, the same thing could occur if they warm down too quickly, so a brisk trot around and a massage before you compete, and a slower walk around after with the dog wearing a coat to warm down will be extremely beneficial to help prevent injury happening.

 

I also swim my boys in my local hydrotherapy pool, Caroline Hill is a highly qualified hydro therapist and she monitors each of my dogs carefully whilst swimming them, she checks the colour of their gums and their breathing to make sure they are not overdoing it, this can easily happen, if you think that one minutes swim is equivalent to a mile run, with my old dog Benson with a loud heart murmur (he is nearly 14yrs old) over swimming could be potentially fatal, he has benefited so much as his back legs had started to give way due to lack of muscle tone, swimming has given him a new lease of life. Also, Razz my eight year old bc benefits as he still competes, and Deacon my two year old BC, without hesitation I would recommend dogs swimming in a hydro pool which is properly managed, I will never swim them in a freezing river, lake etc again.  

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