Throughout my time competing with my dogs in a variety of sports I have seen many dogs being trained and competing while carrying excess weight. Most disappointing is that owners will deny or ignore the problem, make excuses or even laugh about their dogs weight. This is often a sensitive topics, but it is one that is critical to your dogs health and needs to be talked about more. So here are a few of my thoughts on the topic.

Carrying extra weight puts extra stress on joints, ligaments, tendons and muscles. This extra stress is exacerbated when we ask for an explosive motion, such as jumping, sprinting or doing a flyball turn. This extra strain increases the risk of injury to your dog from competing and training. While injuries can happen in any dog, they are far more likely to occur in an overweight dog. 

The responsibility is on you, as the dogs owner (and best friend) to make sure that your dogs are training and competing as safety as possible. 

• You choose what your dog eats and how much of it they get. 
• You decided how much exercise they receive.
• You chose when and how to train them.

It is your choices that determine how much they weigh and what activities they complete.

It is up to you to make the right choices for your dog by making sure they are in the right condition when you take them to training or to a competition. 

If you are unsure if your dog is the correct weight, please check our article here. We’ll have some more articles shortly (and hopefully some videos) on managing your dogs weight.

If you are concerned about your dogs weight, are having trouble keeping it under control, or would just like to tell me how awesome your new puppy is, send me an email, message me on Facebook or call me on 0429 443 314