Sit To Stand Exercise | Best Core Exercise For Your Dog

[@sungsooify]

Appreciate your patience with the dogs! I’ll be using my free hand in front of my small dog to do this exercise instead of my foot. Thank you for the tips!

[@Chicagocanine]

My GSD used to always do that same “lazy sit” with her legs out to the sides like a frog 😄 She had OFA Good hips.

[@noelleb-calmness4dogs]

Hi! Could you please advise at what age it is safe to start doing sit-stand exercise for puppies and why ? Thanks

[@johnwaterhouse5363]

Noelle, That's a great question and one I get a lot. The sit-to-stand exercise is one I love to incorporate into the daily life of a puppy--or any of my patients. Many people think the sit-to-stand exercise must be done formally in regimented, 10-repetition sets of three, three times a day. However, with puppies, I feel this exercise is best done informally at different times throughout the day. For example, during daily walks with your puppy, you might come to a stop sign, and you can instruct the puppy to sit. Then, you ask the puppy to stand up and continue your walk. You've just performed the sit-to-stand exercise in conjunction with basic obedience training. Sit to stand is one of my five favorite super exercises, and it's easy to incorporate into obedience training for the puppy by making it a part of real-life situations. Puppies naturally know how to sit, so we're not introducing something foreign to their normal activities. Sit to stand is an important exercise for all our pets, not just puppies. It's especially important for our geriatric companions or a pet that's undergone surgery--but it's important that we don’t overdo it with post-surgical patients. To answer the other part of your question regarding at what age to begin sit-to-stand exercises with puppies, you can begin this as a formal exercise around four months of age in a small-breed puppy and 10 months of age in a large-breed puppy. At these ages, for the particular breed size, the puppy will have the structural and soft-tissue development to be able to handle a more formal exercise program. Hopefully this answers your question. If not, please just let me know. If you have other questions, please send them along, because I’m here to help.

[@noelleb-calmness4dogs]

@@johnwaterhouse5363 great thanks John, just wanted your reply to share with new puppies' parents.