E54: 데비 토라카(Debbie Torraca) - "강아지와 운동"

age and watching their development and have been following right now over probably over about 110 litters with starting them out on gentle exercise and then follow, following them through. And really, when we look at puppies, I think sometimes we forget that they're not just little dogs. They're, they're growing dogs. You know, the same way that we would look at a child, you know, we would not expect a three or four year old child to be able to pick up a golf club and, you know, hit a ball 100 yards or pick up a baseball bat and, you know, fire away. But yet we do that with puppies so often. I always use the example, getting back to kids just for a minute, that we know the American College of Sports Medicine has been so focused on human athletes, but also the growth of human athletes. And together with the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Little League Association, it's probably one of the oldest rules, but it makes the most sense. And I think it's something that we can apply to animals. So a child up to the age of 18 is limited on how many pitches he can throw if he's a pitcher in baseball. So most of the time we would look at an 18 year old male or female and think, oh, you know, they're grown. But then when we look at them when they're 24 or 25 and look back at 18, they really weren't grown. You know, there was so much more physical and mental maturity that took place. So and the reason being with throwing is it places a lot of stress on the growth plates, in particular, the growth plates and the elbow and the shoulder. And this, when we think about dogs and people often ask, you know, what are growth plates? And I like to use the analogy that they're little, little factories that are located at the end of each bone. And these factories are constantly producing more bone and more growth. So they're working to get the dog to the size it's supposed to be. And at different stages, these factories will close down. And certain ones close at different times in a dog's body. The way to know they're completely closed is to do an x-ray. You know, some people say, oh, I could feel their growth plates are closed, but that's not true at all. And some dogs, all the growth plates may close up when the puppy is between 10 and 12 months. Some puppies do not have growth plate closure until 40 months. That's over three years of age. And these growth plates are so important because, again, those factories are constantly pushing out, making the bones longer, stronger, more substantial. And if they're injured in any way, they're going to break down and they're going to stop.

And injuries can occur certainly by trauma. You know, if a puppy is hit by a car or anything like that. But it can be also injured with too much activity. Like, for example, too much jumping, too much running, sometimes slipping and sliding. In agility, I see it a lot with weave pulls, you know, too many weave pulls too early on. So there are a lot of things that, you know, it sounds like common sense, yet, you know, you have this little ball of energy and you want to do things with. And, you know, taking and people often ask, oh, I just want to tire my puppy out. And I've seen puppies that have, you know, different venues. They'll run their puppies six miles at six months of age, which I just cringe. You know, I also get very concerned when in agility, animals, you know, dogs can compete so much earlier, you know, between 15 and 18 months, depending upon the organization. But it's not so much the competing, it's when do they start practicing. So, you know, that is certainly a concern. And definitely the medium, large and extra large dogs, you know, and that's not to say the smaller dogs you shouldn't be careful with. But, you know, we're so everyone wants to push their pup and make them the super, you know, super pup, you know, turns into the super dog. But, you know, again, getting back to that child, you know, there's only so much you can push them and only so much you can do. So, yeah. So think about those little growth plates as little machines. So you mentioned in there that it can kind of vary anywhere from, I think you said 10 to 12 months to 40 months. Is there like a, you know, larger dogs are at one end, smaller dogs at the other end? Is that kind of how that works? Absolutely. So it's the larger dogs take the longest to close up. So, for example, I just saw a three and a half year old Leon Berger the other day. And he, his owner had his hips x-rayed and his growth plates are still open in the pelvic area. So, you know, you think three and a half and, you know, the life expectancy is not that long, but his growth plates are still, you know, he's still going. So he's still got some growth to go. So, and that's, I just think that's so amazing that, you know, some of these large dogs still keep growing. Smaller dogs will definitely tend to close up earlier. So your toy breeds and your small breeds will, will close up earlier. And the growth plates that tend to close the latest are the ones in the lower back or the pelvic area, and then also in the shoulder. And those are the ones that take so much stress with running and jumping and stuff like that. Interesting.

Which, I mean, obviously is what a lot of our, our sports require of our dogs, right? Is those, those particular areas. So growth plates closing is kind of the stage that comes up most often when talking about puppies and exercise. But I'm really curious, are there other stages that maybe you're less well known that people should be aware of when it comes to puppy development that impact exercise and what you should and shouldn't do? Absolutely. So I really like to educate owners to look at your puppies and not only physical, because you definitely have to pay attention to that growth plate, but kind of, I call it the common sense puppy thing. You know, you'll have, your puppies will go through stages. They'll wake up one day and have forgotten everything you've taught them. They don't know the command sit, stay, or anything like that. So they're most likely going through both a physical and maybe a mental growth spurt. So I always have owners take a look at that. The other thing is just their maturity. You know, so some dogs, you know, you look at puppies and they're so mature for their age, just like some children are, and they're in control of their body while others are not. And then the other thing is body awareness. So again, some dogs are, you know, just have it all together right from the get go. They're, you know, great. They can stand, they're aware. They don't slam into furniture in your house and knock it all over. Well, other puppies are just major klutzes. So they're all over the place. And this may definitely vary because they're going to go through these, these growth phases, you know, typically at four months, six months, and maybe again at 10 and 14 months, depending upon the breed. So during this time, you know, often owners will get frustrated and say, well, you know, he, he did sit, he did have good body awareness. And then he woke up and I'm not sure what happened. Then I always throw into just the owner capability because I, I've owned, I think the smallest dog I've owned is actually my Cocker Spaniel, but I've had large breeds. And, you know, in hindsight, when we say hindsight's always 20, 20, you know, did I do stupid things with my dogs? Yeah. You know, I thought my bull mastiff was, you know, all done at 18 months and, you know, went on a long hike and, you know, made him sore because he just wasn't physically, you know, ready for that. You know, kind of always tuning in like owner common sense with things and making sure we look at, you know, puppies and their, their growth and making sure everyone's aware of it, of what they're going through.

So you mentioned the hike and I, you know, there's so much differing advice out there. I'd really love to, to kind of get your take. How do you decide how much is appropriate and what's too much for a puppy when it comes to exercise? I think first, I mean, look at your breed because certainly a Border Collie is going to be much different than let's say a Basset Hound with their, with their ability and their endurance. So, you know, looking at their breed and a large breed is not going to be able to do as much as a smaller breed. So with that said, and if you can kind of factor that in, I like to look at five minutes of activity per month. So for example, a two month old puppy can get 10 minutes of activity a day. The, this sounds a little bit off, but forced physical activity. So meaning taking them on a leash and walking them. So no more than 10 minutes. And forced versus unforced. If they're running around the backyard and they're having fun, most puppies, and I say this most, are fairly self-regulatory. So if they're tired, they'll take a nap. Whereas if they're on a leash or we're asking them to do an activity, they don't always have that option. So, you know, looking again at that five minutes. So a six month old pup should be able to handle 30 minutes of activity. Again, a Cocker Spaniel is going to differ from a St. Bernard. So that St. Bernard may need less activity. And that can be just used as a guideline. And then I always like to look at, you know, certainly if the dog doesn't want to do something, then not to do it. So that puppy could be going through a growth phase and not feel like, you know, going on a walk that day. And that's okay. If there's any lameness, because certainly puppies, there's a lot of conditions in puppies, panosteitis, which is inflammation of the long bones that's caused by overactivity. Um, some dogs are prone to that. And there's a lot of other, uh, juvenile, uh, issues such as OCD lesions and, um, HOD and a few other things that we need to be careful with. So if, um, you know, looking at never causing any lameness and that is during the activity and certainly after, um, I always like to look at puppies, whatever you do with them, take a look at them two to six hours after. So if they sleep for two hours after the activity, that's okay. But if they're comatose for the next day, you've definitely overdone it. And it may seem like a great idea. You know, the puppies are tired and this is great, but that's not always a good thing in the long run because you can definitely cause some damage.

Um, I had, uh, my current clumber spaniel is just about to turn eight and I have his, um, hips x-rayed or radiographed usually every year. And the first time I had it done and I was embarrassed because I, when the orthopedist was reading it, he said, look, you know, so he had a case of panosteitis when he was a pup, you know, so you could see that damage in the bone. And so, and he said, you know, did you overdo it with him? And I thought, oh my gosh, you know, I preach this all the time. Did I overdo it with him? And, you know, it's something just to think about because different breeds and different activity, but that, you know, so whatever we do with them is going to stay with them the rest of their life, both good and bad. And, you know, certainly from a physical standpoint and from a training standpoint. So are there things that are absolutely just not appropriate or never appropriate? Are there things that people should really try and avoid? I mean, beyond just tuckering their puppy out too much? You know, every puppy has to endure certain things, meaning they're going to walk on a slippery floor. It's almost impossible to, you know, not have them walk over something slippery or do stairs or, you know, functional activities. You can't always carry a four-month-old St. Bernard puppy up three flights of stairs. Some things that definitely not to do, and you want to avoid extremes of movement. So until those growth plates are closed up, I'm a huge advocate of not doing a lot of twisting motions. For example, weave pulls. So wait until you know those growth plates are closed and then start with weaving activity. The same thing with jumping. And I hear a lot of times my agility clients will say, but I really want them to get the foundation down. Well, there's so many different ways to learn the foundations. You can use small bump jumps and start working with them that way, but not jumping their full height until they're, you know, completely mature. Also something that seems fairly benign that can cause a lot of issues is healing. So we don't often think about it. Seems like, oh, that's a simple exercise. But when the dog is healing, their head is up in extension and their neck is rotated. And that is going to place a lot of more stress onto the left front leg and the left back leg. And if they don't have that core strength or the balance, we can see issues come down the pike later on. So for example, one of the common things I see in obedience dogs is pelvic asymmetry. So the dogs just have kind of odd issues with their pelvic area.

They're really, they haven't been strengthened well and they're just kind of lead to chronic pain and sometimes ileosal injuries. So that's something to think about. And extreme running or hiking. So, you know, I always see people out, you know, jogging with their puppies. And, you know, if you go back to that just five minutes of activity and working, you know, working with that, you shouldn't be out running with your dog or jogging that much until they start to mature. And the same thing with hiking and that sort of stuff. And, you know, definitely rough play. You know, I've seen some puppies play together and they look like they're going to kill each other. So, you know, getting in and moderating there and slowing it down, you know, and of course, like other things like jumping, excessive jumping on and off the bed or the furniture or in and out of the car. Because again, that jump down could cause, could damage those growth plates. So really being cognizant and, you know, watching what the pups do. And it's hard. There's a lot of, you know, a lot going into it, you know, like we think. And I find too that so many people are so awesome about their training and everything that they do. And I had a client come in two weeks ago that just retired and has a golden retriever. And she's been doing everything with her pup. I mean, from dock diving to obedience to fly ball. The dog is almost two years now. And the dog has really bad hip pain. It can't hold a sit because it's so weak. Yet the owner's been doing all these things. And she was almost in tears when I told her. And I said, you know, because she thought she was doing all these great things, keeping her dog so active. But the dog never had the strength to do all of these things. She never kind of let her pup be a pup. You know, she got right into jumping and all of that other stuff. So it definitely has caused some issues. Fortunately, we'll be able to turn them around. But it's setting a lot of things back in her life, you know, with regard to competing. You mentioned in there running with a puppy. And I wanted to ask you about that. Are there general guidelines for when and how much is too much when it comes to running? And you kind of mentioned hiking, too, with a young dog. I really like with, again, when you're putting a dog on a leash and asking them to keep up with you at a jog or a run. I mean, you're not really giving them the option to stop, sniff, or take a break. So I really ask owners to hold off on any kind of jogging or running until the dog is at least 18 months old. My preference would be later.

So anywhere from 24 to 30 months old. So to let them mature. Hiking, if they're off leash and they're able to kind of self-regulate, you can start earlier. You know, it may be anywhere from 10 to 18 months. But again, taking it easy. You don't want to take your 10-month-old pup and go for an eight-mile hike. Again, we wouldn't do that with a 10-year-old child and not expect ramifications. So there would be issues. Then there would be a lot of whining. I was thinking that. I was thinking you'd get a lot more whining than you would with a dog. But whenever I take my almost 12-year-old daughter hiking, she's like, really? Are we done yet? You know, and we're only like a half a mile in. And she's just like, this is too much. So I definitely empathize with that. Yep. So the other thing you kind of mentioned in there was training. And I know we've got a lot of training junkies in our audience. And I wanted to ask about differentiating between training and exercise, especially kind of the good exercise that we've been talking about. Is there too much training? Is there, you know, kind of where's the cross over there and where's the line, I guess? Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, certainly with, again, training that, you know, there is so much mental stimulation with training. And, you know, people often do ask, how do I tire my puppy out? Well, every trainer and everyone listening probably already knows the answer. You know, make them think. Because when they have to think, that is going to fatigue them, you know, more. As far as, like, starting, like, you know, conditioning, you know, with pups. I actually like to start conditioning with pups if I can get my hands on them as early as two weeks of age. And just starting with little things. And there was a study done that demonstrated that pups growing up on a stable surface, starting to do a little balance and essentially core work, had a lower incidence of hip and elbow dysplasia. So that's, you know, huge. You think about your, you know, for any breeder out there, you know, doing, you know, doing stuff and you want to start introducing little things to them. So, for example, just, you know, climbing, using their core to climb up to their mom. You know, when they're comfortable, just walking on and off unstable objects. And I'm huge about any objects that are used. And we now, in the past, probably three, four years, we know the dangers of phthalates with children. And, you know, certainly there are more and more studies coming out linking phthalates to canine cancer and reproductive issues.

So anything that the puppies are utilizing has to be phthalate-free because they're chewing on it. They're absorbing things through their feet, that sort of stuff. So I'm, that go, I go wild about that. But, you know, and then just like simple things. Like I remember when my clumber pup, one of the first things we worked on when he was eight weeks, was just sitting on an unstable surface. We sat him on a disc and he would sit for a couple seconds and just go into his tolerance, then take a break, then we would do it again. And that started to work on his body awareness. When he was comfortable, he stood on it for periods of time. And, you know, again, just up to his tolerance. I would not do more than a few minutes a couple times a day with a growing puppy. So up to six months of age, I like to keep it at maybe five minutes twice a day with this physical conditioning. And that's not including walking outside. This is more like body awareness exercises, such as walking backwards or, you know, even sit and give paw and that sort of stuff. Then after six months of age, with the exception of a large breed puppy, start doing a little bit more. You know, gradually start increasing it to 10 minutes a couple times a day and working again on body awareness. And, you know, I always try to think, what is this puppy going to encounter in their life? You know, so every pup is, you know, we think about it from a psychological training point. Like we try to stimulate, get them used to kids' noises and loud noises and bells and whistles and all that sort of stuff. And I think about it from the other end. Like, okay, they're going to have to go upstairs. They're going to have to go downstairs, which is so much more difficult. You know, they're going to walk on a tile floor or a wood floor. So, you know, what can we do to start to incorporate that? And I love, you know, just working very slowly and gradually on unstable surfaces and always to their tolerance. So whenever they start to get tired, you know, we take a break. So I'm huge over quality over quantity. So we talked a little bit about this already, but having a 10 month old myself, I know it can be very tempting to overexercise simply to tucker them out. Puppies can definitely be absolute terrors until they've developed or maybe are taught, depending on the breed, to have an off switch. So I know you kind of mentioned, you know, mental stimulation. Any other thoughts or suggestions for how puppy owners can kind of manage that crazy energy level that sometimes comes with a puppy?

So certainly, you know, and there's like, it's a great opportunity to work on some stability and some body awareness and core work. Like one of the things I like to do is, you know, start off maybe with 10 sit to stands on something unstable. And it could be a disc, it could be a sofa cushion, something unstable or dog bed, and then walk them for a couple minutes. Then stop, have teach them to walk backwards. And while they're walking backwards, they're thinking like, what am I doing here? You know, how they're so excited. Incorporate more sit and stands because now you're working on more body awareness. You're getting some strength through their forelimbs, their hind limbs. If the dog is mastered down at that stage, you can do puppy pushups, you know, on different things. And if you're out walking, you can use different surfaces. So grass is always my favorite, but if you come across sand or anything like that, teaching them to put their forelimbs up on something and hold for a few seconds, their hind limbs up on something just low and hold for a few seconds. But incorporating a lot of physical and mental activity. And I've also found that working their core, working their balance, it's very hard for a puppy to stand still. They want to keep going. And just working on that standing still not only helps them with patience, but also helps them with that physical strength. So, you know, for example, we're, and we see this a lot in confirmation. They want owners and handlers want their pups to stand still. And we work on it on land or on the flat and then on something unstable and start to build gradually. So 10, 15, 20, 30 seconds. And it sounds so simple, but wears them down. It makes them tired. Um, I know whenever, you know, when my dogs were young and whenever they were driving me bats or I was having company over, I would make sure I work their core and did a lot of these activities right before I had company coming over. So they would go and sleep. Right. So I know we've talked a lot about exercise specifically, but I also want to kind of talk a little more about the conditioning piece. So it's kind of a blurry line there for a lot of people. And I'd love to hear your take on what the difference is between what constitutes conditioning versus what just constitutes exercise. Great question. So I think every dog needs a little bit of both in their life every day. So I consider exercise a lot of our walking activities, you know, stuff that a lot of dogs do, except I always find people that have backyards tend not to exercise their dog.

Um, so dogs that are, um, you know, just let out in the backyard owners always get them, um, you know, get upset when I say, oh, that's not really exercise. Well, because you don't know what they're doing. You know, a puppy can go tear up your backyard or they can just go lay and sleep. So, you know, exercise that's part of, should be a part of every day, every dog's, um, you know, life, that sort of stuff. Conditioning really targets, um, specific areas and it could be balance. It could be proprioception while a puppy is growing and their forelimbs are higher than their hind limbs or vice versa. You can work on conditioning, um, targeting specific areas. So for example, forelimbs up on an unstable surface are going to target the hind limbs by putting more weight onto it, but also work the forelimbs and their stability a little bit. So, um, and these are more than maybe more specific exercises depending upon what's going on. Um, another example is if your dog, you have a large breed dog that's prone to hip dysplasia, you definitely want to take proactive steps and strengthen up their hips. So simple things to do conditioning exercises would be sit to stand on an unstable surface because as they're sitting and standing, they're working their, um, their butt muscles, their hip flexors and their pelvic area. And the same thing, if a dog is prone to elbow dysplasia, there are certain breeds that are prone to it. We can do a lot of stability conditioning for the forelimb to help with stabilizing or strengthening as much as possible. So, you know, and ideally every dog, like I always say to people, like ideally everybody should be out walking like once a day and everybody should do some sort of conditioning for their body, you know, for their posture or whatever. So, um, the same thing. So I know we've kind of, you've mentioned a bunch of things kind of as we've gone through about like having your front paws up on something, trying to get your back paws up on something, backing up, um, just to kind of condense all those into one question, I guess, what are some of the things that puppy owners can do to help ensure their puppy grows into a well-formed, physical, healthy adult? Do you mind just kind of running through some of those things in, in one list for folks? And usually, I mean, probably like five key things that I tell puppy owners to work on. I mean, one is just trying to get them to stand still. Um, and this can start as early as eight weeks of, of age. Um, and that, I mean, is a lot for, um, them. It tells us a lot too.

If a puppy can't stand still for 10 seconds, they're usually uncomfortable in their body. So even at eight weeks of age, you can sometimes tell if something is off, but so standing still and then building up and that could be initiated on land or on the floor and then worked up to something unstable, like a phthalate free disc or a bed or sofa cushion, that sort of stuff. So that's the first one. The second one is simple sit to stands. And anybody that's had a puppy that is, you know, in that medium to large breed or giant breed, we know that the puppies go through every funky sit. You know, they'll sit with their legs out. You know, I hear they're not sitting very ladylike or that sort of stuff. Um, but working on a nice controlled sit. And I usually, you know, try to incorporate that with mealtime. So do it, try a set of 10, you know, before each meal, they're good and hungry. They're usually, you know, a little bit crazy. Um, so you can use, if you feed kibble, you can do that. And then you could progress to them sitting and standing on something unstable. So as they are working on something unstable, they're starting to work those large core muscles, balance and proprioception. Um, the third thing is walking backwards. So just learning body awareness and to use their hind limb to move backwards is a key, you know, key exercise. And then we could increase that as the dogs become stronger by stepping over things, by, um, you know, stepping onto different things. Um, the, um, fourth thing is a down, because again, we could turn that into make it more difficult. Um, so going from a stand to a sit to a down slowly and controlled, and it's both the down and the up. And again, starting this on the, on land and then doing it on something unstable. So the unstable activity will make it more difficult. Then the other thing, the fifth thing is a little bit more difficult. Um, it involves the dog standing still and just leaning forward and leaning back. And this would be kind of analogous to you and I standing on our feet and leaning forward and leaning backward. It requires balance and body awareness, but also a lot of strength. And I usually start with puppies with this on a platform and just ask them to lean forward just a smidge, you know, maybe like a half an inch or a centimeter and then have them return. And this is fairly difficult, you know, to do. So it may not be until they're five, six months old, or some of the larger breed dogs have even a tougher time pulling this together. So, um, but those are the five things that just about every puppy can start on.

And once they have those down, then we could add different things and make them more difficult or, you know, that sort of stuff, depending upon what the dog is going to do in their, their professional career. You mentioned you do some stuff with puppies as young as two weeks. What, what age are we talking about for the stuff you just mentioned for kind of those beginning? For the most part, um, starting at eight weeks of age and just keep in mind, you'd want to do it to their tolerance. So just, you know, no more than five minutes, but if they can't handle, you know, more than, you know, they can't do that, then you just wait. And also remembering that there are days that they're not going to be able to mentally or physically pull it together and that's okay. You know, so something you can work on, um, every day, but if you need to, you know, if they're growing and just want to sleep or chew on things or something, you know, give them the day off. Because it sounds so simple, but it's a lot, you know, for them. So, right. Well, thank you so much. Uh, I think that's all the questions I had. So I really appreciate you coming back on the podcast. It was awesome to chat through this stuff. Yes. Thank you so much, Melissa, for having me. And I look forward to speaking with you in the future. Absolutely. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Nancy Tucker to talk about desensitization and counter conditioning. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast and iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Fuddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Music.