Dog Fitness: A Practical Guide to Movement, Strength and Everyday Wellbeing

How can you help your dog move with confidence, build strength and enjoy an active life? It starts with understanding your dog’s body—and choosing activities that suit their age, abilities and needs.

In this illustrated guide, I explain how I approach dog fitness, from daily walks and warm-ups to exercises for balance, coordination and body awareness. I share what to observe, how to introduce exercises gradually and when to make a task easier.

Inside, you’ll explore:

• Everyday movement: walking, varied surfaces and practical ways to add purposeful activity to your routine.
• Preparation and recovery: warm-ups, drinking water, rest and signs that your dog needs a break.
• Body awareness and coordination: paw placement, controlled movement, balance and cavaletti exercises.
• Strength and posture: foundations for standing, moving and performing exercises with control.
• Individual needs: considerations for puppies, senior dogs and dogs with different builds and abilities.
• Equipment and handling: choosing supports, understanding harnesses and creating suitable training conditions.
• Joint health and supplements: an introduction to the evidence, with distinctions between research findings and individual treatment decisions.

Illustrations, tables and practical checklists support the explanations and help you connect the ideas to your own dog.

My approach begins with observation: how does the dog stand, step, turn and recover? From there, we can choose a suitable challenge and progress at the dog’s pace.

For dog owners, trainers and canine professionals who want a clearer understanding of purposeful movement and thoughtful exercise.

This book is an educational guide. Dogs with pain, injury or health conditions need an individual veterinary assessment before starting or changing an exercise programme.