Canine Fitness Month
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April is Canine Fitness Month, and we would love for you to celebrate it with us this year!
Fitness is all about taking care of health, whether it’s through small positive adjustments here and there or by making big sweeping changes. That means one dog’s fitness can look quite a bit different than another pupper’s.
Join us as we explore the history of this month, how our fellow pet parents celebrate it, and what the best fitness routine for your furbaby looks like.
About Canine Fitness Month
Canine Fitness Month was created by FitPaws, to help raise awareness and teach pet owners everywhere how they can create a more active and healthy lifestyle for their dogs.
Overworked, overstressed, and forced into sedentary routines, it is all too understandable how modern-day life is creating roadblocks in our fight for living a healthy life. But it’s not just us who are facing the harsh realities that come from it. Just like in humans, obesity in dogs is skyrocketing, and their high-calorie and low-activity lifestyle is having the same alarming effects it is having on us.
Canine Fitness month is about taking an honest look at the life we are giving our dogs and how it is affecting their health. Are we feeding too much, is the food we are giving healthy and does it provide a well-balanced diet, do they still follow their training commands, and are we bonding enough with our dogs?
Facts About The Holiday And Canine Fitness
- Created in 2017 by FitPaws to raise awareness about canine fitness.
- Young dogs need an active lifestyle and healthy weight to build strong limbs and joints for their senior years.
- Senior dogs looking to keep their joints limber and maintain their muscle mass need regular exercise and food formulated for their age.
- Dietary supplementation of omega fatty acids, glucosamine, and a select group of other all-natural compounds support both young and older dogs’ mobility.
- Improving your dog’s fitness often increases the bond between you and your best furbuddy.
- Obesity and a sedentary lifestyle increases your dog’s risk for type two diabetes, heart disease, and some types of cancers.
- Exercise and playtime can help reduce your dog’s stress and anxiety.
How To Celebrate Canine Fitness Month With Your Dog
Watching The Calories
Between the table scrapes and heavy-handed portions from their regular feedings, the majority of dogs in the U.S. are now overweight or obese. Simply reevaluating the back of your dog’s food label to confirm you’re within the suggested calorie range is a fantastic step to better fitness.
If your dog needs to lose weight, simply decreasing the number of table scraps they are getting while increasing their activity can help put them in the caloric deficit they need to be in to lose weight. A good general rule of thumb is you never want treats to make up more than 10% of the total calories your dog is getting a day.
The Healthy Dog Treat
One of the things we most love about Canine Fitness Month is the awareness it brings to new products that make taking care of our dogs’ health a whole lot easier. For example, the modern dog treat can provide our pups with a rich bouquet of health benefits while still delivering an irresistible flavor that puts the old dog treat to shame.
Whether you’re making treats with CBD oil for your dog at home or taking the relaxing route and buying them, treats like Innovet Pet’s Soft Chews, are rich with wholesome ingredients that reward our dogs with better health.
Fun New Activities
What dog doesn’t love a good walk? But physical exercise includes a lot of fun activities that are not only fun for your dog, but for you.
Yoga - Doing yoga with your dog may seem odd at first, but when you think about it, some of the most famous yoga poses are named after poses our dogs naturally do.
Flyball - Have a super athletic dog whose energy you’re having trouble burning off, then consider the high-pace sport Flyball, where teams of dogs race each other, jumping over hurdles and chasing down tennis balls.
Mental Puzzles - Even when you don’t have the time or energy, you can still exercise your dog with mental toys and puzzles that stimulate their mind.
New Toys - For many dogs, a new toy triggers the zoomies and is one of the rare times they can keep themselves preoccupied while not getting in trouble. If you haven’t yet, letting your dog pick out their next toy by taking them to the pet store is a great way to kick off this fun holiday.
Dancing - When you have a dog, you never have to dance alone again!
Obedience Training
Canine Fitness Month isn’t just a holiday to remind pet owners to walk their dogs more. Most of us know that! But what many of us might not know is that fitness includes obedience training that sharpens both the mind and body. A great way to burn some extra calories and take away the stress that comes with bad behavior is by revisiting your dog’s training commands this month!
Your Dog’s Personal Fitness Routine
No matter a dog’s age or shape, fitness can always be a part of their life. This means while one fitness routine works for one dog, it might not for another.
Perhaps the most important part of fitness month is learning how we can care for our dogs’ health no matter their circumstances.
For example, when we think of fitness, many of us imagine high-energy activities like running, jumping, intense sports, etc. But, as we’ve seen, fitness doesn’t have to mean that, and for the dogs who struggle with mobility disabilities and other health problems, it can’t be those things.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t help them!
When it comes to helping an older pup reclaim their mobility, or just setting up the youthful one with years of good health, science has made incredible progress in how we as pet parents can better support our dogs’ mobility, fitness, and general health.
Beyond providing your dog with a well-balanced diet, additional supplementation of omega fatty acids such as the ones from fish oil and hemp seeds, along with mobility and anti-inflammatory support aids such as glucosamine and CBD can do wonders. That’s why we made these ingredients the core of our Mobility Support Chews.
Now dogs everywhere can once again enjoy Canine Fitness Month.
