Teach Your Dog To Run On A Treadmill
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In this video we teach Harley how to run on a treadmill, and show you what a dog looks like after they master the treadmill with Nix. Teaching your dog to run on the treadmill is easy, but it is important to always remember safety first. Never leave your dog unattended on the treadmill, and always stay by their side.
Full Transcript
Good. So it's important to still stay with them so they don't get distracted.
Hey, Kat here from standing Stone Kennels and we just had a post recently about a dog on a treadmill and it got a lot of feedback, actually a lot of questions on how to teach your dog to run on a treadmill. A lot of our dogs have been a little bit noisy so it helps with keeping them a little bit quieter because they have something else to focus on, but a lot of people have been mentioning that it's so cold, which, uh, it's chilly here, but not as cold as it's been up north and they're definitely struggling with these high energy breeds. Having an opportunity to get them the energy burn off that they need, so I'm running on a treadmill is definitely something that can really help with that as well as in the summer when it's really hot and you can't get out and condition your dog all that much in the heat of the day.
This will allow you to do some of that conditioning, whether it's too cold or too hot. Another way that we like to use the treadmill is for mental stimulation as well as the physical side of things. We'll get a dog in for training that's a little uncertain about being here. A little worked up and this gives them something else to think about instead of focusing on the fact that they're at this new facility and they're worked up and they don't know exactly what's going on. So we get a couple of questions on what kind of treadmill do you need? A, this is a garage sale special. Uh, the digital readout for the speed doesn't even work anymore. It's just got a little dial, but you can definitely get a dog specific treadmill, but it's not necessary. We paid 25 bucks for this thing. A good time to look is right after people have failed at their new years resolutions, so he might be able to pick one up pretty cheap here fairly soon.
Another thing that people always ask is, well, how fast should I run my dog? And how long should I run my dog? Well, it really depends on the dog. If you got a dog that's not in really great shape, a 20 minute run is going to be a long time for them. Um, as well as if your dog's not used to running on the treadmill yet. Like I mentioned before, it's not only physically exhausting but it can be mentally exhausting, so you'll just have to build up to that depending on their conditioning and your dog. So we're gonna help Harley here, who just came in for training today, get comfortable running on the treadmill. So she's never done this before. So we're going to help her get comfortable. Another thing to keep in mind is when you run a dog on a treadmill, it's kind of like them running in the field.
What usually happens is they clean out right away. Um, so giving them an opportunity to go to the bathroom, which we have for Harley is important prior to them running on the treadmill. Otherwise you might get poop that just keeps going. So come on, tell them early. So just getting comfortable getting up on the treadmill and every dog is a little bit different. She's playing hopscotch here. Just going to get ahold of her color. Now we're doing this outside just because the kennel can get a little bit noisy. Um, and we definitely want you to be able to hear what I'm explaining, especially when everyone wants their turn to run on the treadmill. So I'm going to clip her up tether her here to the treadmill and then I'm going to just get her back up on the treadmill. Come on. Like I said, some dogs get comfortable sooner than others and I'm going to basically turn this on as slow as a treadmill will go and I'm just going to help her take one step. She's going to try and be a little weirded out, which is fine. I'm not going to coddle her and tell her, oh, it's okay. Be afraid of the treadmill because we're not needing to be afraid of the treadmill.
Just taking a step, being encouraging. Come on Harley. Good. I don't have treats or anything like that. I'm just being encouraging. Come on. Good. Just asking her to put one foot in front of the other and I've got a hold of her collar here to help her stay in the right area of the treadmill. I don't want her bolting off the front of the treadmill, but I don't want her falling off the back of the treadmill either. She's, we're going slow enough that she has enough time to sit down in between steps. So we're definitely not expecting too much of her right now. Good girl. Just helping her take steps. Good.
Come on, come on.
We have a couple different length tethers here to um, depending on the size of the dog and the height of the dog. Come on. So I'm going to stop this for just a second. Her collar is a little loose so I want to actually snug that up so it doesn't pop right off of her head there. And like I said, we're doing this outside. I would hate for her to run off on her first day here. So tightened that up one notch again. We're going to start slow. Slowest it'll go.
Come on, come on, Harley. Good girl. Good girl.
Taking a couple steps, she's going to feel herself, you know, getting to the end of that tether and hopefully take a couple steps. Come on, come on.
Keep walking, keep walking. Good, good, come on, good.
It's also important to never leave your dog unattended on the treadmill. Obviously she's not super comfortable at this point yet. Um, so if I left, she was just going to hop off or something. But if you get a dog that's gotten comfortable running on the treadmill and you're like, oh, they're good, but they're tethered. If they make one misstep or trip, they could definitely hurt themselves and we'd really hate for an accident like that to happen. So always stay with your dog when they're running on the treadmill, especially if they're tethered like this. Come on. Good girl. Good girl. Just being encouraging. And your first two, three, four treadmill sessions, you might not move farther than just a walk like this. It's just getting them comfortable. One foot in front of the other, so we can't just crank it up and expect them to start running right away on the treadmill. We also don't typically ask them to do full out sprints or runs on the treadmill. A light jog is about the fastest that will ever expect them to go, just because it could, you know, they could trip, they could get off the side a little bit and going from a full on sprint to a dead stop could really injure them as well. So...
Good girl, come on Harley. Good. Good girl. Want to try and take a couple faster steps so I'm going to just turn it up a little bit more. Good, good. And sometimes getting them into a little bit faster pace and rhythm doesn't give them time to think about stopping and sitting down between steps and it just allows them to continue getting used to this a little bit faster. Good girl. Good girl. Come on, come on. Good girl. Good girl. So she's doing really well for her first session here on the treadmill. Just being encouraging. If she starts to lag behind a little bit and she starts going extra fast, um, I might have to give her some tugs, backwards actually come on. Good girl. Good girl. Good or turn the speed up just a little bit. Good girl. Good. So I'm going to go ahead and stop her just so that you can see what a dog looks like. Once they get fully comfortable on the treadmill. I'm going to go ahead and switch her out for our dog Nix who absolutely loves to run on the treadmill so I'll be right back.
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So we've got Nix here.
Kennel. So we'll go ahead... and again, even though he knows how to run on, run on the treadmill, I'm not going to just crank it up really fast. I want them to get used to the speed and thinking about what he's doing. Some dogs when they get really comfortable running on the treadmill, they start looking around good.
So it's important to still stay with them so they don't get distracted. He thinks he can look around while he's running, but we'll let him go a little bit faster but not a ton faster. Like I said, we don't need an all out sprint. There's a couple of notches on here that talk about training, speed training zones and we've got him in the fat burn zone instead of the cool down zone. But like I said, our readout doesn't tell us speeds anymore because our treadmill isn't, uh, isn't a brand new or anything like that. So pay attention. Good job.
So then I'm going to just slow him down. We're not going to go from a full jog to a complete stop. We're going to slowly let him come down and speed, but he loves to run on the treadmill. He would do it for probably hours if we let him, but this is a good way to see the difference progression between a dog that's just learning like Harley and not going very fast. Nix. And the dog that loves to run on the TREADMILL, how they can go up to a light jog quite quickly and then enjoy running there for... We cut them short today, but for up to 20, 30 minutes is no problem at all for a dog like Nix. So thanks for watching. We're happy to answer your questions about training. So if you ever see a post and you have a question on how we made that happen, definitely reach out, ask us questions. We're happy to explain how we get our dogs to run on a treadmill. So thanks for watching and remember to like, our videos and subscribe to us on facebook.