Egg Beater Legs

So a little while ago my friend mentioned that my dog runs funny. I knew that he ran funny, like his legs are egg beaters, but I didn't think that meant there was something wrong with him. She didn't think he'd be able to do agility because of it. We've almost completed all the Rally events possible, we have one more leg of Excellent to get his RE and then we could go for his RAE if I wanted to continue on. But that's just doing the Advanced and Excellent in one trial and qualifying for both. He's won High In Class 4 times now though, so I think we might try for the RAE. But it really isn't anything "new". So I thought agility might be fun. So back to his egg beater legs. My friend told me our other friend/ acquaintance does dog massages and could tell me exactly what was going on with his body and could potentially help me fix it. The first thing that crossed my mind was that he had hip dysplasia or some other disease that would shorten his life.

So I asked the Massage girl, let's call her Jane, to come over and do an assessment on him. His abductor muscles on his back legs are weaker than they should be and he's not a flexible as she'd like him to be. He's also needs to lose 5 pounds... She gave me a bunch of exercises to do with him to strengthen his legs. We have to do perch work, side steps, going from sits to stands and back again, slow circles and doggy yoga or doga as I like to call it!  :)  I have to hold a treat near his tail and get him to bend to both sides, then bend to his back feet and then put it right between his front legs to get him to bend forward and in. She's also going to get me some poles to lay on the ground and he'll have to walk over them so it forces him to pick up each foot individually. And once he's made some progress with that she wants him to trot more, not full out running or nicely walking, but a nice trotting pace. So I asked her "should I take up jogging?" and she said "that would be great!". 

So for my dog, we're going to exercise daily with stretches and perch work, I am going to lose 5 pounds with him and take up jogging so we can trot together. Right now he's 40 lbs and I'm 155. Although if we're going for % body weight I should really lose about 20. We'll see how it goes.

On a side note, Nice Guy has already planned my birthday in April. I have to dress up nice, we're dropping the dogs off at his parents on our way, we won't be staying in a hotel and I can bring casual clothes to wear the next day. I have no idea what we're doing but he promises not to chop me up into little pieces.