DVD of the Month

My pick for DVD of the Month for February is Pilates for Pooches! I will start off by saying that I LOVE this DVD! If you are at all interested in furthering the fitness of your dog, having fun with your dog, or just wanting to try something different, this is definitely the DVD for you. I honestly feel that this DVD has something in it for everyone. There are a variety of exercises to choose from, using an array of equipment. It's just plain fun! It's been a while since I last watched this DVD and I'm so glad that I went back over the whole thing. I've been wanting to change up some things in the dogs strengthening workouts and the DVD gave me some fresh ideas to work with. So exciting!

The first segment of the DVD is devoted to conditioning in general. What constitutes exercise, the variety of ways to exercise your dog, as well as general fitness guidelines and how to start an exercise routine. There are some fun every day activities that can help increase the fitness of your dog as well as bolster your overall obedience work. Things like long distance recalls.

The first actual exercises that get introduced are quite basic and involve utilizing only one simple obstacle, the box. The size of the dogs demonstrating the exercises varies from a pomeranian to a golden retriever. There is a wide variety of things that you can do with a simple box that will help to increase your dog's strength and overall sense of balance. Movements such as rotating with all four feet on the box. Simple, but it can be tricky depending on the size of the box. You can also mix things up by changing the height of the box. To add further difficulty, you start using an unstable surface such as a balance disc. All of these exercises and much more are carefully demonstrated and explained throughout.

Once the dog's basic understanding of the exercises and body awareness increases, you increase the difficulty by using two pieces of equipment. Now the dog has to balance the front and the rear feet independently. Add in different movements and your dog gets a full body workout!

After your dog has mastered those exercises you move on to a line of several pieces of equipment. By varying the height and type of the objects, your dog really has to concentrate on what they're doing and really work all those muscles. The possibilities are endless!

The DVD ends with a section on streng training a puppy. There's no reason not to start working with your puppy at a young age. Start getting them used to the equipment and the exercises that will help them now and in the future. While there are special considerations when working with a younger dog, there's no reason to wait until a certain age to get them started.

Also included on the DVD are three PDF files. One is a general conditioning overview and basically sums up the first segment of the DVD. The second file is an exercise log so that you can keep track of your dog's progress with the various exercises. And the final file is an overview of the strengthening exercises themselves.

It's just a great DVD and I think it's worth the money for anyone interested. I bought this DVD from Clean Run, but I'm sure there are other sites that sell it as well. If you end up buying it, I'd love to hear what you think of it and how the exercises work out for you and your pooch! It's just so much fun!