Transcript from the video:

Question number six. How do I help my dog’s body awareness as I step on a chewy and know my body awareness? That’s what body awareness is. When we step on something, we know where it’s at. Our body knows how to react. I love teaching dogs body awareness. People think our dog has body awareness, like they’re a dog. That’s what they do. Well, it has become increasingly less body awareness in our dogs because they are inside more, they play less with other groups of dogs.

With doggy daycares and dog walkers, they’re getting more of that. So they are getting more body awareness than they used to, which is great. But I want to show you some things that you can do with your dog when you’re out on a walk or you have to work inside. So a simple couple simple things. One is called the step over. Stepping over things. Good girl. What this does is it helps them know where their feet are in space.

This is also on my blog. The number one exercise every dog I feel should do. And there’s more information about that on there. The second thing that I like to do are step ups. Now I use these 1 inch foam pieces. It’s something I actually found on the street, was for free. I was like, oh, I think I could use that. So when I’m starting out, I just put one down, ask her to step up.

She does this a lot so she knows what she’s doing. Good girl. We’re gonna move you over a little and then she can balance on two. Right now she has one leg off. That type of stuff helps your dog know where their body awareness is. She’s stepping on a yoga mat. One foot’s off the yoga mat. Then I can have her step over. Just stepping over it shifts her body.

Good girl. So that little bit of work with this piece of foam. I also use phone books. Yes, I sell phone books. Or those Uline catalogs that come in. Those are great to use. I always start about an inch when I’m first working with a dog because even the best dogs out there have poor body awareness. I have done fitness tests on search and rescue teams in my local area.

And one, maybe two dogs ever passed my fitness test. And I was shocked because these dogs are out there saving us, so they should have great body awareness and it sucked. So I help those dogs and those teams learn some things so they can help their dogs have better body awareness. Oh, look, she’s doing it on her own. And this is a side effect of doing these exercises with your dog.

They will Start to do them on their own because they enjoy it. It’s mentally engaging, it’s physically engaging, it’s bonding with you. So she always. And she knows I have treats, so she always looks forward to these type of exercises. Ready? Go through. I’m gonna send her through the tunnel. So having a little tunnel, this is a. It’s like a kid’s tunnel. Usually you can get this type of stuff in the summertime in the kids section of a store.

So equipment can be inexpensive. So that’s what I would do to basically start out learning dog’s body awareness. And then when you take them on hikes, because they’ve been doing some of this type of stuff, walking over poles, stepping on foam, they will be more aware of the rocks and the boulders and the pebbles, and they’ll be picking up their feet better. They’ll have better core engagement when they’re hiking.

So hiking on trails can also help dogs body awareness. I just say when you do that, consider training them like yourself. We would. There are some people that do 14ers. I not one of them, but they’ll just train to do a 14er, right? They’ll do little ones and slowly work up dogs the same way we think we can take our dogs to a 14er. That’s when search and rescue has to come find them, which has been happening increasingly more in the last couple of years.

So. So we want to make sure we train our dog like we do to help them be stronger so that we both get up the mountain and get back down. So body awareness is my thing. I just, I love it and I can keep talking about it, but those are some tips of body awareness. Stepping up and over curbs on recycled tire in the playgrounds, mulch, little pebbles, big pebbles.

So those are some great ways to help your dogs with body awareness. And if you do it too, it helps with your body awareness. So again, you guys are doing exercise together. I hope you enjoyed this and I would love for you guys to go out and live your best life.