As 2023 comes to an end I want to encourage you to reflect on this year and COUNT YOUR WINS! ? and I'm not necessarily referring to trophies, medals, or recognitions. These are wins that can not be labelled and are often completely overlooked. ​ ? Our mindset has a big impact on our ability to be successful and what we choose to do in our life. It can either increase our sense of confidence and push us to achieve our goals or it can really undermine us. We are hardwired to remember negative thoughts, emotions, and experiences better than positive ones! So, to help you set ..read more

Standing endurance is an exercise in the canine gym that I incorporate with all dogs. It has MANY benefits for your dog, and selecting the proper equipment is critical to maximizing the physical benefits of this exercise.   What is Standing Endurance?   Standing endurance is when your dog stands in a natural stacked position on different pieces of equipment while you move around your dog imposing various weight-shifting challenges. Meaning, your dog stands in position while you move around them in different directions. See, dogs are well-balanced when their heads are forward and look ..read more

I am back home now from attending my first International competition with Keeper – the Agility World Championships (AWC) in the Czech Republic. What an amazing 12 days away competing and experiencing one of the most prestigious agility events in the world! I’d love to take you with me on journey inside my trip, and highlight my experience with little Miss Keep Keep. Hands down, this was a trip of a lifetime that I will never forget! After coming off such a disappointing first world competition with Shades in May (when he got injured), I was hoping this experience would re-energize my excitemen ..read more

My girl, Keeper, and I recently competed at the UKI Canadian Nationals and WAO Team Canada Tryouts in Saint John, New Brunswick, September 7th - 10th. I packed up my RV and my five pups, and we went on an almost 3,000 km roundtrip road trip to make it to the Nationals. Keeper, a three-year-old sheltie, competed at her first-ever National event with over 450 dogs participating! Talk about a milestone for her! It was an agility marathon over four packed days, and Keeper proved that she could compete with some of the best 12" dogs in the country! Many American friends also came up to compete an ..read more

“Knowledge isn’t power. Applied knowledge is power.” This is a powerful quote by American motivational speaker Eric Thomas, and I couldn’t agree with it more. In last week’s blog, the first of this two-part series, I talked about common, general signs of pain in our dogs and specific pain signs in agility dogs. When we understand our dog’s standard movement patterns, we can start to detect deviations from them. So, now that we know how to recognize these signs in part one (you can read it here), we will dive into what YOU can do as a dog owner to detect these subtle signs of injury SOONER in ..read more

What if I told you that many of the canine athletes I assess at my rehab clinic started showing minor, subtle signs of their injury MONTHS before ever booking an appointment with me? Could you recognize these signs with 100% confidence?  I wrote this blog to help owners, trainers, and health professionals identify the subtle signs of pain in agility dogs so that injuries, compensation patterns, side preferences, and weaknesses can be identified earlier. With over 15 years of practice as a physiotherapist, one cornerstone of my approach is educating and proactively managing human and dog ..read more

Image Credit: Shutterstock Welcome to the second and last part of our weight management blog. Did you miss part 1? You can read it here. To summarise, in part 1, we discussed that maintaining a healthy weight is essential for the sporting and pet dog. An overweight dog is at an increased risk of injury with additional stress on their joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments.  ​ As promised, today we will provide you with some tried and tested tips on how to help your dog lose weight healthily and sustainably. 1. Track your progress: Weigh your dog consistently. If you have an establish ..read more

“Knowledge isn’t power. Applied knowledge is power.” This is a powerful quote by American motivational speaker Eric Thomas, and I couldn’t agree with it more. In last week’s blog, the first of this two-part series, I talked about common, general signs of pain in our dogs and specific pain signs in agility dogs. When we understand our dog’s normal movement patterns, we can start to detect deviations from them. So, now that we know how to recognize these signs in part one (you can read it here), we will dive into what YOU can do as a dog owner to detect these subtle signs of injury SOONER in yo ..read more

What if I told you that many of the canine athletes I assess at my rehab clinic started showing minor, subtle signs of their injury MONTHS before ever booking an appointment with me? Could you recognize these signs with 100% confidence?  I wrote this blog to help owners, trainers, and health professionals identify the subtle signs of pain in agility dogs so that injuries, compensation patterns, side preferences, and weaknesses can be identified earlier. With over 15 years of practice as a physiotherapist, one cornerstone of my approach is educating and proactively managing human and dog ..read more

Image Credit: Shutterstock Welcome to the second and last part of our weight management blog. Did you miss part 1? You can read it here. To summarise, in part 1, we discussed that maintaining a healthy weight is essential for the sporting and pet dog. An overweight dog is at an increased risk of injury with additional stress on their joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments.  ​ As promised, today we will provide you with some tried and tested tips on how to help your dog lose weight healthily and sustainably. 1. Track your progress: Weigh your dog consistently. If you have an establish ..read more