K9 Conditioning - Hill Walking and Pulling

I am working on developing a conditioning plan for Lily and have a question on hill walking. I have found an accessible ramp/incline!!! It's on base so I will have to walk it w/Lily. Our speeds will be Slow and Slower. :)) Any suggestions for maximizing the effectiveness for Lily? I will try to get out and, if I can't get someone to video Lily and me actually walking it, I can at the very least video the ramp itself, if that would be helpful.


Walk her up and slowly walk her down in a zig zag fashion. The zig zag down will be nice to work on body awareness, forelimb strength, and proprioception. The slow up will help with her rear strength and her hind end awareness. You can also incorporate some sit to stands in the up hill walking. Maybe half way up, ask her to sit and stand 5 times. This will throw in some alternate training. You can also work on walking backwards up the hill about ten steps.
Ask Santa for an underwater treadmill! :)


So today we visited the newly discovered loading dock on base and did 15 min of hill walking as you suggested with zig zag, sits and stands on the downhill. I wanted to see several things - Lily's stamina and how my knees would hold up.

Well, my knees did just fine and so did Lily. It may not be strenuous enough for her benefit but it worked for me.

I am in the process of teaching Lily to pull on cue to give me counter balance. She is wearing either a Freedom Harness or a Ruffwear harness when we work on that and I am pulling from a handle on the back of the harness. I am thinking that this might be a good place to incorporate her pulling behavior - on the incline - both directions. What are your thoughts on that, Debbie?



Good morning Lynn - I do think that is a great idea. Make sure the 'pull' on the handle does not place any undue stress on her. The harnesses you mentioned are good so there should not be a problem.
Perhaps with the hill - you can work a little more strengthening into it. Begin with ups and downs a few times, and then backing up the hill, more sit to stands, sit to downs, etc.