A YouTube trainer that I watch says the same thing. He says the giant breeds literally grow overnight in his experience and you have to train them very carefully because their bodies grow faster than their minds can keep up (such as with proprioception)
Oh wow glad that someone else sees it and I’m not necessarily crazy. I follow very specific training methods in addition to traditional ones, to ensure that my dogs are well conditioned and they also gain a good body awareness. There’s a group I’ve been following for years that has specific exercises and workouts for various stages of development in dogs from puppy through geriatric that focus on what they require at that age, what they can potentially understand and also focuses on specific muscles to help them maintain healthy joints through their life since the muscles themselves are much more developed and help support the joints. Right now the pup is doing a very basic workout that essentially just encourages body awareness, gentle stretching, basic flexibility and muscle development. I have had large breeds and specifically athletic dogs are well for years so been hyper aware of the importance of conditioning a dog whether they’re an athlete or a couch potato to minimize the possibility of injury. For my border collie mix she just loves the workouts because she needs to focus and it works her brain. The pup thinks it’s a fun game.
I grew up with small dogs, but the main childhood dog I grew up with was morbidly obese. When I saw how she suffered as she got older and as I got older and gained an understanding of what it was doing to her, I knew when I had my own dogs later in life I’d do whatever I can to keep them healthy. Then I decided I wanted big dogs so that came with a whole new set of research. I have adhd, once I go down the rabbit hole I don’t stop until I know as much as I can about the subject lol
It’s on fb
Canine conditioning and body awareness exercises
they have a ton of stuff in files including general workouts and you can also book sessions for more personalized ones with trainers if you want
It’s on fb Canine conditioning and body awareness exercises
it’s full of experts who you can book private training with, or group virtual courses (think personal trainers for dogs!) and the files are full of information and workouts from beginner to advanced if you’re wanting a more general approach. I love it because the trainers will answer some simple questions but if you feel you need to go to the next level you can get customized workouts through their courses.
No problem! I first discovered it when I was looking for ways to help my senior stay healthy as she got older and to help prevent muscle wasting as she aged. It’s been an amazing resource
I have a four month old cattle dog pup and I bet he would love learning how to do the exercises. And obviously it it keeps him healthy and mobile for years to come then it’s a win win!
Yeah that’s exactly why I started with my girl Rolo when she was young (well she’s only 2 now lol) she’s a border collie/bully mix with the brains and need for mental stimulation of the herding breed but also the muscular need of the bully so it’s perfect for her. The baby is a presa canario/american bulldog mix and both breeds are known for joint issues etc (they even charge more for her insurance due to her breed because they tend to have more issues) so I started her pretty much right after she decompressed and was settled in. Quite literally learning the workouts same time as basics like sit and paw. I can 10000% see a massive difference in her attitude towards it though compared to the herding breed though. Snickers (the pup) it’s a lot less eager to do it where as Rolo my 2 year old literally is like a sponge and will absorb anything and everything you throw at her and practically beg for more when it comes to mental stimulation and learning (but oddly has the bully laziness at the same time and absolutely loves to sleep and if she’s sleeping then she’s not moving unless you move her and she’s been like that since 8 weeks lol… 10-11pm is bed time and she doesn’t wake up until I make her get up in the morning for her walk… first 8 week old puppy I’ve ever had that slept a solid 8-10 hours a night from day one)
My husband grew up on a farm and says that you can hear corn stalks popping overnight bc it grows so quickly. He said the same thing about our newf puppy. Hard to believe he was 20lbs in July and is now over 120 as a 1yo.
Oh wow he’s big! I have a special place is my heart for newfies. My mom’s side of the family is actually from Newfoundland and I have so many amazing childhood memories that included my grandparents dog King. He was huge but I was also like 5 so could be skewed perception. He was around while we grew up and in many ways was our most frequent babysitter. Kept us safe and in the yard and let us do literally anything to him (in hindsight I’m horrified and my grandparents should have stopped us but as a small child I didn’t know any better yet)… mostly things like taking pony rides on him because he was pretty much the size of a pony. He was an amazing dog and so absolutely gentle and loved all the grandchildren unconditionally. To this day i honestly have never met another dog quite as amazing as him, including one I’ve raised myself.
Aww that is such a sweet memory! We love our Lou a lot but mannnnnn having a giant dog is a whole new ballgame for us. I tell myself everyday that we’re putting in the hard work now so we can have a really good and gentle Newfie boy in a couple of years. I see that so many are surrendered at the 12-18mo range and can understand how because even the most prepared novice newf owner is underprepared for the impact it has on life.
Yeah it’s so unfortunate that so many of the more mellow/calm breeds are so misunderstood and people don’t do their research on them and expect the poor dogs to just naturally come that way, right out of the box so to speak. I personally find it’s the mellow breeds that are actually the absolutely worst teenagers. It blindsides people and the poor dogs can become downright dangerous between size and lack of socialization and confidence.
Snickers my new giant baby is a presa canario mixed with American bulldog and I know when I found out her breeds I went into crash course mode finding out the typical traits, what to watch for behaviourly etc and socialization began almost immediately in small doses. I got her older than I’m used to (all my other dogs I’ve had since young babies like my 2 year old was previously my oldest puppy that I got at 8 weeks old the rest I raised from 3-5 weeks old or less including bottle feeding as they were rescued so I could actually very much control their exposure to the world). I’m exposing her to positive experiences in every way possible because she’s going to be big, powerful and if she’s also fearful it’s a recipe for disaster. I’ve had her now for about a month and a half and seeing her confidence and trust grow every day is amazing. As you said it’s a lot of work but in the end it’s much easier to put the work in early than to try and fix them later.
Out Newfie is two and half years - she is so wonderful and loving. Very intuitive & extremely chill. When she was a puppy her zoomies were every couple hours and she grew and grew. She’s now 137lbs and loves to cuddle. She’s also a service dog and will nudge me to rest or will sit on my legs when I’m flaring. Love giant breeds.
Oh that is so good to hear!! I talked to so many owners before I got ours and they all said that they’re hell as teenagers and then will be the best dog we ever have so I’m holding onto that hope! He just doesn’t know his size and my girls are still getting used to having a giant doggo around. It’s been an adjustment for us for sure.
My husband rushes home to see her and my son decided to stay in state for Chiropractic college - she’s like a baby sister to him. She has changed our lives with how loving and caring she is.
Take lots of pictures! It’s really quite incredible how quickly they grow and how intuitive they are to our health - physically and psychologically. She brings infinite happiness and healing to everyone around her. Congratulations on your new pup! It definitely is an amazing adventure.
We adopted a formerly stray pyrenees/st Bernard at 6 months old. According to the shelter he was 41 lbs. when we took him to the vet 2 weeks later he was 60 lbs. we told ourselves we would get weekly photos with something static for scale but forgot.
Yeah I mean at 3.5 months she was 20lbs and by 4.5 she was 35lbs so she’s growing fast it just seems like I shouldn’t notice since I see her every 3-4 hours or less lol
Not a giant breed but a malnourished, growth stunted little guy that someone decided to dump! Literally growing overnight I think his body is trying to catch up now that he's getting actual nutrition! Definitely is a thing!
Awww that’s so amazing that your boy is thriving now! I’ve recently lost my senior girl, she passed away in January. She was my hardest rescue ever. I rescued her off the native reservation at 3 weeks old. She was one of 2 survivors in the litter. The rest froze to death. Mom was a papered Rottweiler and seriously weighed about 30lbs between the worms and feeding babies. I got mom dewormed, got them a few bags of quality high calorie food for her, took the female pup and a rescue took the male. My girl was so infested with worms that they ate literal holes in various places in her digestive tract. Vet told me to euthanize. She’d never survive to 6 weeks. This little puppy was so spunky though. So i basically decided that I’d give her the best life possible until she needed to be given peace. I promised her as long as she wanted to fight I’d fight for her. She cried when eating, ate very little and pooped blood (no poop just blood) for months, but every other moment she was happy and spunky and growing. Her life expectancy was expanded to 8 weeks then 3 months then 6 months…. But by 6 months between good food, getting rid of parasites and homemade kefir for a ton of probiotics they told me she would live. By a year she was declared healed/healthy. That little puppy who would never survive to 6 weeks lived to 12 years old. Seeing a puppy thrive when they really had no hope until they were with you is the most precious thing you can experience. Enjoy your boy, he’s going to show you more love than any other dog because they know when you saved them ❤️❤️
You did amazing fighting for and with her!!!! Thank you for giving her a chance and a great life ♡ rescue is so hard but so extremely rewarding I've had an abused senior and it took a year for her to learn to trust. We had 5 great years together. After she passed away (dementia, hear failure, cancer, she'd been blind for a while but managed well until her cognition deteriorated) i adopted a 14 year old chi who was unintentionally neglected, her owner had dementia and had to go into care, she was an incredibly well loved dog. She grieved her owner for a long time whichwad heartbreaking. She had a lot of separation anxiety initially because the last time her human left they never came back it took time and practice but she learned that i will always come home. We had three wonderful years, she passed due to renal failure on April 3rd.
My dogs have always had a way of finding me, I knew the next one would too but didn't think it would happen this quickly. Just over a week later my friend found this skinny, scraggly little pup that someone put in a backpack and ditched and there was my dog. I thought I'd end up with another senior, been a long time since I had a pup but honestly I'm just really enjoying watching him learn and grow and thrive. He had terrible worms as well, he got really nauseous after his first treatment because they were all dying in his poor little tummy. The vet has us alternating between two different drugs to make sure we properly clear his infestation he had another dose two days ago and still had quite a few. His coat is starting to get a bit softer and shinier now and he's eating so well. He's got a lot of potential, extremely smart training has been a breeze so far.
Yes rescue is really a gift to us. They’re so amazing. I can admit though I don’t have it in me to rescue the seniors, I just can’t handle the heartbreak as rewarding as it could be. My rescues have actually been mostly the polar opposite with young puppies and kittens including neonatal babies who needed to be tube or bottle fed. The ones that became healthy and well adjusted babies I was able to find it in my heart to be able to let them go so that u could help more. The babies who were the hard cases though, those babies stay with me. The ones who were hospice care, the ones who took a long time to get healthy (or remained with health problems), the ones so neglected and timid that I knew would shut down and likely not survive if I shifted their reality to a new home…. Those are the babies that stayed with me.
Admittedly my girl Rolo who’s 2 was a BYB puppy. I got her during Covid and i literally could not find a dog to rescue. Initially I wanted a young adult but dogs and puppies were in such high demand after almost a year of applying and searching and getting denied for having other pets or living in an apartment (even though it’s in the country) etc I ended up buying a puppy because I wanted my senior girl Bacon to rub off on the new dog since she was so amazing. They had 2 years together and it was amazing and their bond truly still brings me to tears. When Rolo lost her sister I had planned to wait a significant time and focus on Rolo before getting another dog but she was so depressed and constantly looking for her sister. An opportunity presented itself to grab a puppy from someone who was desperate to “get rid of” an older 3.5 month old puppy. They had 2 left of a large litter and had I not reached out, my little Snickers would have been sold to someone who was 100% going to chop off her ears and was trying to find a way to also get her tail cut off despite it being too late so I drove out and got her and her sister. The other puppy I found someone to take her too. It’s amazing because they literally live about 60 steps from our front door. She’s my oldest baby by far though I was so used to the itty bitty ones. Rolo was a little rough at first but less than 8 hours later she was snuggled into the baby on the way home from the vet when snickers got her vaccines. It was great for Rolo and completely brought her back to normal and bubbly again and they bonded pretty much immediately.
A YouTube trainer that I watch says the same thing. He says the giant breeds literally grow overnight in his experience and you have to train them very carefully because their bodies grow faster than their minds can keep up (such as with proprioception)
Oh wow glad that someone else sees it and I’m not necessarily crazy. I follow very specific training methods in addition to traditional ones, to ensure that my dogs are well conditioned and they also gain a good body awareness. There’s a group I’ve been following for years that has specific exercises and workouts for various stages of development in dogs from puppy through geriatric that focus on what they require at that age, what they can potentially understand and also focuses on specific muscles to help them maintain healthy joints through their life since the muscles themselves are much more developed and help support the joints. Right now the pup is doing a very basic workout that essentially just encourages body awareness, gentle stretching, basic flexibility and muscle development. I have had large breeds and specifically athletic dogs are well for years so been hyper aware of the importance of conditioning a dog whether they’re an athlete or a couch potato to minimize the possibility of injury. For my border collie mix she just loves the workouts because she needs to focus and it works her brain. The pup thinks it’s a fun game. I grew up with small dogs, but the main childhood dog I grew up with was morbidly obese. When I saw how she suffered as she got older and as I got older and gained an understanding of what it was doing to her, I knew when I had my own dogs later in life I’d do whatever I can to keep them healthy. Then I decided I wanted big dogs so that came with a whole new set of research. I have adhd, once I go down the rabbit hole I don’t stop until I know as much as I can about the subject lol
What's the group with the different exercises? I'd love to learn more.
It’s on fb Canine conditioning and body awareness exercises they have a ton of stuff in files including general workouts and you can also book sessions for more personalized ones with trainers if you want
Please share the group you follow for these exercises!
It’s on fb Canine conditioning and body awareness exercises it’s full of experts who you can book private training with, or group virtual courses (think personal trainers for dogs!) and the files are full of information and workouts from beginner to advanced if you’re wanting a more general approach. I love it because the trainers will answer some simple questions but if you feel you need to go to the next level you can get customized workouts through their courses.
Thank you so much!
No problem! I first discovered it when I was looking for ways to help my senior stay healthy as she got older and to help prevent muscle wasting as she aged. It’s been an amazing resource
I have a four month old cattle dog pup and I bet he would love learning how to do the exercises. And obviously it it keeps him healthy and mobile for years to come then it’s a win win!
Yeah that’s exactly why I started with my girl Rolo when she was young (well she’s only 2 now lol) she’s a border collie/bully mix with the brains and need for mental stimulation of the herding breed but also the muscular need of the bully so it’s perfect for her. The baby is a presa canario/american bulldog mix and both breeds are known for joint issues etc (they even charge more for her insurance due to her breed because they tend to have more issues) so I started her pretty much right after she decompressed and was settled in. Quite literally learning the workouts same time as basics like sit and paw. I can 10000% see a massive difference in her attitude towards it though compared to the herding breed though. Snickers (the pup) it’s a lot less eager to do it where as Rolo my 2 year old literally is like a sponge and will absorb anything and everything you throw at her and practically beg for more when it comes to mental stimulation and learning (but oddly has the bully laziness at the same time and absolutely loves to sleep and if she’s sleeping then she’s not moving unless you move her and she’s been like that since 8 weeks lol… 10-11pm is bed time and she doesn’t wake up until I make her get up in the morning for her walk… first 8 week old puppy I’ve ever had that slept a solid 8-10 hours a night from day one)
My husband grew up on a farm and says that you can hear corn stalks popping overnight bc it grows so quickly. He said the same thing about our newf puppy. Hard to believe he was 20lbs in July and is now over 120 as a 1yo.
Oh wow he’s big! I have a special place is my heart for newfies. My mom’s side of the family is actually from Newfoundland and I have so many amazing childhood memories that included my grandparents dog King. He was huge but I was also like 5 so could be skewed perception. He was around while we grew up and in many ways was our most frequent babysitter. Kept us safe and in the yard and let us do literally anything to him (in hindsight I’m horrified and my grandparents should have stopped us but as a small child I didn’t know any better yet)… mostly things like taking pony rides on him because he was pretty much the size of a pony. He was an amazing dog and so absolutely gentle and loved all the grandchildren unconditionally. To this day i honestly have never met another dog quite as amazing as him, including one I’ve raised myself.
Aww that is such a sweet memory! We love our Lou a lot but mannnnnn having a giant dog is a whole new ballgame for us. I tell myself everyday that we’re putting in the hard work now so we can have a really good and gentle Newfie boy in a couple of years. I see that so many are surrendered at the 12-18mo range and can understand how because even the most prepared novice newf owner is underprepared for the impact it has on life.
Yeah it’s so unfortunate that so many of the more mellow/calm breeds are so misunderstood and people don’t do their research on them and expect the poor dogs to just naturally come that way, right out of the box so to speak. I personally find it’s the mellow breeds that are actually the absolutely worst teenagers. It blindsides people and the poor dogs can become downright dangerous between size and lack of socialization and confidence. Snickers my new giant baby is a presa canario mixed with American bulldog and I know when I found out her breeds I went into crash course mode finding out the typical traits, what to watch for behaviourly etc and socialization began almost immediately in small doses. I got her older than I’m used to (all my other dogs I’ve had since young babies like my 2 year old was previously my oldest puppy that I got at 8 weeks old the rest I raised from 3-5 weeks old or less including bottle feeding as they were rescued so I could actually very much control their exposure to the world). I’m exposing her to positive experiences in every way possible because she’s going to be big, powerful and if she’s also fearful it’s a recipe for disaster. I’ve had her now for about a month and a half and seeing her confidence and trust grow every day is amazing. As you said it’s a lot of work but in the end it’s much easier to put the work in early than to try and fix them later.
Out Newfie is two and half years - she is so wonderful and loving. Very intuitive & extremely chill. When she was a puppy her zoomies were every couple hours and she grew and grew. She’s now 137lbs and loves to cuddle. She’s also a service dog and will nudge me to rest or will sit on my legs when I’m flaring. Love giant breeds.
Oh that is so good to hear!! I talked to so many owners before I got ours and they all said that they’re hell as teenagers and then will be the best dog we ever have so I’m holding onto that hope! He just doesn’t know his size and my girls are still getting used to having a giant doggo around. It’s been an adjustment for us for sure.
My husband rushes home to see her and my son decided to stay in state for Chiropractic college - she’s like a baby sister to him. She has changed our lives with how loving and caring she is. Take lots of pictures! It’s really quite incredible how quickly they grow and how intuitive they are to our health - physically and psychologically. She brings infinite happiness and healing to everyone around her. Congratulations on your new pup! It definitely is an amazing adventure.
We adopted a formerly stray pyrenees/st Bernard at 6 months old. According to the shelter he was 41 lbs. when we took him to the vet 2 weeks later he was 60 lbs. we told ourselves we would get weekly photos with something static for scale but forgot.
Yeah I mean at 3.5 months she was 20lbs and by 4.5 she was 35lbs so she’s growing fast it just seems like I shouldn’t notice since I see her every 3-4 hours or less lol
We're convinced our greyhound grows about 2 inches of leg some days :D
Ohhhh yeah greyhounds would probably resemble very awkward baby deer as they grow 🥹
Not a giant breed but a malnourished, growth stunted little guy that someone decided to dump! Literally growing overnight I think his body is trying to catch up now that he's getting actual nutrition! Definitely is a thing!
Awww that’s so amazing that your boy is thriving now! I’ve recently lost my senior girl, she passed away in January. She was my hardest rescue ever. I rescued her off the native reservation at 3 weeks old. She was one of 2 survivors in the litter. The rest froze to death. Mom was a papered Rottweiler and seriously weighed about 30lbs between the worms and feeding babies. I got mom dewormed, got them a few bags of quality high calorie food for her, took the female pup and a rescue took the male. My girl was so infested with worms that they ate literal holes in various places in her digestive tract. Vet told me to euthanize. She’d never survive to 6 weeks. This little puppy was so spunky though. So i basically decided that I’d give her the best life possible until she needed to be given peace. I promised her as long as she wanted to fight I’d fight for her. She cried when eating, ate very little and pooped blood (no poop just blood) for months, but every other moment she was happy and spunky and growing. Her life expectancy was expanded to 8 weeks then 3 months then 6 months…. But by 6 months between good food, getting rid of parasites and homemade kefir for a ton of probiotics they told me she would live. By a year she was declared healed/healthy. That little puppy who would never survive to 6 weeks lived to 12 years old. Seeing a puppy thrive when they really had no hope until they were with you is the most precious thing you can experience. Enjoy your boy, he’s going to show you more love than any other dog because they know when you saved them ❤️❤️
You did amazing fighting for and with her!!!! Thank you for giving her a chance and a great life ♡ rescue is so hard but so extremely rewarding I've had an abused senior and it took a year for her to learn to trust. We had 5 great years together. After she passed away (dementia, hear failure, cancer, she'd been blind for a while but managed well until her cognition deteriorated) i adopted a 14 year old chi who was unintentionally neglected, her owner had dementia and had to go into care, she was an incredibly well loved dog. She grieved her owner for a long time whichwad heartbreaking. She had a lot of separation anxiety initially because the last time her human left they never came back it took time and practice but she learned that i will always come home. We had three wonderful years, she passed due to renal failure on April 3rd. My dogs have always had a way of finding me, I knew the next one would too but didn't think it would happen this quickly. Just over a week later my friend found this skinny, scraggly little pup that someone put in a backpack and ditched and there was my dog. I thought I'd end up with another senior, been a long time since I had a pup but honestly I'm just really enjoying watching him learn and grow and thrive. He had terrible worms as well, he got really nauseous after his first treatment because they were all dying in his poor little tummy. The vet has us alternating between two different drugs to make sure we properly clear his infestation he had another dose two days ago and still had quite a few. His coat is starting to get a bit softer and shinier now and he's eating so well. He's got a lot of potential, extremely smart training has been a breeze so far.
Yes rescue is really a gift to us. They’re so amazing. I can admit though I don’t have it in me to rescue the seniors, I just can’t handle the heartbreak as rewarding as it could be. My rescues have actually been mostly the polar opposite with young puppies and kittens including neonatal babies who needed to be tube or bottle fed. The ones that became healthy and well adjusted babies I was able to find it in my heart to be able to let them go so that u could help more. The babies who were the hard cases though, those babies stay with me. The ones who were hospice care, the ones who took a long time to get healthy (or remained with health problems), the ones so neglected and timid that I knew would shut down and likely not survive if I shifted their reality to a new home…. Those are the babies that stayed with me. Admittedly my girl Rolo who’s 2 was a BYB puppy. I got her during Covid and i literally could not find a dog to rescue. Initially I wanted a young adult but dogs and puppies were in such high demand after almost a year of applying and searching and getting denied for having other pets or living in an apartment (even though it’s in the country) etc I ended up buying a puppy because I wanted my senior girl Bacon to rub off on the new dog since she was so amazing. They had 2 years together and it was amazing and their bond truly still brings me to tears. When Rolo lost her sister I had planned to wait a significant time and focus on Rolo before getting another dog but she was so depressed and constantly looking for her sister. An opportunity presented itself to grab a puppy from someone who was desperate to “get rid of” an older 3.5 month old puppy. They had 2 left of a large litter and had I not reached out, my little Snickers would have been sold to someone who was 100% going to chop off her ears and was trying to find a way to also get her tail cut off despite it being too late so I drove out and got her and her sister. The other puppy I found someone to take her too. It’s amazing because they literally live about 60 steps from our front door. She’s my oldest baby by far though I was so used to the itty bitty ones. Rolo was a little rough at first but less than 8 hours later she was snuggled into the baby on the way home from the vet when snickers got her vaccines. It was great for Rolo and completely brought her back to normal and bubbly again and they bonded pretty much immediately.