Dog Treadmill Training in A Few Basic Steps

Training your dog to use and enjoy his or her dog treadmill is easy and straightforward, but does involve some patience on your part.

Stage 1 - Getting Your Dog On The Treadmill

Start practice with the treadmill in the off point. Bring your dog over to the treadmill and let them sniff and feel out the machine at their convenience. Once they seem at ease, walk onto and off of the treadmill with them many (at least three) times. Delay for slightly longer each time, to make your pup realize that this is just a piece of furniture and nothing to fear. If your pup is very uncertain to follow you onto the gadget, you can use a treat to coax them forward. Simply lead them onto the treadmill with the gift and relinquish it while they have all four paws on-board. Duplicate this routine until your dog is comfortable staying on the non-moving treadmill.

Stage 2 - Walking

Once you can get to the point that your canine will stand on the treadmill without jumping out, get them on the treadmill and then start the belt at it's slowest speed. While doing this hold your canine (or his leash) and encourage them to walk. They are likely to be unsettled at first, but do your best to keep them on the treadmill, not letting them off until they are composedly walking for 10 seconds or so. As soon as you have 10 seconds of success, praise and treat the dog, then let them off.

Take a break for a few minutes, doing another fun activity such as playing fetch or even giving your dog a belly rub. Anything they enjoy!

Now repeat the entire procedure, this time for a 20 second treadmill walk. Keep incrementally increasing the time until the pup is relaxed walking for a few minutes at a time.

Stage 3 - Jogging

If you have your pup agreeably pacing at a slow pace for several minutes, the hard part is over! Now simply raise the speed gradually to a pace where your canine is comfortably jogging. You can encourage them by standing in front of the treadmill and praising.

As the days go by, it might help to keep a journal of the current speed and range, so you are sure to increment either determinant steadily. Just like for human runners and walkers, going too far or too fast when your muscles are not used to it can result in injury.

Things to Remember

Never leave your canine all alone on the dog treadmill!

Take your time. If your dog is really uncertain about the experience, go extremely slowly and make sure they are as comfortable as possible before you move on to the next step.