Hi Natalie
No. I have no small children here. And I don't think asking that is having a go I do agree though that having toddlers/babies would limit the amount I could do. Like it does you at the moment .

Karen

Hi Natalie,

Only one child in my house and that is my partner Kyle lol. Seriously I dont have and dont want any children but I can see how they would affect (amogst other things ) getting in the way of routine but again its priorities and obviously the children are miles more important than the dogs at the end of the day.

It is a reasonable question though, never thought you were having a go!

Take Care
Laura

Hi Laura.

I will give it a go then I wil have to loan a bike from my niece first to see if it is worth it. Seems reasonable though. I will try and see what happens how long did it take before you saw an improvement
in her?

Karen

well its only another 2 years so its not to long now

Hi Kazz,

The results I noticed pretty quickly believe it or not in just a fortnight I began to notice her tighten up quite a bit. In the pic above I had only been biking her for 3 weeks and she had definitely improved although she has always been fairly lean looking, the slowest we go is at a trot but I alternate the pace every while. The longest I have been out on the bike is almost an hour and that seems to be just about enough, I am aware that I can probably push her too much so I have been told by somebody who has conditioned dogs for years that the slower they get in shape the longer it is likely to last and I am trying to go by this approach.

Food also plays a big part (probably the most imporant) in her physical shape though, both Cassy and Kip get 50g of dry food (Burns) each day with some garlic, cod liver oil and on alternative days a tin of tuna/sardines or some minced beef. It doesn’t sound or look like much but they are both healthy with bright eyes and a great coat, rarely get ill and are a good weight, I think most of the time if you get the feeding right its easy from then on as I am sure you will know. I did have them on James Wellbeloved but when Cassy had a skin problem I went back to a bland diet of rice and chicken to try and see if it was a food allergy and eliminate it if so. I then found out a few stories about JWB and how they had been taken over by pedigree so I changed their food to the Burns which they seem to be doing very well on.

Oh another activity which really helps get them nice and muscly (stole this from another site) is to throw a tennis ball or frisbee uphill getting the dog to fetch and retrieve, it really does work wonders too. I would really advise you on taking the bike out its definitely worth it and you know how much Staffords thrive on exercise of any kind, the only thing is if you do start with a rope make sure you have walked her quite a bit at the side of the bike as I do know of a few accidents where people have seriously damaged the dog by running over a leg etc.

Sorry its so long peeps, I have a tendency to rabbit on sometimes.

Laura

well ickle max has half an hour at lunchtime where i drive him somewhere exciting with water or forests or similar although i say half an hour he spends most of that time trying to work out a way of catching those pesky ducks that sit in the middle of the lake!! then he gets half an hour road walking round the block early evening. I am really looking forward to when he is a big boy and we can go out for longer. I have four children but they are all at school so we have nice walks in the day and i am lucky that my hubby is always home by 5pm so kids have the choice at whether to come or not in the evening and he is only 4months and the novelty has already worn off for two of the kids!! at weekends we do family walks and max loves those!!!!