Can my dog use a treadmill safely? What are other exercise options?

Question

As now days vet doctor says that dog should excercise to keep his body fit so will it be safe if i make my dog run in treadmill to keep his body fit and take him also on walk after making hin run on treadmill for 1 hour? Or please tell me how i should perform different excercises and what other excercises are available and please tell me the name of blood test tbag shows his heart condition. Pet's info: Dog | German Shepherd | Male | unneutered | 1 year and 9 months old

Jenna Beyer, DVM, MBA, cVMA · Accepted Answer

I do not recommend using a treadmill for exercise. It is easy for a dog to step off of the path and Bruno could seriously harm himself. Any new exercise needs to slowly worked up to, I would not expect Bruno to be able to start running for an hour straight! Going for walks is a great form of exercise, but if he needs more and you are not able to run with him, you can train him to fetch or have a friend or dogwalker take him out for additional exercise. There is only one blood test that relates to the heart that I am aware of. It is called proBNP and helps vets differentiate primary heart disease from primary lung disease, this is often used in cases of dogs in Congestive Heart Failure. It would not be an appropriate screening test for Bruno. Other ways of monitoring for heart disease would include listening for a murmur, checking pulse and blood pressure, ECG, thoracic x-rays, and echocardiogram (ultrasound of the heart).

Can my dog use a treadmill safely? What are other exercise options?

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