Do you ever watch your dog walk at a slow pace?

If not, I highly recommend it!

And the reason, that I recommend this is because if you know how your dog normally walks at a slow pace, you will most likely recognize movement irregularity much faster.

The fact is, lameness and irregular movement patterns often become most visible when a dog moves very slowly. I can’t even count how many dog owners have come to me with a dog where they’ve noticed that something seems off, but still say the dog is not lame. They’ve walked and observed their dog from every angle in trot or normal walk, but haven’t been able to spot anything unusual.

How frustrating is it to feel that something is wrong, yet find it so hard to see—and even harder to evaluate how serious it is! Not all professionals perform detailed gait analyses, or have the experience to detect subtle issues, and small irregularities are easy to miss.

If you teach your dog to walk beside you—straight ahead and as slowly as it can manage without stopping—you’ll also have made a great preparation for future check-ups. This is because it’s difficult for professionals to evaluate a dog that isn’t able to show its natural gait at the right pace. On top of that, smaller irregularities can be tricky for a therapist to detect, as dogs often get more excited or stressed during examinations. This can make subtle signs even harder to spot compared to when the dog is calm in its normal environment.

So, my tip for you is to regularly observe your own dog walking at a slow pace (someone else may need to hold the leash, or you could film it, since it’s difficult to both handle the leash and observe closely at the same time). Teach your dog to walk slowly beside you and straight ahead :-)