Arthritis and Joint Disease Management - Weight and Exercise Control

Animals require regular exercise to keep their joints moving (this is important for joint health) and to help weight control – however take care to prevent excessive exercise, as too much will have a negative effect and could increase pain. Ideal levels of exercise may be as short 10-15 minutes, but can be up to 25 mins, of controlled exercise 2-3x per day (slow and steady leash walks, no stairs/steps). This is the ideal level to aim for but don’t worry if in reality it means it’s not possible. 

With any level of exercise – you will need to assess this day-by-day depending on how well your pet coped with the activity. The worst forms of exercise are running hard and twisting, navigating steps and stairs and jumping up or down. This is really focussing more on the “ideal” as an aim/target to focus on, but in reality it will be more about understanding what aspects of life are able to be managed to help the joints. Even the duration of exercise (10minutes) can be quite short really – you may want to use this as a guide for when there is more pain, and when mobility seems a little better you can then increase the length and frequency of exercise. 

Ultimately, as you increase the duration and frequency of exercise, if you feel this is not tolerated, you just simply pull it back a level. If you were to simply pick an average level of activity, this would be controlled exercise for a 15 minute duration, twice daily. Swimming is an ideal form of exercise, otherwise gentle lead walks or slow paced walks are fine. Swimming sessions can be for 10 minutes. 

Bodyweight will always need to be tightly regulated to prevent any obesity, even mild, as this will create extra force on the joints. It will be wise to focus on a long term, gradual weight loss program.