Is your dog not walking as far as they used to? Have you noticed that their backend has gotten skinnier than their front? Medical problems, aging, and not enough fitness can cause decreased strength in your dog’s hind legs. Once your veterinarian diagnoses what is causing your dog’s problems, your dog may benefit from strengthening their hind legs. . Doing so could help maintain mobility, prevent injuries, support injury recovery, and ensure your dog has good quality of life as they age into their golden years.
What Can Cause Loss of Back Leg Strength in Dogs?
If you notice your dog’s legs shaking, decreased mobility, limping, paw dragging, reluctance to go for walks, or loss of muscle tone, you need to visit your veterinarian for a formal diagnosis. While this can happen due to common aging issues, such as osteoarthritis, back leg issues can indicate a more serious illness or injury
Your dog’s back legs can start to lose muscle tone due to various factors.
- Osteoarthritis (OA) pain
- Lack of activity due to injury, illness recovery, or not enough exercise
- Intervertebral Disc Disease (IVDD) or other spinal issues
- Diseases affecting the nervous system, such as degenerative myelopathy
The signs of backend weakness are similar for many of these causes, which is why it’s essential to work with your veterinarian for a diagnosis. Your veterinarian will help you pursue the correct treatment course, whether pain management, surgery, or rehabilitation, with a certified professional.
How To Strengthen Your Dog’s Back Legs
There are a variety of ways to strengthen a dog’s hind legs. Your veterinarian or rehab professional can help you choose what’s right for your pup.
Connect with a Canine Rehabilitation Professional
Your dog will have unique needs depending on their diagnosis and treatment plan. Before starting at-home exercises, you should first get a customized rehab or fitness plan from a specialized professional. This will help prevent further injury or overworking your dog’s body.
Ask your veterinarian for a referral to a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Specialist (CCRT), Certified Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner (CCRP), or Certified Canine Fitness Trainer (CCFT), depending on your dog’s diagnosis.
Be Sure Your Dog Is at Their Ideal Body Weight
The 2022 Pet Obesity Prevalence Survey indicated that 59% of dogs were overweight or obese1. When dogs carry excess weight, it increases the chances of injury, makes it more difficult for them to be mobile, and causes inflammation within their body. All these factors weaken the muscles and add to OA pain, most notably in their back legs.
Maintaining their ideal weight will help them be more active and decrease pain and inflammation, allowing them to increase strength in their back legs. Consult with your veterinarian on your dog’s ideal body weight and how to safely achieve it.
Provide Adequate Nutrition
To keep a dog’s muscles strong and healthy, they need optimal nutrition. While all dogs do get a certain amount of muscle loss as they age, nutrition may help support muscle mass. Muscle mass and growth require an adequate amount of protein. They also need other nutrients, such as amino acids, fats, and carbohydrates, to make use of that protein.
Senior dogs have an increased protein requirement as compared to adult dogs2. It’s critical to ensure you’re meeting your dog’s protein needs to maintain their muscle mass. Feeding a diet that contains a high-quality and easily digestible protein source and an effective blend of carbohydrates and fats will help them build and maintain muscle mass to strengthen their legs.
Go on Regular Walks With Your Dog
Becoming more active and staying active is important for dogs with weak backends. Once cleared by your veterinarian, start taking short walks with your dog to strengthen their back legs. Watch your dog for signs of fatigue, such as slowing down, refusing to walk, or leg tremors.
As your dog’s legs get stronger, start to add more time to the walks or consider walking up hills or on sand to add another dimension to muscle strengthening. You can even change things up a bit and try swimming or walking in a shallow pool. It’s low-impact and effective. Just be sure your dog is supervised and wearing a life vest. They should also be able to exit the water easily if they get tired.
Practice Canine Conditioning and Strengthening Exercises
A rehab or fitness professional can teach you how to properly practice conditioning and strengthening exercises. Proper alignment of your dog’s body and technique is crucial to effective and safe exercises. Pain management may be needed prior to starting these.
Exercises they may recommend include:
Sit to Stand
Your rehab professional will teach you how to lure your dog with a treat from what’s called a tuck sit to kick back stand. This is where your dog moves between positions without moving their front feet and keeps their hips and spine in alignment. This exercise helps dogs with back leg awareness and intentional movement. As they get better at this exercise, you can also start practicing it out and about while on walks.
Down to Stand
Similar to the sit to stand, you can isolate specific muscle groups by teaching a controlled fold back down with no movement in the feet and keeping hips and spine aligned. Then, your dog pushes up smoothly into a stand with their back leg muscles. Make sure your dog is in a sphinx-like down, with no roll of the hips.
Weight Shifting
Strengthening your dog’s back legs can be as simple as having them practice balance exercises. One option is the three-legged stand. You can ask your dog to give you a front paw while they’re standing. Give them a treat for letting you gently hold their paw. This shifts their weight to their other three legs, helping them build stamina and balance. Do this for just a few seconds at a time, based on your rehabilitation professional’s treatment plan, then switch to the other paws.
Paws Up
You can teach your dog to place their front feet up on a slightly raised platform or target. This trick is beneficial for a variety of reasons, but it also builds strength in your dog’s core and back legs. Have them hold the position for a few seconds before tossing a treat for them away from the platform.
As your dog gets stronger, you can start adding in back foot movement to build a pivot trick, where your dog keeps their front paws on the target but swings their backend around.
Before starting any at-home fitness or rehab exercises, connect with your veterinarian to identify the cause of your dog’s backend weakness. Knowing the “why” goes a long way in helping your dog get stronger and stay mobile. Keeping your dog strong helps relieve pain and greatly increases their quality of life as they age.
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- 2022 US Pet Obesity Prevalence Survey. Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. https://www.petobesityprevention.org/2022. Accessed February 7, 2024.
- Nutrition Requirements of Senior Pets. Improve Veterinary Practice. https://www.veterinary-practice.com/article/nutrition-requirements-of-senior-pets. Accessed February 7, 2024.
