Laurie's Blogs.

This blog contains a couple of reviews of articles as found in the Sept-Oct 2012 Four Leg Newsletter.  There really hasn’t been much done with dogs in regards to clinical fitness testing... so these two articles really fascinate me... and get me thinking!

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Swimmer RA, Rozanski EA. Evaluation of the 6 minute walk test (6MWT) in pet dogs.  J Vet Intern Med.  2011 March; 25(2): 405–406.

69 healthy dogs & 6 dogs with cardiopulmonary disease took part. Physical characteristics of the dogs, including age, leg length, body condition score and weight were recorded

Test:   Dogs walked for 6 minutes in a hallway and the distance covered was measured.

Healthy dogs walked 522.7± 52.4 meters, while sick dogs (n=6) walked 384.8± 41.0 meters (P < 0.001). There was low(r=0.13) to moderate (r=0.27) correlation in the healthy dogs between physical characteristics and distances walked.

Boddy KN, Roche BM, Schwartz DS et al.  Evaluation of the six-minute walk test in dogs. Am J Vet Res. 2004 Mar: 65(3): 311–313.

16 young mature male hound-crossbred dogs.  Test:  Hallway walking.  Dog set its own pace.  Heart rate was recoded and mean systemic arterial pressure

Dogs with CHF had a significant increase in resting HR, significant decrease in MAP, and a significant decrease in the distance walked in 6 minutes. The MAP increased slightly after exercise during the control period but decreased slightly after exercise during the CHF period. Fractional shortening decreased significantly when dogs had CHF.

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So question to you:  Have any of you found articles pertaining to fitness testing for dogs (clinically - preferably)?  Another area for research I think!!

Cheers!

Laurie

Laurie@Fourleg.com