08/08/2026
Please take the time to read and think about this.
Sorry long (but hopefully helpful) post! Now if you know me well, you will know I’m always going on about the impact slippery floors have on our dog’s joints, muscular and myofascial health. In Winter I post about muddy or frosty walks and how they have a similar impact. Come Summer and beach days it’s dry sand I’m talking about! What I haven’t spoken about however is the dry, dusty (almost non existent) grass that we currently have. Grass generally is a pretty good surface. It’s softer than concrete and green lush grass gives traction. However this dry grass (can you guess what’s coming …) is another slippery surface for our dogs to contend with and that we as their guardians, need to be aware of. Slippery surfaces alter biomechanics. Dogs rely on claw grip and paw pad friction and with the ground as it is, they don’t have that so they lose traction. With this, the following happens. Your dog’s load becomes unevenly distributed and the joints and muscles have to constantly adjust. This leads to muscles that over compensate and take on a role that they’re just not designed to do. This then leads on to stress on the joints. Those small sometimes barely noticeable micro slips have an often underestimated impact on our dogs. Each micro slip is absorbed by the joints and each one affects the myofascial and muscular connections. Over time, these micro slips become repetitive leading to muscular fatigue and pain. Now we can’t (sadly) change the ground but we can be aware of what we ask our dogs to do. Let’s not encourage chasing and sudden turning/twisting movements (I can’t believe how many ball chuckers I’m still seeing 🤦🏼♀️) Let’s not over exercise/walk our dogs and let’s not encourage them to jump on and off things. Instead let’s encourage some more slow controlled movement (post coming on that soon.) Let’s encourage some bonding, some connecting, some exploring, some enrichment, some sniffing and all those other natural functional movements and behaviours. Please share this post to raise awareness and as always, any questions just DM me 🐾
