32 Canine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation
more than half of the sporting and working
dogs exhibited this abnormality (Chris Zink,
personal communication, 2017). Having said
that, it is not uncommon to see wolves in the
wild crabbing, but only when they are trotting
at maximal speed. Thus, this gait pattern should
be considered abnormal only when seen con-
sistently at slow or moderate speeds.
Occasionally, to avoid interference, a dog will
either widen the thoracic limbs to allow the
pelvic limbs to pass between them medially or
will widen the pelvic limbs to allow each pelvic
limb to pass on the lateral side of its ipsilateral
thoracic limb. This is the most common reason
why some dogs can be seen to be moving wide
with the thoracic or pelvic limbs when trotting,
rather than single‐tracking.
Gait training/retraining
Many canine athletes are presented to the
canine sports medicine/rehabilitation profes-
sional with very subtle alterations of gait—so
subtle that they may not be defined as lame-
ness. An intimate understanding of the com-
plexities of canine gait can go a long way in
helping identify and appropriately treat early
musculoskeletal problems.
Dogs first begin to be conscious of gaiting
and of putting their feet down in an ordered
pattern at about 6 months of age, although with
training they can improve their gaits and tran-
sitions between gaits at any age. Surprisingly,
the gait with which dogs most often struggle is
the one that seems the simplest to us—the trot.
This is considered the most natural gait for
most breeds and is the gait that wild canids
such as wolves and foxes use for traveling long
distances in an energy‐efficient manner. Dogs
that consistently amble or pace in preference to
trotting should first be thoroughly examined
to rule out injuries that may make it difficult for
the dog to trot. This would include most injuries
that cause pain when bearing weight on one or
more limbs, since at a trot the dog’s weight is
never shared by the contralateral limb.
If physically sound, these patients should be
trained to trot correctly so that they under-
stand how to use this energy‐conserving gait
when appropriate. In addition, a form of the
trot gait can be used as an effective whole body
conditioning exercise. The trot is the most
effective gait for conditioning because it forces
the dog to bear all its weight on only one tho-
racic and the contralateral pelvic limb at a time,
thus requiring the dog to use the muscles on
both sides of the body equally. Dogs that have
lost condition after surgery or a long period of
lameness and rest benefit tremendously from
being retrained to trot once they have com-
pleted rehabilitation.
Training or retraining a dog to trot is a simple
matter requiring minimal equipment. It does,
however, require regular, preferably daily,
repetition over a period of several weeks to
establish or re‐establish the neuronal pathways
for this pattern of movement (Zink, 2008). What
we commonly refer to as muscle memory is, in
fact, the strengthening of existing synapses and
establishment of new synapses along the neu-
ronal pathway, and is thus more accurately
referred to as neurological memory (Zehr, 2006).
It takes 4–6 weeks of daily, brief training sessions
to teach a young dog to trot consistently, and
6–8 weeks of daily sessions to retrain a dog to
trot if it has been habitually pacing. Interestingly,
gait training has long been an established com-
ponent of training for young horses, whereas
young canine athletes are generally left to estab-
lish gait patterns on their own. With increasing
confinement and leash laws for dogs, this fre-
quently results in dogs that are unfamiliar with
even basic gait patterns.
To train or retrain a dog to trot, place eight
5-foot long, 1-inch diameter PVC poles on the
ground parallel to one another approximately
as far apart as the dog’s height measured from
the ground to the top of the scapula. The ends
of the poles can be rested on empty soda cans
that have been dented and laid on their sides or
on any other holder that will elevate them to
a height of 2 to 4 inches above the ground,
depending on the size of the dog. The cans keep
the poles from rolling out of place and provide
auditory feedback when the dog knocks a pole.
Have the client start with the dog on leash
about 20 feet from one end of the poles and
move at a moderate speed toward the poles with
the arm that is holding the leash outstretched so
that the handler runs beside the poles while the
dog trots over them as shown in Figure 2.14.
Have the handler continue about 20 feet past
the poles so that the dog practices trotting over