Carpet mills and conditioning

[bahamutt99]

Am I working against myself using a carpet mill while trying to bring my girl's weight down? She's got an extra pound hanging on which I was trying to get her to shed for the pulls. Does increase in muscle mass translate to weight gain?

[sedaliapitbulls]

in theory mussle weighs more than fat but really it dosn,t. You get more fat than you do mussle so when you gain mussle you dont gain more than the fat you can carry so it really evens out. If you are wanting to cut the weight down and it isn,t working by running on the mill or hand walking her I hate to say it but you might need to cut her food a little.

[bahamutt99]

I've already started managing her food, and usually by now it would've done the trick. I'm a bit out of luck because I can't do some of the exercises with her that I used to be able to do. For example, roadwork is tricky since there's nothing around here but paved roads (which bothers one of her legs). Playing in the hose which is great exercise tends to do the same thing.

[Pipbull]

What's wrong with her leg?

[bahamutt99]

What's wrong with her leg?
Don't know for sure. The vet manipulated it and seems to have ruled out an ACL injury. We haven't had rads done yet. Certain exercises seem to bother her, though. Too much walking on concrete, she'll lay down for a nap, wake up limping. Same thing happened last time I let her play in the hose. On the other hand, she can weight pull and run agility to her heart's content and never be bothered. I'm not going to pretend that I understand what's going on, just have to roll with it.

[MoPulldogs]

Lindasy,
It has been my experience (20yrs+) that when you start a dog on a conditioning program and you are religoius about it...with the 1st few weeks our dogs will actually gain weight...after that they will usually start coming down. You will see the dog taking shape before you actually will see any weight dropping off....;)

[bahamutt99]

That figures. So I should've started this program back in Feruary or something. LOL! I've only been really cracking on her for a few weeks now, which in the past was all it took to shave a little bit off. I'll be done with the serious part of weight pull by the time she loses the weight. I hope to have her UWPCH by the time this weekend is over, and then we're working on agility and obedience. Ah... No biggie, I guess. She can use some slimming down for the summer agility trials, too. :)