In many parts of the world, a healthy diet and exercise is lacking. Each bring unique benefits- exercise support health in ways not found in a healthy diet. The inverse is also certainly true.

While the world homemade dog food is booming (which is fantastic!), exercise should be right up there in the list of top ways to support your dog. Exercise supports a healthy gut microbiome, healthy mental state, and is critical for preventing chronic illness. A life of exercise also supports your dog should disease manifest.

Raw Feeding Communities & Exercise

Anecdotally, those who are interested in canine nutrition tend to work harder at providing their dogs with exercise.. This is good news! There is still, as expected, a difference between how members feel about the quality of nutrition and physical activity their dog is receiving.

When asking Raw Fed & Nerdy and The Raw Feeding Community Pet Chat and The Raw Feeding Community Facebook groups (14k members, 13k members, and 86k members respectively), dog owners had to say a few things. In separate polls, members were asked if they felt their dog was getting the best nutrition possible given their circumstances (228 responded). The next poll asked if they felt their dog was getting enough physical activity to support health (515 responded).

The most common reasons given for not providing enough exercise includes:

• Not enough time (too busy)
• Owner related illness or injury
• Environment (weather)

Benefits of Regular Activity: Intertwined with Good Nutrition and Well-Being

The phrase is repeated plenty: Exercise helps promote healthy weight, prevent chronic illness (like cancer and diabetes), and supports longevity. We all wish our dogs could live longer and so many of us put an enormous effort into the nutrition of our animals.

The obvious benefit to physical activity is that it helps control weight and that by extension helps prevent the dog from being in a constant state of inflammation. A healthy weight can also control diseases that affect the joints.

However, there are benefits to physical exercise that affect nutrition- and some of these benefits cannot be unlocked to their full potential without physical activity. Some benefits are unique to physical activity alone.

Certainly exercise can be a benevolent force on gut health. With research indicating that the gut is often the center of health, exercise should be upheld as a critical component to health and longevity.

Moving more is hard! With nutrition, we are able to do a few major preps a month and are done. Moving our dogs often means moving ourselves. Make reasonable goals and try to not dwell on things that are not possible in your circumstance- a common theme in many of the comments I read.