Propioception comes from the Latin proprius, meaning “own.” Proprioception means grasping one’s position in space, including the position of the limbs relative to each other and to the body as a whole.

There are billions of sensors throughout your dog’s body that are constantly sending neurological messages to your dog’s brain. These sensors, also called proprioceptors, are present in the skin, muscles, tendons, and tissues around the joints.

As your dog moves, he should continually monitor his posture and adjust muscle activity as necessary to provide balance. Proprioceptors detect these movements and allow for rapid, unconscious, and precise execution of these behaviors. They send messages along specialized nerve tracts that contain information about the exact positions of the limbs, head and the rest of the body, as well as how fast and in what direction those body parts are moving and how much load they are carrying. so that instant corrections can be made. If your dog’s estimate of the initial position of his limb is incorrect, proprioception is crucial to correcting the movement. Therefore, if your dog makes a mistake in foot placement, the proprioception system will try to correct it instantly. It is essential in injury prevention!

At 3 weeks of age, when puppies begin to walk and explore their world, they have more neurons than they will ever have. For the proprioceptive neurological system to develop optimally, young puppies need to experience many environmental stimuli. They need to move at different speeds over different types of terrain and explore as many new objects as possible. That will help them retain all those important proprioceptors, nerves and spinal tracts.

Around 1 to 1 ½ years of age, everything is in place and fully developed, so your dog really knows what he is doing with his body, thanks to proprioception. This is one of the reasons why many professionals recommend delaying excessively intense physical training to reduce the risk of injury until the body is mature.

Propioception is super important not only for our dogs and cats in their daily lives, it helps improve their performance in any of the sports they practice.

It is as important to practice or train proprioception as to do it correctly, it is essential to lay good foundations for the exercise, always keeping in mind the muscle groups that we want to work, and always perform the exercises after a veterinary evaluation both at the muscle and osteoarticular level to rule out alterations or pathologies, and thus be able to make the correct choice of exercises or the necessary exercise modifications. Book your appointment online today.