Leave it to Pinterest to motivate me to sneak a lunchtime workout into my day. After browsing past Fitness-related pins on my Pinterest boards, FitSugar’s Anywhere Workout caught my eye.
The workout includes a mini circuit for every day of the week but Sunday, but I combined all of the mini circuits into one giant circuit workout and simply did one circuit right after the other. The workout ended up taking me about 25 minutes and had my abs burning. Lots of bicycle crunches and planks!
It felt good to work up a sweat and complete my workout for the day in less than 30 minutes.
I ended up incorporating a few exercises that FitSugar didn’t detail in their workout, including some Frisbee throws, a round of tug-o-war and two rounds of the hand game.
Can you tell someone wanted to be involved in today’s workout?
If only I could bottle up that energy and sell it to the masses!
Speaking of dogs and their energy levels, I drove by Sadie’s vet’s office the other day and they had a sign up that said they’re offering senior discounts to dogs over the age of six. (Isn’t that only 42 years old in human years!?)
While I know many will appreciate the discount, I think our vet probably sent more than one dog owner into an emotional downward spiral, thinking that their young dog is now a “senior.”
Sadie will be five years old in January and is getting more and more white hairs. We call them her “highlights” to soften the fact that they’re signs of aging.
While she’s no longer a puppy, her energy level is still out of control. I’ve heard from other vizsla owners that vizslas don’t calm down until they’re around 10 years old, which is fine by me. I’m grateful for Sadie’s nuttiness if it means she is feelin’ good!
Lunch
Once I finished my workout for the day and took a quick shower, it was time for lunch.
My bowl included chicken leftover from last night’s dinner, broccoli, cauliflower and avocado.
Plus two coconut butterscotch walnut oatmeal cookies for dessert!
I made the cookies for a freelance project on Friday last week and planned to bring them to Sarasota with me to share over the weekend but completely forgot. Now we have an excessive amount of cookies to eat before they go bad or we will be forced to freeze them.
How awful, I know. 
Question of the Afternoon
- If you’ve owned a dog that has reached old age in the past, when did you notice their energy levels start to change?
Please tell me that your dog’s energy levels never changed and that your dog is happily living today at the age of 52.
Of Possible Interest
- 31 Delicious High-Fiber Snacks (Greatist.com)
- 7 Reasons to Try Interval Training (FitSugar.com)
- Best 2012 Book Sequels & Top Anticipated Reads of 2013 (ReadBreatheRelax.com)
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Our almost-12-yr-old lab still has the energy of a pup. Our 6 year old lab may never settle down!
Gotta love ’em everyday.
My family had a vizla that lived to be 12 (maybe 13? dog years 84??), and she was running laps around the driveway well into her senior years. She never slowed down!!
Our mutt is nine- I’m still waiting for the day she’s not able to one hop on to our counters and see what she might want from our food cabinet (and she’s like a 55lb dog).
Our boston is seven and he still acts like a crazy puppy when it comes to playing!
They both have white hairs to show that they are aging but they both have a young heart and spirit!
My furry kiddo is 6.5! I guess she’s on the downward slope! 🙂
My sweet dachshund pup turned 6 in June. She is gracefully growing old…just a bit of grey hair around her snout! Very Meryl Streep-esque. She’s such a crazy nut…I won’t even allow myself to think of her as old! Must find a way for dogs to live forever!
Unfortunately, I have a beautiful ten year old yellow lab that’s probably nearing the end of her entirely too short life. I think I noticed the drop in energy around year 7 or 8, probably.
I think since some of the large breeds don’t live beyond 8 or 9 years (think Irish Wolfhounds for example) – they set their “senior” age the way they did. My little guy is going on 16 – he can’t hear anymore but I still talk to him like he can. They just aren’t around long enough – so spoil them and give them plenty of love!
Take care,
Mo
i don’t have a dog, but i do hope that my energy levels stay high as i age!
My dog Bella is a Catahoula Leopard dog is 2 and from we have learned they never lose their boundless energy. This is the reason she goes to puppy daycare once a week. So my husband and I can rest! 🙂
Out lab showed signs of progressive age onset of atrophy at 6 and it has progressed rapidly with each year. Our King Charles, Sassey passed two weeks ago at age 7 due to compendium health conditions. Both our dogs were breeders we saved from a life of perpetual breeding at 5; however, their progressive atrophy is very much related to the stress that continuous breeding has on a dog’s life expectancy. I always think about average age of life expectancy for the breed to make my comparisons for the breed. Sassey’s was 10 so she was under and Daisy’s is 10 so she is over by 1 year with promises of hanging on and we are so blessed for every day god gives us with her and we are comforted by the wonderful life we gave Sassey.
Both our dogs were permanent-puppies (energy levels to a crazy degree) up until the last six months to a year of their life.
We lost our youngest dog last year to rapid heart and kidney failure. He was 14 (he’s a small terrier). It still makes me really sad…truly the worst loss I’ve dealt with, including any humans! Dogs are the best. 🙁
My golden is 10 he slowed down In the past year or two . Can’t imagine my life without him
We have a 9 year old lab, Lilly. She has yet to calm down. While she can’t play for as long, she wants to play ball 9835863701388763703 times a day. If it were up to her, she would play all day every day. While I don’t know about vizslas, as long as she has that energy enjoy it!!
Last year, she got a lump on her side and was diagnosed with terminal cancer. They gave her 8 months to live. That was 20 months ago. She’s still going strong and plays ball every day! We think no one told her she was sick. So my theory is that if you don’t tell Sadie that she’s getting old(er), she’ll always act young. 🙂
mine started to calm down between the ages of 6 and 8, she still has her moments now and again 🙂
My Boston is 10 years old(with cancer) and that dog still has more energy than he knows what to do with!!! Give him a backyard and a ball and that dog will chase it for HOURS, not kidding. I am hoping he kicks the cancers butt and continues in his friskiness for years to come!!!
Lovely puppy! My dog Molly is still a puppy -seems like she will have that ‘puppy energy’ forever! Inspires me to go running/working out with her though! x
My Jasmine lived until she was 13 years old, and her energy started to go down around 11 years. Even then, I think it was mostly because she started getting arthritis, making it hard to jump around like she used to, and her vision started failing, so she couldn’t see where she was running anymore 🙁
My little mixie just turned 8 but she still acts like she’s about 6 months old. I can’t imagine her ever getting old and slowing down…
My Golden was 13 when she passed away from lymphoma, but until the last few weeks she was still as sweet and playful as ever. I actually felt guilty that I had taken her for jogs up until a few weeks before, but honestly one guilty look as I walked out the door and I melted. She showed little to no signs ahead of time and everything happened so fast. 6 seems like still a baby to me and I think you will have a lot of years of play to look forward to.
I’ve been reading your blog for a couple weeks now and I’m hooked! I’ve read a number of your old posts too. I noticed today that over the past couple weeks I’ve been eating better and including more raw veggies. I don’t think it’s a coincidence, so THANK YOU! 🙂
My family’s sweetheart of a dog didn’t slow down until she was about thirteen years old. And then, she simply became even more of a sweetheart for the last two years of her life. Now the current little guy? He’s still a ball of energy at five years!
You have inspired me to want a vizsla so very badly. I probably need to wait about six more years before I’ll have time, money, and space for a dog… but Sadie is so beautiful that I already have my heart set on a vizsla.
I grew up with a standard poodle at home and he’s nine or ten years old now. We noticed him slowing down at around seven or eight, but people at the dog park still think he’s puppy. (My mom used to tell people that he was 9 and they would ask “9 months”?) He’s showing signs of aging like mild arthritis and (recently) a torn ACL, but he still has so much energy that my parents are giving him the ACL repair surgery so that he can continue to run.
I called my dog Noah “Puppy” his whole life. He was a mutt we got from the pound. I don’t think I would say he was ever as energetic as some dogs are, but he played and acted like a puppy forever. It wasn’t until he was 13-14 years old that he really started settling down and taking lots of naps. Even then he would have about one or two spurts of energy during the day where he would run around and play for a few minutes…usually when someone came to the door.
Hha, if dogs are seniors at 42..what does that mean for humans?! Some old duckies are going to be stressing 😉
haha Sadie does look like she’s constantly overflowing with energy! Awww thinking of pets getting old is so so sad! We have a cat and he’s 8 and uhhhh overweight. 🙁 But he still acts like a needy baby! lol
I have a soon to be 7 year old German shorthair pointer named Lucy…Ive noticed by following your blog that Lucy shares many of the same cute and crazy qualities that Sadie has haha! She too has been showing new “highlights”. Although she still is as spunky as ever! I think it’s safe to say we have many more high energy years ahead of us! Amen to that!! “)
Our old black lab Indy was freakin’ INSANE till he was about 9. No amount of obedience classes could undo what growing up in a house of preteen boys did. He was super mellow for the last four years of his life though! And our new yellow lab Miss Maggie is 6 and still crazy. Keeps them fun though!
My fur baby is a 10 yrs old boxer mix. She is still full of energy and wears me and my husband out! She has mellowed a bit, but people still refer to her as puppy 🙂 Sounds a lot like your Sadie!
awww sadie!!!
we just had the convo last night about how dogs should just live foreever and its not fair! 🙁
I have had 2 dogs that have gotten pretty old (both german shorthaired pointers). The first one lived to be 16 and she got arthiritis and was pretty mellow.
The last one, she lived to 13 and actually was rpetty dang energetic and on it most of her life. she started toreally calm down some when she hit 10 i guess but would still happily trot along on walks and swim and stuff!
I have a mini american eskimo that is 5.5 y/o and he still acts the way he did at 2. He brings toys to my feet and is constantly trying to play all day everyday. When that changes I will know he’s getting old :-/
My dogs energy level began to change about year 8. She is a smaller/medium sized dog. She is about 10 now and is what we call slow. She loves napping more than anything else besides food. Have a great day. ^_^
Princess, our lab, probably slowed down a bit when she was around 10, but only because of her arthritis I think. She still acted like breakfast was Disney World every morning though.
She did perk up a little bit after she had a giant tumor removed. She was almost 14 then and she snuck into my room about a week before my wedding and ate half a bag of Hershey kisses for the favors, wrappers and all.
Buffy’s around 13 now and she has arthritis so bad that her legs give out sometimes. She’ll still run around the backyard though, dragging her limp hind legs behind her.
Sadie always has the cutest [and hilarious] pictures! Charlie, our pup [aka furry son], will be 1 this week, I *cannot* believe it- time has flown! He has more energy than I can even begin to describe… Example, every evening after dinner he goes outside to do his business and when he comes back in he runs laps, literally circles, around our apartment [and occasionally runs into walls]!!! We started sending him to camp a couple of times a week and thankfully those evenings he is a pooped pup!
Dogs range so much in ages! Huge dogs like Great Danes and Newfies typically only live to be around 7 or 8 so I can see why they start the senior discount so young. But 6 probably isn’t even middle aged for little dogs!
Actually I’m wrong because all pets live forever and never die. Yep, I like that better.
My family got a miniature poodle when I was 9 years old and he quickly became my dog (probably bc I saved him more times than I can count from my little brother … who was 2) … I’m turning 21 in Feb and he still spins in circles and jumps up and down when I pick up his toys. The only thing different is I’m constantly moving and he would follow me room to room and now he lays on the back of the couch and watches me like he’s thinking, “eh someday you’ll learn to be still.”
I know we’re reaching the end of his life but I’ve grown up with him so I can’t even stand to think about him dying. So in short his energy are mostly the same which is just fine with me.
Those mini circuits look FUN! Bailey always tries to get involved in our workouts…unless it’s on the treadmill — which he seems VERY nervous around. ha ha.
Had a similar reaction to yours, at our vet last week. Bailey went in for his 2 year appointment, and they wrote on his chart that he was 2 in dog years and 20 in people years! We were thinking the traditional 1:7 ratio, but, apparently, over 50 pounds that ratio gets larger and larger. *sad face*. He’s still ALL puppy to us!
My beagle is 11 and does not act like a senior dog at all. Other than her white fur, you wouldn’t know she was older. She’s as crafty as they come and people are always surprised to find out her age.