Cult of Fitness Has Dogs on the Run

Lauren Sands runs, swims and hikes. So does her dog, Samson.

Here’s his schedule: On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he runs four miles with his owner. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he hikes--with his fitness trainer. Weekends find the 15-month-old chocolate Labrador bodysurfing in the ocean or swimming in Sands’ mother-in-law’s outdoor pool.

“If we didn’t make sure he gets out every day,” said Sands, who lives in Pacific Palisades, “we would feel really guilty.”

Dogs have always been pampered and coddled: Iditarod sled dogs are conditioned as elite athletes; Queen Elizabeth’s Corgis sup from silver dishes. But now upper-middle-class dogs are being initiated into the cult of fitness, working out with the help of canine fitness camps, pricey trainers, games of extreme fetch, and bowls of glycogen-replacing health drinks.

In Southern California’s postmillennial society, where fitness has become a nearly universal religion, the quest for a perfect body is going to the dogs.

Some devoted owners act as their dogs’ personal trainers, taking them hiking and swimming. But many among the ranks of overworked professionals, low on time yet flush with money and guilt, are turning to hired help.

Joining the ranks of gardeners, housekeepers and nannies who tend to chores and care for children are professional canine fitness trainers, the latest group to chase after the $20 billion or so that Americans spend on their pets each year.

It turns out that dogs need almost none of this. Most require only “exercise a couple times a week--running through the park, playing ball, running with their owners,” said Kurt Matushek, a veterinarian with the American Veterinary Medical Assn.

That, however, is not enough for many dog owners.

In less than a decade, dog walking, at least in Los Angeles, has evolved from a quirky day job into a lucrative business with growing client lists. Such services spawned full-time doggie day-care centers--a score of them in Los Angeles--which begat dog fitness programs. Whether the exercise is dispensed on an urban ranch or on a canyon trail, the programs promise to shape up your dog’s physique and whittle down your bank account by as much as $40 a day.

The practice has flourished in Los Angeles, where hills abound for dog hiking and clients (human, not canine) are obsessed with their own physicality. Mirroring their own exercise obsession, some humans tend to go overboard.

At the Loved Dog Co. in West Los Angeles, dogs are led up and down slides and through tunnels and then put through the paces of tag and fetch. On most mornings in the Hollywood Hills, Nicole Phillips leads a dozen subjects through her doggie aerobics class, a vigorous walk up and down hilly paths for an hour and a half. At Canyon View Training Ranch in Topanga Canyon, canines learn agility by picking their way through an obstacle course.

Animal behaviorist Shelby Marlo, who trains the dogs of Minnie Driver, Steven Spielberg and Laura Dern, hires former pro soccer players to take groups of dogs on what she calls mountain socialization hikes.

“In some cases, it’s a ridiculous, self-indulgent, obnoxious practice,” said Michael Chill, who is trained as a wolf behaviorist but has worked for 30 years as a dog trainer. (Even in Los Angeles, there is little call for a wolf trainer.) On the other hand, Chill concedes, dogs don’t want to spend their entire lives lying on the sofa pretending to watch TV with you.

A day at Puppy Pals in Topanga Canyon, described as a dog fitness ranch, starts with instructors collecting their canine clients early. At the sound of the arriving van, dogs bolt out their doggie doors to greet their trainers.

The van ferries its charges into local canyons, where the dogs spend the next five hours running up and down hills. Then they are returned, exhausted. Their paws are hosed down and dried off by the trainer, who also leaves a note for the owner.

“Hi, Mom and Dad,” a typical missive reads. “I had a great time today. I went for a hike, and then I ran in the stream with my friends Chester and Sylvia. We played ball and had so much fun.”

Spending thousands of dollars a year on pets is a dog-bites-man story in a country where people own about 53 million dogs. And it is not new that people anthropomorphize dogs. (Arguably, we consider them better than human--always loyal, protective and kind, unlikely to love you, then leave you.)

What’s new is believing that dogs, like humans, need special foods, day care and cardiovascular workouts. The growth of pet care and fitness routines, said University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist Aaron Katcher, is one more sign that the boundary between people and animals is being blurred.

It’s particularly blurred when owners treat their dogs like children. But dog trainers have long known that.

“These are your fur children,” said Lynn Adams, founder of Puppy Pals. She, like many proprietors in the dog fitness industry, rarely utters the word “dog,” preferring “babies,” “pals” and other words from the preschool lexicon.

Afternoons at the Loved Dog Co. are, in fact, a lot like preschool. Dogs wait to go home near a gated door, peering through their playroom window into the parking lot. Whenever an owner arrives, the dogs wag their tails beseechingly or joyfully, depending on whether they recognize their owner.

“Typically, people used to live out various dreams and hopes through their children,” said Jill Stein, who directs the LeRoy Neiman Center for the Study of American Society and Culture at UCLA. “Those who are childless may be putting the same kind of energy into their pets.”

Some dog owners agree--and they’re unapologetic. “I am absolutely not offended by the idea that I am substituting dogs for kids,” said Dina Platius. “I think it’s true.” Platius takes her Weimaraner, Paolo, hiking at least once a day, and if she couldn’t do that, she would hire the dog a trainer.

At the Loved Dog, owner Tamar Geller, a former Israeli intelligence officer, provides children’s beds, outfitted with sheets and stuffed animals, for boarding dogs. “All my dogs are treated as if they are children,” said Geller. “I don’t think it’s excessive.”

Of course, there’s some measure of vanity in all this. The person with a perfectly honed body doesn’t want to be embarrassed by a pudgy dog.

Jennifer Lane, who lives in Hollywood, got tired of friends pointing out the flab on her 9-year-old mutt, Chloe. So Lane changed her daily schedule to allow for two-mile hikes. The regimen did more than burn off calories. “My dog seemed depressed,” Lane said as she and Chloe panted their way up a hill recently. Since Chloe started hiking, Lane said, “she’s healthier emotionally.”

Kelly Carter’s poodle, Sean Pierre, has been blow-dried, pedicured and clothed (he has his own rain gear). Exercise is just one more aspect of his grooming. Each day, Carter and her poodle, who live in West Hollywood, take a three-mile walk in the Hollywood Hills.

Not that his owner needs the walk. “I go to the gym,” Carter said. “I walk for him. Otherwise, he gets fat.”

The growth of fitness training for dogs has one group envious (no, not cats): trainers who have the grueling task of working out people. Fitness trainer Lisa Brucker, out for an afternoon hike recently, gazed at a parade of dogs being put through their paces--all eager, hard-working and uncomplaining.

She laughed. “I’d love to train a dog rather than some of my clients.”