and title my dog, in a few different things. For those that may not know my dog she is a Higher drive working line Malinois.

Me I have increasingly difficult to manage Osteo-artritis and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Needless to say it has made me mobility impaired not in a wheelchair or anything but on a bad day makes it hard to walk a few city blocks.

We've tried Obedience with a good degree of success though some of the quick turns are harder on me.

We've tried tracking through drive course with a local talented SAR tech and while my dog excels at it, she is to much dog physically for me as she is a fast tracker and hard for me to keep up. I love it though.

My question is which dog sports are still exciting and challenging for the dog but not as physical on the handler.

Don't get me wrong I'm not a total invalid, I just walk (sometimes) with difficulty 50% and sometimes get winded easily 20%. I just want to be able to give my dog the stimulation she deserves and not kill myself in the process.

I'd really like to try shutzhund next, as her obedience improves and I am trying to continure her tracking as much as my limitations allow.

Any ideas?

AKC Obedience makes allowances for individuals with mobility problems, I have even seen competitors in wheel chairs at obedience trials. Even if you are not in a wheel chair the judge will make allowances for your gait, i.e., I am an older
"boomer" and when the judge says "fast" during the heeling pattern, all I do is just slightly increase my speed. (Both my German Shepherds have CD degrees.)

Good luck !!

schutzhund makes the same allowances, you just have to let the judge know and then be consistant, I have not had the degree of challenges as you ,but I have had 6 major surgeries to repair non unions, femer and radius. I have found the difficulties to be just what I needed to motivate me to get up and push through the pain. I love my dogs and competing. Its amazing what the body can endure when you really want to do something, good luck....PS tracking is not supposed to be fast in schutzhund, the dog is judged on how well it follows the track moving its head side to side, and then identifing(sp) the articles

Another possible activity as long as your dog isn't dog aggressive would be flyball. In flyball the dogs do all the actual activity. The handlers just cheer them on. It looks like a lot of fun for the dogs.

I was going to say flyball as well. Weight pulling is another sport that involves little mobility on the part of the handler. Dock diving you could do as well.

I wouldn't suggest agility unless you want to do a lot of distance training work. (I know of some handlers who are very overweight/have mobility issues and they just teach their dogs to work at incredible distances so they really just putter around. However, sometimes this is unfair as when the dog is getting "stuck" and just can't figure it out, they aren't willing/able to come closer and help the dog get it right.)

But AKC obedience or even rally should be doable. As long as you're consistant, the sky's the limit! Good luck!

 Quote: Ingrid Rosenquist

Dock diving you could do as well.

What is Dock Diving?

Thanks everybody for the suggestions so far. I've seen Rally-O and that is cool. I saw a heel off and a lady was in a wheelchair with a Papillon (fluffy french royalty toy dog), the lady actually won it but against someone like myself who is mobility impaired but in a different way the lady in a chair would have a advantage, I think.

I need to take a closer look at agility as well as Shutzund especially the tracking part of it. It sounds a lot different than tracking through drive.

Dock diving is where a dog does a long jump off of a dock into water, generally in pursuit of some object. The longest jump wins. I haven't done it myself, but it looks kind of fun and apparently requires some strategy to get the dog to jump in such a way as to maximize distance.

Skyhoundz Distance and Accuracy or IDDHA (?) Toss and fetch are two disc (frisbee) competitions that don't require jumping for the dog or a lot of movement by the handler. Points are earned by how many throws the dog cn catch and retrieve in a set amount of time.

Weight pull is not such a good idea, IMO, becuase the handler usually has to get down on the ground when the weights get higher.

Carting is similar to weight pull, but the handler gets to sit in the cart while the dog pulls it!

I saw a Mal that was good on high jump, but if you're cautious about hips/elbows it's probably not for you.

Rally O is fun, and if it's doable for you, then maybe canine freestyle (dog dancing) would be fun. You get to make up what you want to do (within guidleines) and you can do a lot of distance work too. If your dog knows that heel is a position and not an action, it's really easy to teach the moves.