Why Professional Fitness Trainers Should Just Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

So I read in our newspaper last week that there’s a new trend among dog lovers of a certain economic ilk . . . folks with waaay too much money to spend.

Don’t have time in your busy, high-powered day to take Fido for a stroll? You can hire a professional doggy fitness trainer who’ll not only walk your mutt, but take him on a mountain hike, teach him to swim and put him through his athletic paces in the canine equivalent of aerobics class.

What this means is I have to keep the newspaper away from my two dogs--unless I’m using it, rolled up, to swat them for stealing food--lest they spot the article and realize that their human partners aren’t spending hundreds of dollars each week to keep them in shape with the doggy version of Tae-Bo.

The trend is most pronounced, the article says, among professionals who have a lot more money than time and are willing to spend most anything to ease their guilt over leaving their pets alone for much of the day.

“In extreme cases, it can be a ridiculous, self-indulgent obnoxious practice,” says Michael Chill, a Los Angeles dog trainer.

But dogs do need to exercise and socialize outdoors with other dogs, he says. They don’t want to spend their entire lives lying on the sofa, pretending to watch TV with you.

He obviously hasn’t met my dogs.

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“I wish I were a dog.”

It’s a popular refrain around my house, one I hear almost every morning from my three children as they stumble through the house getting ready for school, tripping over doggy toys and stepping around lumps of sleeping pooches.

Although I point out that life as a dog might not be so great--they’d have to eat from bowls on the floor, after all--the prospect of lying around the house all day does have its appeal.

Do our dogs get bored? I doubt it, what with rummaging through trash cans, chewing up pens and throwing up on the carpet from time to time.

Should I feel guilty that I’m not providing them with entertainment, exercise and a chance to get in touch with their inner-canine selves?

Yes, says dog trainer Shelby Marlo. Fitness training “is not for the dog’s physique. It’s for the dog’s mental well-being.

“The ‘spoiled dog’ thing gets blown out of proportion,” she says. “A lot of people have latchkey dogs today. We leave the dogs home all day alone, and if they’re not destructive and they look content, we think they’re OK.

“But if you’re going to commit to loving a dog, you need to make the effort to meet its needs. And if you have the money and if hiring somebody to exercise your dog is going to make that dog’s life better, then who’s to say it’s excessive?”

And as you might expect in a country where people spend billions a year on their pets, meeting your doggy’s fitness needs doesn’t come cheap. In fact, one session with a canine fitness trainer costs more than I spend on an entire month’s membership for my human family at the local YMCA.

The way I see it, my two dogs have it pretty good already. So what if we don’t walk them every day? They have unlimited free time--no school, no jobs, no responsibilities, no requirement that they contribute to the household in any constructive way.

They live in a nice home with comfortable furnishings and a doggy door. If they feel the need for a little fresh air and exercise, how about heading for the backyard and putting in a little time with the Pooper Scooper?

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But to hear the professionals tell it, I’m doing my dogs a grave disservice with my cavalier attitude. Dogs don’t like enforced idleness any more than people--at least some people--do.

“Remember, dogs, not too long ago, had working jobs. Now they’re relegated to catching balls,” says Lynn Adams, whose “Puppy Pals” day camp in Topanga Canyon daily entertains about 50 dogs--mostly pets of “high-end” clients from the entertainment industry--with a regime that includes mountain hikes, Frisbee sessions and field trips to the beach.

And price tag aside, there are big dividends to doggy exercise, she says. “They get tuned up, they become smarter, happier, more athletic . . . all the good things that happen to people when they get in shape happen to dogs too.”

I’m sure she’s right. I do notice the dogs seem a little restless these days and they’re getting a little thick around the middle. They probably could use a couple of sessions with a fitness trainer, not to mention some grooming and a pedicure.

But then . . . so could I.

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Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.