Sports Conditioning and Fitness

[Root Beer]

There's a fantastic article in the Whole Dog Journal that just came out about physical conditioning for sport dogs.

 

This is something that I became aware of, quite by happenstance, just over this past year. We were taught some quick "warm up" exercises in a few of the beginning agility classes that I've taken, but I've never once been encouraged to put my dog through a true warm up before a performance, nor to do a good cool down. It was through having an arthtic Freestyle dog that I finally learned the importance of conditioning the dog outside of training classes and actual performance times.

 

Is this something that any of you have explored?

[Aquarius89]

Kristine, do they have their articles for viewing online anywhere?

[Kat's Dogs]

I have never gone to deep into all the stuff you COULD do. But I have been meaning to really look into things....

 

For agility I do a "warm up" with Dazzle. Trotting, stretching, bending, etc - and then a similar cool down afterwards. Nothing to official though. We definitely do some conditioning outside of the actual training of the obstacles though. I like swimming the most for conditioning because you get the best workout but no impact on the joints.

[herdcentral]

I have just bought the DVD Building the Canine Athlete by Chris Zink and Laurie McCauley. Shows strength, stretch endurance and body awareness exercises.

 

I have a 7yo dog with cruciate ligament repairs so I thought I had better pay attention to her body and rehab. I have only looked through the DVD once but I think it is going to be very useful. I am already using some of the exercises.

[border_collie_crazy]

I havent done much sompeting in a while, but I always condition my sport dogs, typically by slowly biking and slowly increasing speed,and followed by a cool down, works great for me lol. at least for my BCs and Rusty, Electra is another story altogether lol I cant do warm ups with her because the warm up alone completly burns her out(3 blocks at a slow pace and she cant keep going..we took her to the vet thinking something HAD to be wrong, but she is perfectly healthy lol)

[Root Beer]

Kristine, do they have their articles for viewing online anywhere?

 

Unfortunately, not for free. And it's actually more cost effective to subscribe than to pay to view one article.

[Root Beer]

I havent done much sompeting in a while, but I always condition my sport dogs, typically by slowly biking and slowly increasing speed,and followed by a cool down, works great for me lol. at least for my BCs and Rusty, Electra is another story altogether lol I cant do warm ups with her because the warm up alone completly burns her out(3 blocks at a slow pace and she cant keep going..we took her to the vet thinking something HAD to be wrong, but she is perfectly healthy lol)

 

The article does recommend biking and swimming as good ways to build up fitness!

[HighDesertSpice]

There's a fantastic article in the Whole Dog Journal that just came out about physical conditioning for sport dogs.

 

This is something that I became aware of, quite by happenstance, just over this past year. We were taught some quick "warm up" exercises in a few of the beginning agility classes that I've taken, but I've never once been encouraged to put my dog through a true warm up before a performance, nor to do a good cool down. It was through having an arthtic Freestyle dog that I finally learned the importance of conditioning the dog outside of training classes and actual performance times.

 

Is this something that any of you have explored?

 

Thanks for this reference, Kristine.

I had been thinking about it, along with general conditioning for my two. One--who has no concept of slow when we're out & about offleash--recently either sprained a knee or had some other structural thing "go out"; and the other was cooped up in a backyard for ~ 2 years and it shows when he's out offleash. We'll be working on warming up going forward. I should add though that when they've been tearing around for quite a while i make sure we walk or trot around a bit until their breathing settles down--even though it means I have to keep the first going like this. If it were up to her, it would be either run or lie down (when out & about offleash that is).

[Root Beer]

Now the Thera Balls seem to be coming into style for sports conditioning for dogs.

 

I'd probably give it a try, but it would cost a good chunk of money to get both the DVD and the ball.

[diane allen]

I am ALWAYS amazed at the folks that just take their dogs out of crates, compete, and shove them back in. One very well known competitor, when asked, once told me that "she just didn't worry about it; her border collies warmed themselves up." YIKES! OTOH, her dog at age 12 is long since retired (granted, she had a MUCH more intensive competition life than mine has) - but at age 12, mine is still competing (yes,at lower jumps heights) and doing quite well. I've been doing a warm-up/massage/slight stretch routine for several years with her. Conditioning-wise, mostly we just do off-leash hikes on variable terrain. I am planning to do more aerobic conditioning with my young 'un - probably trotting alongside a bicycle (if I can find a suitable dirt road, without a lot of rocks, that I can maintain a steady pace on....). I think this is a HUGELY overlooked part of dog sports of all kinds. And dang it all, I haven't gotten my WDJ this month yet! :-)

 

diane

[Shetlander]

What I don't get is when dogs go play or when wolves go hunt, they don't do special stretches or lunges or get massaged. I'm not saying you shouldn't let a dog move around and loosen his muscles before going in a ring but do farmers massage and do special exercises with their dogs before having them work stock? I would wonder if the walk from the house/kennel to the stock or in the case of wild animals, the walk/trot until prey is sighted served as their warm up.

 

I do believe in warm ups and cool downs with our sports dogs. It only makes sense. I just tend to do more walking, trotting the dog around than any specific stretches and I've never got the hang of massage. Hopefully, I'll never have cause to regret this approach.

 

I do think the most important thing is having a dog in excellent condition through daily workouts rather than the weekend warrior scenario.

[Seelie Fey]

Sports are different than herding. I do flyball. Each dog jumps eight times each heat. They jump twenty four to forty or more times in a matter of minutes each race. There's also the repetitive turn and spin off the box. We train the length of each stride over the course, and teach them to perform the exact pattern each time they turn. Without warmups, cool downs and special stretching, I would think the intense, repetitive motion would be brutal on them. What I've seen of herding (which I am fairly ignorant of) involves much more natural and varied movements. The dog does a long out run, a creep up, turns and dashes interspersed with stalking behaviour. The same with hunting behaviours. It just seems much more natural and less artificially choreographed than sports. The dog chooses its own striding and turning.

 

Certainly, the dogs need to be in good physical condition, but if you're asking the dog to do unnatural, repetitive, convoluted things, stretching and massaging to get the muscles loosened up and check for any discomfort seems a good idea. Besides, my dogs like it and it helps psych them up, and helps reassure me that they are comfortable and not hiding an injury or strain.

 

That being said, certainly a lot of people pull a dog out of a crate, take it to the lanes, race it and throw it back in the crate. On the occassions when I've ended up doing that with my dog, he didn't do well, and when I started massaging him, I could feel knots in his muscles.

[C Crocker]

Sports are different than herding. I do flyball. Each dog jumps eight times each heat. They jump twenty four to forty or more times in a matter of minutes each race. There's also the repetitive turn and spin off the box. We train the length of each stride over the course, and teach them to perform the exact pattern each time they turn. Without warmups, cool downs and special stretching, I would think the intense, repetitive motion would be brutal on them. What I've seen of herding (which I am fairly ignorant of) involves much more natural and varied movements. The dog does a long out run, a creep up, turns and dashes interspersed with stalking behaviour. The same with hunting behaviours. It just seems much more natural and less artificially choreographed than sports. The dog chooses its own striding and turning.

 

 

 

 

I admit to knowing nothing about agility, so cannot say how it compares physically to working stock. That said my dog's chiropractor adjusts hundreds of agility dogs yearly and also is now working on stockdogs that compete at the national level in this event. Her opinion as far as I understand it to be is that the stock dogs appear to be more fit overall than many agility dogs. I have heard her say that she encourages her agility people to do cross training with their dogs ( ie get these dogs out running a distance rather than schooling in tight quarters most of the time).

 

As for my stockdog, she is out to play at least twice a day, she works stock or is run alongside the quad up in some flat, some pretty steep hills ( basically a cow pasture with a good road) for about 25 minutes, at both a trot and lope. I estimate it to be about 4-5 miles roughly. Stockdogs do both many quick turns, straight line work, quick stops, and running at speed in an arc while doing a course at a trial. It it both physically and mentally tiring. At the Nat'l Open Finals the time set is 30 minutes and these dogs will often take every minute given to finish, easily covering 6 + miles, depending on the size of each field. They have a water trough at the Open Finals for the dogs to jump into on course if needed, and always there is water offered to get into at every trial after a run.

 

It would never occur to me to not get my dog out at the appropriate time before her run to let her move about, nor forget to walk her for several minutes to cool down after a run.

 

I am not sure that working stock is more "natural" as was posted in this quote here from this poster, although it is what the border collie has been bred for solely for hundreds of years. Both events , agility and stockwork it would seem to me need a fit dog, both in body and mind.

 

Carolyn

[airbear]

I think the main difference between agility/flyball and herding is the high number of reps in the former. When training poles, for example, you will be doing a huge number of reps to proof the dog, and each attempt places about the same stress on the same joints and muscles. Same with contacts - I know that Wick has done hundreds of A-frames at varying heights, each ending with a fairly abrupt stop at the bottom (and occasionally without the stop, but that's another story). When we teach the tight turns for threadles, serpentines, and the like, that too is drilled.

 

What Lou does when he works is more strenuous, without a doubt (12 minutes vs. 30 seconds on course - no contest there). The dog on the outrun, if you figure the sheep are set at 600 yards as the crow flies, probably covers closer to 800 yards once you take into account his path. He is asked to turn tightly on portions of the course (for example, to hold the shed sheep), he needs to accelerate and decelerate just like an agility dog. The difference is, IMO, the reps.

 

On the topic of physio balls, as a phys. ed. major, this whole trend is scary for me. I kinda cringe when I see these dogs being laid over physio balls. In the right (trained) hands I suppose there is a benefit that can be achieved, but the hyperextension that some dogs will experience due to improper placement, or the potential to exacerbate hitherto unknown physical ailments - eek. I watched the DVD with a friend of mine, and he said "it's no different than people doing pilates". I think the huge difference is that people choose to do pilates/yoga/steroids/name-your-poison, but our dogs don't. People also can say "ow, that hurts", where some of our dogs will just suck it up, because that's the kind of creatures that they are. I know there was a disclaimer at the beginning of the DVD, but I wonder how many folks would watch the whole thing first, then go consult with their vet, and only then decide if this is an appropriate therapy for their dog. I know my dog's chiro told me basically "don't you dare" when I showed her the exercises in Clean Run.

[ClickMeBC]

I am a firm believer in the warming up and cooling down of performance dogs of any type. Whether or not they truly need it has never crossed my mind in the terms of whether they need it. It is, from what I've seen and experienced, beneficial in several ways and so I continue to massage, stretch, longe and make the most out of the warm up jumps at each agility trial, before and after agility class and any strenuous or intense practice sessions. If it's only a quick session, I'll put the dog through a much less complicate routine of simply stretching and loosening up. Anything to prevent pulled muscles or other problems and decrease the probability of such an injury in the future. I also find massaging, stretching and bending exercises a bonding experience - the dogs enjoy it.

 

I would like to look into the thera-ball techniques, as featured in the latest issues of Clean Run....though they seem to be more strength building exercises.

[Seelie Fey]

I'm not saying that herding is any less physically demanding than sports. A day herding is certainly more demanding physically and mentally.

 

What I was attempting to say is that sports - due to the repetition, the sharp contrast between activity and being crated, the emphasis on jumping, is more likely to precipitate an injury. It's different - due to the repetition, and also due to the precise control we force on the dogs. My dog doesn't naturally have a 10 foot stride. Her stride is longer, but I train her to shorten it to ten foot stride to bounce the jumps in flyball. My dogs don't naturally turn the same direction each time. I train them to do that in flyball.

 

At the herding trials I've seen they watched where the dog put the sheep, not his paws.

 

Warm up stretching, message, etc. sounds good for any doggie activity. Mine approve of it, anyway.

[Sassy Girl]

Want to chime in here...I compete w/my dogs in flyball and dock jumping and have dabbled in agility and frisbee. I also am studying canine massage therapy. Whether it be herding, agility, flyball or any other dog sport, I think every dog who is actively competing should be properly conditioned for the sport they compete in. This includes not only training in their sport but cross training in other activities to keep the other muscle groups strong and flexible, as well as utilizing a proper warm up and cool down regimen.

 

From my 18lb Border Jack to my 56lb Border Collie Mix, all of my dogs appreciate a good massage. During the week leading up to a competition, I always do a couple of really good massage sessions w/my dogs to ensure they go into the weekend w/out any left over kinks they may have. Then over the weekend prior to all runs I do the warm ups/cool downs which include a 5 minute walk to warm up the muscles prior to doing any type of stretching. A good warm up and cool down provides your dog with an increased range of motion, decreased stiffness and better circulation while performing. In addition, my dogs also benefit from monthly check ups w/their accupuncturist and their chiro.

 

When using a physio ball you need to understand what you are doing. For the most part, we use the physio ball for both stretching and core strength training. I work short sessions for their front legs, back legs and spine. In addition to their sport training and physio ball work, we keep our dogs conditioned w/activities such as swimming, hiking, biking, treadmill and frisbee.

[Genie]

Just walking them around is probably the best warm up after getting out of a crate and warm down before returning to the crate. I won't do stretches - too much chance of actually doing harm by over-stretching. Physical conditioning (building muscle and endurance) along with training a proper jump, turn, etc. are the best defense against injury.

 

I should add that I think massage is fine, beneficial and dogs love it. Its just stretching them that makes me uneasy.

[Sassy Girl]

Just walking them around is probably the best warm up after getting out of a crate and warm down before returning to the crate. I won't do stretches - too much chance of actually doing harm by over-stretching. Physical conditioning (building muscle and endurance) along with training a proper jump, turn, etc. are the best defense against injury.

 

I should add that I think massage is fine, beneficial and dogs love it. Its just stretching them that makes me uneasy.

 

I can understand your uneasiness about stretching your dog. A lot of people don't understand the technique and push the dog into stretching, causing very small tears in the muscle. Stretching should be done in conujunction w/the dog, you are basically there to support the limbs while stretching, not pushing for more. Until you understand the technique, I dont think you should take stretching your dog into your own hands.