Think she can hit that yellow contact now???

Just kidding!!!!!

How to cool off

Man, Im hot!

Thats better. Gota love the air conditioning vent.

So since we aren't doing any running or jumping, I decided to work on a couple of things. First I decided to train her to get in the box. Its the A-frame contact training that Rachel Sanders put in Clean Run May's issue. I made the box out of pvc. Its a big square that can be transferred to the a-frame. Since it seemed so hard to get her to hit that little mouse pad, I thought this might be easier. She can hit the mouse pad but when I transferred it to the a=frame she always slipped and slid trying to hit the pad on the a-frame. This gives them a much bigger area and shouldn't effect the stride like the little mouse pad. Plus what else do we have to do. I'm also training her to go around the back side of the jump. Ive seen that set up a couple of times where you are running straight at the jump , the dog has to go around the jump and jump back toward you. I'm putting it on cue, "around". It amazing how fast a dog learns. We started yesterday and she is already getting it. Some other things we are working on is getting all the dogs not to go crazy when someone walks in and out of the house. They just go crazy barking. I don't mind a little barking, but this is over the top. So several times a day we practice ringing the door bell and going in and out. I keep food near the door and they get rewarded for being calm.

I took Mickey to the vet yesterday. My appt. was a 5pm. They must have had a crazy day because a bunch of cars were parked in the grass. I guess the parking lot was full and they had to park some where. They looked a Mickeys tooth and said it needed to be pulled. They would rather do it under anesthesia because the roots are so long. So in a couple of weeks Ill get his teeth clean and have them pull the tooth. Mickey teeth actually looked good and had very little tarter.

This and That

First, we are in the wrong dog sport. I watched "super retriever series"(hunting dog trials) on TV today, the purse was $50,000. Can you believe it. I couldn't.
Miley is very bored. Yesterday she ate the corner of a chair cushion. She has never chewed anything since she has lived here. She put a few teeth marks on the shutters but never ate anything. She keeps bringing me toys to throw and barking at me. Soon Miley, soon.
Mickey's front bottom tooth is very loose. I don't know when this happened. My daughter just noticed it today. It looks like it is going to fall out any second. I wonder if this happen when Guiness bit him a few weeks ago? I guess we will be going to the vet again on Monday.

What a difference a day makes!

Miley is feeling much better. She wants me to teach her how this new agility equipment works.

Miley's home.

Miley is home from being spayed and microchipped. When I got her home, I was petting her. I noticed she had a lot of dried blood on her shoulders. When I started looking at the the area to see what the problem was and make sure nothing was wrong. Guess what I found? The microchip sitting in the dried bloody fur. Ugh!! When I called I don't think they believed me. They probably thought, "crap, the lady who is obsessive about her dog and this has to happen". So I took her back and sure enough it was the microchip. They said they were sorry they didn't notice all the blood on her. They cleaned her up and then rechipped her. So much for being chipped while under anesthesia. But she seems ok and is now resting.

Chris Zink cont....

What is the best exercise for your dog. Off leash hiking. I try to hike with my dogs but not off leash. I know off leash is better because they use more and different muscles to run around and jump over things. But this park is the best I can do and it has to be on leash. At least there are lots of roots and up and down hills to help with muscle building and propre0ception.



Just a side note I read in my notes. One dog going through the weaves on the video was double footing through the poles but stayed on the left lead every time instead of switching leads. So what was wrong with the right leg?



Jumping: Dogs should extended their front legs and use their rear legs for thrust. As the dog jumps, first his head is up and his back end ( tail) is down. After he reaches the apex of the jump, his head is down and his tail is up. This information helps you by being able to use the "head up and tail down" to see if your dog took off to soon or too late. So if he hasn't gone over the bar but his tail is down, then you know he is probably going to knock the bar. Dogs that are over jumping the bar ( clearing the bar with lots of room under them) are taking off too soon. But there are a few dogs that just love to jump and jump way high. Your dog may have a physical problem if the are refusing the jumps, taking off too close or landing to hard on the front.

She teaches dogs to jump by putting about 20 bars on the ground at different withs to each other. Then she has them go down the middle of the bars. We did this at the seminar for dogs that didn't do agility so they didn't have jumping experience. Someone would hold the dog at the end. The owner would walk down the middle of the poles and turn around and call the dog to them. If the dog went around, the owner would start over and stop in the middle of the poles ( only go down to pole 10) and turn around an call the dog. As the dogs got more successful , the poles would be adjusted. By putting cans under one end of the poles, or both ends, or making the poles diagonal ( two poles touched ends on the side). It was interesting to see the dogs start to learn to adjust there strides as they went through the poles. She states this teaches them where their take off points are in relation to the poles. You are to keep this very fun and there are no corrections to be given to your dog if they go around the poles or make any mistakes. They are just thinking and just trying to figure things out. Give treats when they do it right.

Next we did lead legs. This group of dogs had experience jumping. The dogs did different things like going down three jumps, then 2 jumps and turn 180. This was all to see dogs change lead legs. I had a very hard time seeing dogs change there lead legs. Miley looked like she was using both front legs to land on, but Chris said it just looked that way because she was so little. But actually the one leg was coming down before the other. We had the dogs do a sequence where there was a pinwheel on each end and you were to front cross in between pinwheels to turn the dog. If a dog waits until the very last second to change lead, this could be a single that the dog has an injury. Miley did very well with all the jump sequences. Everyone was very impressed even Chris. She asked me if I was going for the World Team. I told her I'm just trying to get to my first trial. She also said she hoped she wasn't going to be competing against me at the trials. After the seminar a bunch of people came up to me and said what a great dog I had. One guy even said, " I wish I had your dog, she is great" So of course that made me feel great! Don't worry I'm well aware that I have a long way to got with training. All I have to do is go to some other peoples blogs and watch their dogs run. That keeps things in perspective. But it was still nice to hear.

3 most common injuries:



1. Medial shoulder instability. This happens more in dogs with straight shoulders.



2. Iliososoas (sp) strain . This is the most common agility injury



3. Jump down syndrome. You shouldn't let your dogs jump in and out of SUV's or vans. This injury can not be seen on any scans. You have to have arthroscope to see it. This injury tends to happen in dogs with short humerus. Its like having elbow dysplasia. It cant really be fixed to the point of your dog returning to competition.



Some of this info today I did from memory because I didn't have anything written down. It was hard to right and do and watch at the same time. Over all I learned alot and recommend her seminar. It was good to be able to asked questions. I really hope she will do a seminar on the stuff on agility obstacles and your dogs performance. The only thing was it was hard on Miley to be in the crate so much. Probably and older dog would do better. When we were going through structure and gaits, I wish I had brought Guiness. But there was another sheltie there that had been clipped. She shaved her under side but still had her top and chest coat. Well, Chris kinda gave her a hard time about cutting the dogs coat. She really feels the coat insulates the dog from the heat. So at that time, I was glad I didn't bring Guiness. He is shaved for the summer. She would have really given me a hard time. I think for some dogs that shaving there coat makes them deal much better with the heat here in South Carolina. Last night it was still 95 degrees at 7 pm. Plus the humidity is usually 95%. Sometimes it feels like you cant breath when you go outside.

Lastly, Miley is at the vet getting spayed. I'm nervous. Ive only had male dogs in the past and their procedure is pretty easy. Roxy was already spayed when I got her. So this will be my first experience with a female. Lets face it, the spay is harder than a neuter. They have to open the abdominal cavity and remove multiple organs. At least this vet gives pain medication to take home with your dog. Keep your fingers crossed.

Chris Zink seminar Day 2

Conditioning: Your conditioning program should have 4 parts.

skill training

strenght training

proproception training

Endurance training

Here are some indoor exercises you can do with your dog. Beg, wave, beg & wave, tug, spin roll over, catch , crawl and backup. Every dog should learn to sit-up (beg). Even corgi's. It is the best core muscle exercises you can do with your dog. She feels that if you teach your dog to beg-stand-beg. You can add 2 years on to your dogs life. The beg and stand should be held for 10 seconds each and the stand should have as little movement as possible. Also you should repeat the exercise three times. The indoor exercises can have variety added to them, like if your dog can roll over then have him do it on an incline. ( see how Miley holds her legs out in front in a beg, but Guiness doesn't. She said that Miley just doesn't understand the exercise well and when she does she will start pulling her legs in)

She doesn't like treadmills to exercise a dog. She feels that the dog will not extend their reach when walking on the treadmill. Also she feels that the dog uses different muscles when walking on a treadmill then on land. The dog is not reaching and pulling himself because its the band that is moving under him that is causing the movement. Does that make sense? I'm not sure I'm explaining it right. The only dogs that need a lot of endurance training are mushing dogs and herding dogs. Endurance training is at least 10 min. of continuous swimming or 20 min. of trotting.

Every dog should have a break from training. At least one month a year your dog should just be a dog. No training and only moderate exercise. That doesn't mean one month obedience training but not agility training. A month of no training at all.

Most harness are restrictive. She showed pictures of different harness she doesn't like. One was the "sensible harness". Of course that's the harness Miley had on. She feels it is the worst harness out there. It restricts the shoulders. No harness should touch or impede the shoulders. The front should go more around the neck and keep shoulders free.

Warm-up: All dogs should warm up because it improves performance and helps prevent injuries. First you should walk, trot and run you dog to warm them up. Then do stretching that mimics what will happen in the ring. She doesn't think you should pull on your dog to stretch them. Like when you see people extending their dogs legs out behind them. Because you wont know when its to far. Most likely your dog wont tell you. The only stretching she recommends is having your dog between your legs, have a treat in your hand and have them follow the treat. Move the treat along the side of their body starting at the shoulders then to the hip, keep it there 10 seconds then move it down to the rear toe and hold for 10 seconds. Make sure you do both sides. Next stretch, have the dog standing sideways in front of you. You kneel down. Holding your dogs butt, put a treat in front of his nose and bring it down to the ground and in toward him a little.He will be some what in a bow. This stretches the spine one way. Then start in the same position and this time hold the dog under his chest and bring the treat down and in. This will stretch the spine the other way. ( Hope that makes sense) Doing the figures 8's also over the practice jump is good stretching.

Dogs don't need electrolytes replaced at a trial like people do. Dogs don't sweat , so they don't loose electrolytes.

Next we watched videos of dogs doing agility. We watched dogs weaving that probably had an injury. Some times they double footed one side, but single stride the other. Some dogs stayed in the same lead all the way through the poles when they should be switching leads. I cant remember every thing we saw. But it was very interesting. She recommend you video tape you dog when they are healthy so you can see when things start to change. We watched dogs jump that had problems. She was just video taping dogs a trials and these people didn't know their dogs were having problems. One dog studderd stepped. But did the weaves well. She thought he might have a visual problem. One dog jumped very close the the jump and "slammed" his rear down. ( I couldn't see the slamming, I don't have a very good eye for these things). She said he was probably doing this because he was trying to get the weight off his front end. I cant remember what the other dog did. You definitely had to have an eye for some of there things. We watched dogs doing the A-frame. She feels the slats cause a lot of problems. She feels that dogs jump the yellow because they are trying to get off as soon as possible to avoid the slats. On her equipment at home she has no slats in the yellow zone. In the video the 2O/2O defiantly looked harder on your dog. The dogs shoulders slamming looked painful. She feels dogs should do a running contact on the a-frame. We also watched teeters and tires. Some of it looked so painful to the dog. Most dogs kept running. I told her she needed to do seminars just on agility obstacle performance. So that we could learn what to look for in our dogs performance that may clue us in that they are injured. She said she has thought about it. Its hard to get video of the dogs. Then if you have to tell someone there dogs looks injured they sometimes get offended. The video she showed us was just from random trials. We also watched dogs going up the dogwalk. It was very interesting to see that most of the dogs were having problems controlling their rear end. You probably wouldn't have noticed unless you saw it in slow motion. Only one dog went up the dogwalk straight. Many of the dogs back legs hit one side then the other and then straighten out. She recommends that you video tape your dogs back end going up the dogwalk to see what they are doing.

This is getting long so I will cont. it later.