Category: Advanced Stuff, Performance Events, Conformation ¤ Author: Mary Beam and M. Shirley Chong ¤ Title: Agility Repetitive Stress ¤ Mary Beam ----------------------------------------------------------- Well, Line, Here is it. I don't care what anyone else teaches their dogs. I am not writing this to criticize, but in response to Line's request. I am cornering every vet and specialist vet I can find and asking questions. This is a summation of what I've found. 1. Teeter. Running the dog to the end of the teeter so it drops faster. Dog takes all of the energy expended by the board into his shoulders, neck and spine. See the photo on the back of clean run? What looks like a westie landing on it's front feet, coming off the teeter. A vet brought this to one of my classes. She also wrote to clean run about it. It's an add for a joint supplement. Even the companies that make supplements are aware of what this is doing to our dogs. 2. Two on/Two off. Any contact, but with emphasis on the A-frame. Puts unnatural pressure on the withers and torkes the back. This puts pressure on the spinal disks. 3. Jumping Two schools of thought. a. We are jumping our dogs too high and the dogs are landing with too much force on the front feet. I hear dogs making an "umph" when they land at every trial I judge. According to some vets and some of the orthopedic vets, this is indicative of problems to come. The dogs that don't "umph" now, are still taking the shock in their withers and back. b. We are jumping our dogs too low. Fewer vets have taken a liking to this one. This is the opinion of a couple of vets who also did agility and ran BC's. They believed that the dogs were not jumping properly because the jumps were to low and that this was putting the dog's in jeopardy of landing incorrectly. I have seen more dogs land improperly when the jumps are high then when the jumps are low. Personal observation, only. Oddly enough, none of the vet and specialists vets I've talked too thought the weaves poles were bad for dogs. They did think that the dogs that are taught to charge through them are hurting front leg joints, though. A couple of vets who have seen Sport do weaves have told me that he does them properly and is actually strengthening his back when he does them. Sport found his own speed. I've never pushed him to do them fast. That's pretty much everything I have so far. I keep asking and cornering vets, though. Mary Beam Saturday, March 08, 2008 11:41 am Shirley Chong ------------------------------------------------------- Mary Beam wrote: > 1. Teeter. Running the dog to the end of the teeter so it drops > faster. Dog takes all of the energy expended by the board into his > shoulders, neck and spine. See the photo on the back of clean > run? What looks like a westie landing on it's front feet, coming > off the teeter. A vet brought this to one of my classes. She also > wrote to clean run about it. That makes me shudder. The teeter board probably weighs upwards of 40 pounds, which is then multiplied by the distance it dropped, plus the dog's own weight... No dog is large enough to absorb that sort of stress without risking damage. > 3. Jumping Two schools of thought. > > a. We are jumping our dogs too high and the dogs are landing with > too much force on the front feet. I hear dogs making an "umph" > when they land at every trial I judge. According to some vets and > some of the orthopedic vets, this is indicative of problems to > come. The dogs that don't "umph" now, are still taking the shock > in their withers and back. I started in obedience when jumps were 1.5 times the dog's height at the withers and while there were some injuries for the most part, the dogs that couldn't do it didn't compete (which then started the cascade of height changes downwards). I have a breed that glories in jumping. My Belgians have always been insane jumpers and yet none of them seem to have suffered any damage from it. Orion and Hunter, for instance, boing behind the six foot kennel panels high enough to get their bodies visible over the panels. Hunter has been searching for the right takeoff point for flight since he was 8 weeks old and although he hasn't found it yet, he keeps up the search. Neither of them show any signs of wear and tear on their front assemblies or spines. I had Hunter x-rayed last fall about a month after I got him back because I was paranoid that maybe he had suffered some sort of damage even though he showed no physical signs of damage whatsoever. The x-rays at that time showed no signs of arthritic changes anywhere. He'll be ten next month. So, if jumping is so bad for dogs, why aren't my dogs affected? Agility jumps are at the height of the dog's withers, which is one heck of a lot less landing pressure than sailing off the end of my porch (something like 40 inch drop). The boys can jump back in that way, the puppy is still trying to figure out how to do it. My dogs have also never done the grunt on landing. My dogs are usually very, very lean. About one half pound over "too thin." I think there's a connection there. I've seen agility dogs from all over the US and I'd say at least half of them would be dieting if they were in my household. If I were competing? I'd want to feel ribs, spinal bumps and hips. I'd want my dog to have a defined tuck up because that defined tuck up is caused by strong abdominal muscles, which are often the weak spot in the ring of muscles that allow dogs to round up and work more efficiently by distributing their weight more evenly between front and hind legs. An amazing number of agility dogs have no palpable abdominal muscle tone at all. > b. We are jumping our dogs too low. Fewer vets have taken a liking > to this one. This is the opinion of a couple of vets who also did > agility and ran BC's. They believed that the dogs were not jumping > properly because the jumps were to low and that this was putting > the dog's in jeopardy of landing incorrectly. I wonder if people aren't putting in the work to teach their dogs how to jump and land properly. I've seen agility dogs that almost land in a headstand stance, which piledrives their weight down on that landing front foot. Because I'm a lazy trainer, I haven't taught any of my current dogs to jump properly (Clothier jumping program, just do it). On the other hand, they've taught themselves beautiful form over jumps because a lot of the things they jump are higher than their own withers. They taught themselves how to round properly over a jump and how to land lightly with forward impulsion. That is the connection between jumping and lack of abdominal muscle tone. Those abdominal muscles allow the dog to pull their hind legs forward with power and efficiency so that they can land with that feather light pressure on the front foot, quarter step onto the other front foot, then hind legs powering through and landing ahead of where the front feet were positioned. Dogs that lack abdominal tone cannot pull their hind legs forward efficiently and don't have enough power to use them to lever their weight off their own front ends. They may have a big enough engine but without muscle tone, their engine is starved for fuel. > I have seen more dogs land improperly when the jumps are high then > when the jumps are low. Personal observation, only. I think this points to lack of proper muscling for jumping and lack of proper teaching or learning opportunities. > Oddly enough, none of the vet and specialists vets I've talked too > thought the weaves poles were bad for dogs. They did think that > the dogs that are taught to charge through them are hurting front > leg joints, though. The torque on the front pasterns as the dog switches their weight back and forth off the front end is what worries me. I've seen a lot of dogs weave by basically pulling themselves through on their front ends and weaving back and forth like snakes. Since I don't do agility, can someone fill me in on what agility people do to strengthen the ring of muscles that support/lift the spine and provide the power to coil the hindquarters? AND DUH!!!! I JUST SAW IT!!! I KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS!!! Man, I am so dim that I'm embarrassed to be seen with myself. It's this fad for eye contact! That's what is doing the damage! Of course! Okay, muscles can only pull, they cannot push. Joints work by muscles contracting *AND* by muscles relaxing. If the muscles that are supposed to relax are shortened for some reason (due to lack of relaxation, due to overuse or improper use, due to injury), the muscles that contract have to fight harder to contract properly. In order to coil the hindquarters underneath themselves, the dog has to contract the ring of muscles that is anchored at one end by the complexus longii (middle of the neck muscle) and on the other end by the iliopsoas complex (muscles inside the abdomen that are attached to the under side of the spine). So, where there are muscles that contract, there are also muscles that have to relax. The muscles along the dog's topline have to relax so that the abdominal muscles are able to work properly. But with this fad for endless amounts of eye contact, dogs go about with their topline muscles constantly tensed in order to pull their heads upwards and backwards a bit to make eye contact. What happens to muscles that are constantly tensing? They grow very, very strong. THAT'S WHY SO MANY DOGS DON'T OR CAN'T WORK OFF THE REAR EFFECTIVELY!!! They were taught as puppies to make eye contact with owner and so heavily reinforced that they develop their topline muscles and the ring of supporting/lifting muscles never gets anything like that sort of workout. By the time most owners feel comfortable allowing the dog to jump, the dog is in serious need of remedial muscle building in order to do it correctly. But I've never heard of anyone who actually does any work to remedy the muscle imbalance. The problem isn't the height of the jumps at all--the jumps are neither too high nor too low. The problem isn't really so much in what owners do on the agility field at all! It's in what they do off the field (too much eye contact) and what they don't do (work to relax the topline and work the ring of muscle). Okay, now I need to put my hands on more agility oriented dogs. Or get people to send me videoclips of their dog from the side, just walking with or playing with owner. I know I'm right, though. I know I am. It's so damn obvious, I just couldn't see it before. M. Shirley Chong Saturday, March 08, 2008 7:41 pm Mary Beam ----------------------------------------------------------- The teeter performance scares the h*ll out of me. Once Sport was going so fast he slid. His head was at my hip and I saw his paws slide, saw him stop sliding, heard the board slam, and thought something was wrong, but Sport ran on into the tunnel, which was next, came out moving fine, so we kept going. (This is one of the worst dangers of the driven agility dog. They will take a small injury and keep going, not showing any signs of it until much later.) Sport had slid to the end of the teeter and was on his front feet only when it hit the ground. A vet friend saw it and checked him as well as massaged him for me. I rested him and walked him. We have seen no ill effect and it's been 6 months. The worst teeters aren't the heavy board ones. The worse ones are the light weight, composition board ones with the aluminum frames. There is nothing but the dog to absorb the energy. I think this is why so many small dogs are so slow on the teeter. It hurts! Sport slid one more time on a teeter. We were making a 90 degree turn from a jump to the teeter and he was our away and flying. I saw him slide. I slowed and I saw his face. He jumped off the teeter. A friend yelled, "he slid". I said, "good dog!!!!!". Since then, he slows way down at the teeter and he is tipping it properly, as I tried to train him to do from the beginning. Nix is doing the same. Thank the Good God!. "So, if jumping is so bad for dogs, why aren't my dogs affected? " That is the easy one. They are doing it on their own. They are judging the distances of their jumping and they are moving however they need to move and turning the direction they need to turn. They aren't watching someone for signals. You hit the nail on the head. That, along with the constant training that so many people think is necessary. With Sport, I use huge signals. I know that he does not have to look at me to see them because my dogs have something like a 250 degree peripheral. As long as I am somewhere in his peripherals, he sees me. If my signal is big enough, this dog is intelligent and he can figure out what I want from a partial movement. I don't even use verbal signals except to say "go" or "get in". And, I don't train much. I spend maybe 10 to 15 minutes a week at agility. I am training Nix the same way, but I have a problem with him. He wants to make eye contact. I don't. I want him to watch me in his peripherals. Oddly enough, the Clothier training, which I use, doesn't seem to make much difference. I've seen dogs that have been diligently drilled in the program jump poorly. I've also talked with exhibitors who go back to it all the time because their dogs aren't jumping properly. The difference I see is that my dogs jump naturally. They do it constantly all day long. Sport has thigh muscles that make showing him successfully next to impossible, if his ears were correct. He looks muscle bound, though in truth he has very nice muscles. Just what's needed to drive up an A-frame, driver thought a tunnel or spring over a jump. The woman who is going to show Nix doesn't want him muscled. Too late. Nix uses the foot stool I bought to help him get on and off our bed as a spring board. He jumps on and off for the sport of it as well as to get in and out of bed. "Since I don't do agility, can someone fill me in on what agility people do to strengthen the ring of muscles that support/lift the spine and provide the power to coil the hindquarters?" As far as I know they are doing nothing. What I have learned is to let the dog find his own path. He will then figure out the best way to do the weaves at his own speed. My dogs all love to do weaves and Cookie will seek them out as The Fox would. I only use 3 poles. I've found that once the dog understands what is wanted, that is all you need. I teach with the poles upright from day one and have had success with all 7 of my own dogs and my students dogs, when they listen to me and do what I suggest. One of the questions I asked all the experts I've talked with is, what can I do for my dogs to prevent injury and maintain muscle balance. The response has been, so far, unanimous. Don't over train. Work both sides of the dog's body. Change what you do from day to day. Work both sides of the dog's body. If you practice weaves today, do jumping tomorrow, flat work the next day, throw in different obedience training exercises here and there. Work both sides of the dog's body. Add contacts, one at a time, not all three at the same session. Work both sides of the dog's body. Keep the sessions short, short, short. Work both sides of the dog's body. Skip a couple of days to give the dog's body time to rest. Did I mention work both sides of the dog's body? Don't train after a trial. Give the dog time to rest and re-coupe. If you have a problem with an obstacle, don't drill. Look that the big picture. Could the dog be in pain? Did you do something to make the error happen? (99.9999999999+ percent of the time it's something the handler did.) And, no mater what you conclude, let the dog rest. Let the muscles heal and re-coupe. It may be that the handler needs to change their handling style (Yeah, like they will!!) or training method (some do that on a weekly basis, using the method that is in style today). Most important is not being repetitive in training and letting the dog rest. That coupled with a good diet and proper supplements will help. Nothing can prevent accidents or injury. But treating the dog like a top athlete will help. And, that's some more of what I've learned. Oh, yeah. My own vets has me start my dogs on MSM and glucosamine the day I get them. We try to prepare the pup for an athletic future by helping his body build strong joints and cartilage. It may not prevent injury, but it doesn't hurt. I've seen the difference in x-rays. Sport has nice, thick padding's of cartilage. His x-rays show it. He was started on supplements the day I got him. The Fox, Cookie and Pepper were not. They didn't, don't, have that same thick padding. Theirs was thinner and it can wear away faster. Mary Beam and The Foxes Sunday, March 09, 2008 8:36 am