E317: 페트라 포드(Petra Ford) - "오비디언스를 위한 체력"

And it's really helpful if you get that checked out first. And, you know, worst, like in best case scenario, the dog is perfectly fine. Okay, now I know it's a training issue. But I would hate to treat it as a training issue when the root of the problem is that my dog's uncomfortable. And then in general, dogs should have some sort of conditioning and definitely a strong core, just baseline to do the work we're asking them to do. Because people think, well, obedience is pretty benign. And it kind of is. But still, your dog is doing physical behaviors that they would not necessarily be doing in life, left to their own devices, and they're doing it repeatedly. And the other piece is that oftentimes dogs strain themselves in life, right? So for example, chasing squirrels or chasing deer or playing ball or running up and down the stairs like a cuckoo head, zest, or any number of things. So let's say they just strain themselves a little bit. Well, the problem is the next day they go and they train and maybe they train the next two or three days in a row. So that strain never has a chance to heal. And then it kind of starts to get worse over time. So it's important to have a baseline of fitness. And even then, you know, you have to keep an eye on it. Like Zesty was a perfect example, which happened right after you guys asked me to put together a webinar for the High Drive Dog series on keeping our high drive dogs safe. And it was literally a day or two later. I was doing a run through with Zesty and novice. And in my head, I'm like, wow, he's really not driving hard. I said, oh, maybe it must be, you know, that he's overthinking things because he's doing a run through. Luckily, I videotaped it. I looked at the videotape and I said, oh, wow, his back end really does not look too great. So was he working willingly and happily? Yes. Did he want to work more? Absolutely. Would he have kept going? No doubt in my mind. But was he really sore? Yep, he was. So that's something to keep in mind too. People will be like, well, they're not limping or they want to work. Like, look, see, they're dying to work. Yep, all true. But the dog can still be sore. And Zesty does have, you know, a pretty solid fitness base, but he is a little bit of a lunatic. So we constantly have to keep an eye on that. So there the change was when I watched him healing, it did not look like it usually does. So that was a tip off to me that, you know, I needed to check him out and get him fixed up. Makes sense. So how much is all of that about strength? How much is about body awareness?

You know, kind of what role do those two pieces, strength and body awareness, play in obedience when we're talking about conditioning? It's typically more strength because the majority of people that do obedience, because we have to teach our dogs where their back end is to line up for front and for finishes and how to do left turns inside of the figure eight, those kinds of things. They do tend to, whether they're doing it consciously or not, teach our dogs, how to do it. Kind of mind and awareness, right? Like they have to know where their back end is in order to do straight fronts or finishes or healing properly, which isn't to say some dogs can't benefit from more of it. And I definitely always incorporate that into my fitness routine. But I would say that from what I've seen over the years, it's more an issue of just truly mindfully conditioning their back end and their core. Those are and sometimes the front end, depending on the dog structure. I think a lot of times people in their minds think of obedience or running in the yard as exercise, right? They don't think of it as those are skills that the dog. So the dog is performing very specific skills like an athlete would, but they still need very specific conditioning to target things like the core or specific hind end strengthening exercises, especially for what they need to do in obedience. Are there, you know, particular obedience skills that kind of are the most stressful in our dog's bodies or that kind of require the most physical conditioning in order for the dog to be able to kind of perform them correctly? Can you kind of walk us through what some of those are and maybe what pieces in the conditioning world they kind of connect to? Well, there are several. There's jumping, which I actually do some very specific jumping drills, which is it's a combination of conditioning and just teaching them how to jump properly. I think an obedience because, you know, because it's not like agility where there's jump after jump after jump. I think people just say, oh, well, all dogs just know how to jump. I'll just throw my dumbbell over the jump and he'll just figure it out. And they do, but it doesn't mean they can't do it better, that they can't jump in a way that where they use their body better and it's safer and their performance can improve. So I work on their jumping. I definitely, like I mentioned with Zesty, they need a strong core and a strong back end to do heal, to heal well. Right.

Because for a lot of dogs, if their head is up even a little bit, that shifts the weight back to their hind end, which means they have to drive off their core and hind end in order to heal. Fronts and finishes. It's really important to have a really strong core so that they have a nice tight sit and so that they're leaning forward and their spine is nice and straight. Because that gives you really nice square fronts and finishes. And then there are like the kind of turns, right? The tight turns, like the broad jump, land and turn, racing to pick up a dumbbell and kind of spinning around, spinning to sit for the directed jumping. Those exercises can be a little bit hard on their front end. So I like to do some neck and shoulder exercises to help stabilize that. I think the exercises themselves, I would not consider conditioning. I consider those more of like a repetitive strain, right? They're repeating a lot of the same movements over and over within a session, day by day, week by week, month by month. So that's why I feel like they need to be conditioned underneath. You know, they need that strong conditioning to support the activities they do when they're training and trialing. So you kind of mentioned this earlier, and I think you were on point. Like people associate dog sports injuries with things like agility or with fly ball or with disc or whatever, right? Like the dog's doing crazy leapy things and jump up, jump, jump, whatever. And maybe they kind of overlook how hard obedience can actually be on our dog's body. So what types of injuries are maybe common in obedience? Like what are we talking about? What are some things that may pop up? And then I know we've kind of been talking about prevention kind of all along. Can you just talk a little bit more about kind of how that ties into the specific injuries maybe that we would see associated with obedience dog? Yeah. So the injury across the board that's the most common is an iliopsoas muscle strain, which is basically the hip flexor, which is part of what I define as their core. What goes along with that is that their back muscles, their lower back muscles, just like with humans, right, can get strained as well. So sometimes often you have both at the same time because they kind of work together. So that is definitely the most common injury I see with obedience dogs. And that is the result of just not having a strong core. And the other part of that that's really challenging, and I see this quite a lot, is that people believe that they're doing core strengthening, but they're doing it with poor form, right?

So it would be no different than when you go to the gym or you go to physical therapy and they say to you, suck in your stomach and stand up really tall so that you have good posture. The dogs need to have that as well when they're doing the exercises. Otherwise, they're inadvertently making their back tighter and actually predisposing themselves to the exact thing they're trying to prevent, which is a back and or iliopsoas muscle strain. So that's super important. That's probably the most common injury I would see in obedience dogs. Sometimes people always think it's going to be the right shoulder, right? Because that's the inside leg for healing. I almost never see that, interestingly enough. And I think that's because we really don't heal our dogs for hours and hours, and they're not really leaning in that, you know, most dogs are healing pretty square. But dogs, especially if their structure is a certain way where they're straight in the front, then they will get very tight and they could get a little sore in their neck and shoulders. So that requires just a lot of stretching. You can do cookie stretches where they follow the food, or manual stretching where you lay them down and you stretch them. Those are really the most common things I see across the board in performance obedience dogs. So I know this isn't kind of on the list of questions, but I was thinking about it kind of as you're talking about all that. So what type of a time commitment are you talking about? Like how much time in a week are you spending on conditioning versus training? Does that make sense? Yeah. So once you put in the initial work, it's really not that hard. So for example, right now, so Zesty was sore. He had a couple weeks off so he could heal. Now I'm back to working on his core and it's gotten weak. So what I'm really just doing is spending about 15 minutes once or twice a day, every day until his core is really strong. And then at that point, I'm just going to do his core exercises like probably two to three times a week to maintain it. Again, just like about 15 minutes. So I think the easiest thing for people to do is just make it a habit, right? So if you say, so I'm very fortunate. I just do it at work because I do rehab at work. So that's three days where my dogs guaranteed they're getting conditioning and I prioritize that. If it's going to be a really busy day, I just go in a half hour early so I can do the two dogs that need it the most. And then, you know, then there's enough time just to get their treadmill work in or whatever.

I also do their like aerobic conditioning, which is basically power leash walking. Or again, I have the option of doing the underwater treadmill, which is unfortunate, but really just power leash walking. If you do that even three times a week for an hour, that gives them a nice fitness space. It's great exercise for you. So I run a lot on the days that I don't run. My off days, I walk. So those are the days I power walk my dogs. I love it. They love it. It's good for everybody. So I think it's you don't have to dedicate an enormous amount of time. People are always like, oh, gosh, I'm not going to have time. You know, I have to train. I have to do this. Believe me. I will. There aren't very many people that are busier than I am. So it's just a matter of priority. Like yesterday, I drove pretty far for a pretty long group training session to prep for nationals. I had Zesty with me. I threw my equipment in the truck. And instead, part of his training session that day was just doing his core work. So it's just a matter of prioritizing it. And then you will find a way to fit it in. You just have to decide where you're going to fit it in and how. And then just make it part of your routine. And then it's really, you know, it's not that hard. So part of the inspiration behind the podcast today, you're rerunning your awesome obedience workshops. Can you talk a little bit about how you've broken them down and kind of who should consider which workshops? Yeah. Yeah. So I've broken them down into small categories. Like I think I just did the homework review for sits and finishes. Because if I try to do one webinar on everything, it will be hours and hours and hours long, right? So honestly, there are pieces in each one that could benefit everyone. It's just a matter of if you're trying to pick one over the other, when you look at your dog, where do you think that they're the weakest, right? So for example, if your dog fronts, but always sits splayed or sits on a hip or their back is kind of rounded when they sit, then you might want to pick the sits and finishes one. I think it's jumping and drops. It's jumping with something else. So same, like for instance, if with drops, if you feel like your dog is dropping slow or they drop with their front and then it takes and then they ratchet down with their back end. Or if when they lay down, they lay on a hip or their back is curled, then you might want to pick that one just as kind of a starting point, right? So I always look at where is my dog the weakest? Let me fix that.

But then I also like to put in the foundation so that they have a little bit of conditioning for each of the different exercises. But if you just want to dip your toes in something and you're really even not sure, just toss a coin, pick one. And at least it'll get you started and you'll kind of get an idea as to what's involved in the conditioning and that it really isn't that incredibly time consuming, that it's perfectly doable. And the other part of it is the dogs really love it. They think it's super fun. And all my dogs, young and old, love their conditioning time. They get tons of treats. And to them, they're just doing a whole set of fun tricks that they like and to win-win all around. Awesome. Anything else you want to share about the workshops? Off the top of my head, no. But if something pops in my head, I'll... Sounds good. You kind of mentioned it in there, but I know you're heading to nationals this week. So first, obviously, best of luck, right? We're all cheering for you. Thank you. Second, can you share a little bit about how you approach ensuring that your dog is in top shape for a major competition like this? Yeah. So first and foremost, bubble wrap, bubble wrap, bubble wrap. Save my dogs from themselves, right? She's... I have very high drive dogs. They tend to be a little kooky. So I'm very careful in the two to three months approaching the event. I get... So I work on my dogs routinely at least once a week, but bleeding closer twice because I want to be sure that if anything is brewing, I pick it up immediately so I can resolve it immediately. I tend to be very careful about jumping. I don't always jump full height. I don't jump more than I need to. Again, because it's just repetitive strain on the dog. I'm careful about footing, right? So if I'm training somewhere where I know it's very slippery, then I'm really thoughtful about maybe I'm not going to do a certain exercise just because my dog's going to slide and it's going to put strain on their body. They're always somewhat conditioned. I ramp their conditioning up maybe about three months ahead up until about the month before. And then I start tapering it down a little bit just so their body can rest and they're super fresh going in. So last week, I think early in the week, she did a treadmill session, but that was it. I'm just doing a little bit of core work with her right now. So I think the most important thing is, you know, be mindful of what you're doing with the dog. So when I hike her off leash, 99.9% of the time she ends up sore. So I am not going to do that.

I'll wait until the day after the nationals and then she can run off leash and she can break herself. So you want to be, you just want to be careful. And if you do have the good fortune of having like a rehab person or a massage person that is, you know, accessible, some people don't in certain parts of the country. But if you do go to them ahead of time, like not a few days or a few weeks, because this happens to me all the time. People, clients bring me their dog. It's a week or two before their big event. And then the dog is sore or hurt. Well, now I'm under the gun. We have a very short amount of time to get this dog well and in good form. So I drill it into my clients, come to me two months ahead, and then maybe every week or every other week. So that if something is brewing, we have plenty of time so that we can fix it. I also think about travel, right? So it's, if I were to drive straight through, it's a 10-hour drive. A lot of people do that. I don't. I don't think it's good for the dogs physically or mentally. I know that I get super stiff. So personally, I like to break it up. Um, so I'm going to go drive halfway to my friend's house for a few days, um, and then drive the rest of the way. If you're driving the full distance, take stops, take the dog out, move the dog around, stretch the dog a little bit, and then be mindful that the next day, just like us, they, even though they're not going to complain about it like we do or show it like we do, they are more than likely going to be a little bit stiff. So if at all possible, give yourself an extra day or two just so your dog can, um, kind of recover from the trip itself. That makes sense. Um, anything kind of other than just the conditioning angle or the physical angle that you kind of do leading up to a big trial like this? Um, well, training wise, I like to, the closer it gets, just really do everything possible to ensure that they're right all the time. So for example, yesterday there was a, someone, um, did a set, set the ring up a certain way that when I look, when I, I took Zaina in, I set her up for the go out. I looked out and I said to myself, that's really, really hard. Now, if it was three months out, would I try it with her? Absolutely. But it is not. It is a week before. I don't want to risk her being wrong. I want her to be right. So she's super confident. So I just aborted, um, I simplified it and then I did it because I really just want her to be correct. So that's all she has in her head, right? Is that everything is good. She's right all the time. Um, and then she's going to go into the vent really confident.

And I think the closer it gets, the more people panic, the harder they train, the more pressure they put on the dog. And, um, and I understand that. I feel that too. Um, but I also know from many, many, many years of experience, it's way better to take the pressure off the closer you get to the event. To really protect their mental state. Yes. That makes sense. All right. So again, I totally wish you guys the best of luck. Um, any final thoughts or key points you want to leave listeners with? Um, I think the biggest, I, money. Oh, so for decades, right. I've been doing rehab and I used to go around and ask people like, because I have a hard time convincing people to be proactive. Right. Do the conditioning when their dog is healthy. Once someone's had an injury and rehab their dog, then they're very proactive. They're always doing their work. Their dog's slightly off. They come running into me. But I'm like, how do I get people to understand that if you do it ahead of time, you will prevent injury, which is really ideal. And I think the biggest key is to get people to understand that your dog is an athlete. It's a professional athlete, right? It's not a weekend warrior. It's an athlete. And if you think of them like that, then it totally makes sense because all athletes, um, need a warmup. They need a cool down. They need, um, to be physically fit and regardless of what sport you play, they need to have a strong core. And I think if they kind of just change their mindset a little bit, then it makes more sense. Um, and then people tend to be more on board to being proactive and it doesn't just prevent injury. It absolutely improves their performance as well. Um, so that should be a motivator too. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Petra. Thank you for having me. I always appreciate it. Especially on a travel day because I know you're heading out soon. Super excited for you. Thanks. Thanks again. Thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fendi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fendi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Be right.