E460: 켈리 다니엘과 애슐리 에스코바르(Kelly Daniel and Ashley Escobar) - "스포츠견을 위한 카나인 피트니스의 정신적 이점"

you know still sometimes kind of gets overlooked by handlers maybe until they have a dog who gets injured right and then they need to go through rehab uh so why do you think it is that people still fail to train fitness skills with their dogs either of you want to go first sure i can go um i i really feel like people have a hard time compartmentalizing fitness and activity i think that it's just a very blanket my dog is fit my dog runs on five acres my dog goes for a hike with me my dog does x y and z of physical movement and people look at it as a more general blanket to cover them under the the activity portion of their dog right and so they people do it with themselves too and so they don't know that it is a set of skills that needs to be trained and has massive domino effect benefits for the dog muscular wise and performance wise until they know that it has a massive benefit right until there's a big hole where they've sustained an injury or they're having some issues with collection right that's the hot topic right now so many people their dogs don't know how to collect because all they do is spend all their time in extension right but it's the same thing too with people like people don't realize that they need a specific set of conditioning exercises for their own body until they're sprinting an agility course and pull a hamstring right they didn't even know that they needed to prepare their body for that sort of activity so i think that that is the biggest reason why people don't take the time from the beginning and with puppies and when they're starting out with dogs right they just they don't even realize that it's a whole skill set that they could add into their training because it's when the puppy's going for walks and the dog is going out back and the dog is chasing the ball and all these things are happening which are movement you get to check that off your movement box but there is method to the madness for sure kelly yeah no totally agree in new zealand a lot of the agility dogs might be in rural environments and they might be farm dogs so like i hear a lot of but they run for three hours on the farm and i think there's very little comprehension of that all of those things are like applicable across to agility yes they have to run in agility but you're missing a huge bunch of really essential skills and also like muscle engagement types um i see a lot of here in person border collies that the owners think are really really fit because they're doing agility and they're

probably doing too much agility um but their dog can't stand still for 10 seconds and it's not just behavioral it's like physical they don't have they haven't taught their dogs to engage their muscles in the correct way for stability and strength as well as for movement and it becomes an issue later on both in performance and like ashley said also like also in terms of injuries so yeah it's definitely a big gap i will say that i do think on a whole the sports community is getting much better at doing fitness on a whole there's people doing fitness because they see the benefits not because they've had injured dogs and that's definitely increasing in numbers which i love the reason i love fitness as well is because you can do it with your dogs before they can do agility so i think it kind of helps fill a gap in some handlers that feel like they need to be doing things with their young dogs that might have just gone and done lots of agility training before which we know is well i mean i know i believe isn't the best for young sports dogs to do lots of sports specific training so um yeah i definitely think that fitness is a really important thing for those dogs and fills that gap hopefully so we get dogs being stronger instead of doing just lots of agility young for those who are incorporating into their training you know what foundational physical skills do you feel are most commonly kind of overlooked i will probably say the same thing um stillness stillness and stability and muscle engagement and correct posture um like i can see dogs that move like we know that dogs can move but sometimes it's more of a taught skill to teach them to be still and then like ashley was saying before like deliberately teaching the skills of engaging muscles to accelerate and decelerate which is essential for life but also the sports skills like collection and jumping ashley yeah i think the biggest one for me that i see i have a pretty big clientele in person still and so i get to see people from the beginning to competing with their dogs and for me the biggest foundational piece is the proprioception that's the lack of proprioception for the dogs like they there's so many dogs that just don't understand how to move and use their body right everything has been taught with this upper level of arousal because that's where we want our dog to be for the sport to you know have the fastest time and have the quickest everything and learn everything super fast but the dogs lack the understanding of where their body is in space like

they just don't know how to move their body and certain exercises if they're trained as the dog is developing along and you know one day my puppy is very balanced and has great proprioception and control of her body and two days later it's like who is this puppy like she can't even walk out the step without like stumbling around right so if we're not really careful when they're developing we can teach them how to use their body in a compensatory manner instead of how to really understand how to have that solid stance and how to have the proprioception in their own body with their own build that they have since every dog is so different how much does kind of how a dog moves ultimately influence their ability to be successful you know in training and their sports specific work it's it's everything i mean i think i mean to be very blunt right like it influences their efficiency their coordination their confidence even because if they don't feel comfortable about how they're approaching a dog walk for example like that's a huge thing right now with these running dog walks that everyone wants right like the dog has to be so confident and comfortable in their own skin and how to maneuver their body on that very narrow plank at a high rate of speed that it really matters that they that they have that right for injury prevention right so i don't i don't think it's like success in a sense of fitting every dog into this ideal picture like every border collie should move this way every australian shepherd should move that way every spaniel is going to move this way right but i think it's really important to know really be able to take an honest look at your dog and evaluate them right is this dog balanced you know do they have more rear angulation than front angulation and really be able to dissect your dog so that you can then support them and wherever they're weak because no no one's perfect right so everyone's going to have some strength and strengths and weaknesses and being able to recognize that and then build on helping helping the dog structurally in that manner is gonna be more successful for the dog than just having a i want my dog to move this way kelly anything you done yeah sorry excuse the terrier we had a big truck go past and he had objections to that um yeah i think like one of the skills that i've developed a ton as i've progressed through learning about what i do and what i like to do with dogs is looking at how dogs move and i always incorporate that in my classes and i see a real difference in the handlers that have started to

be more aware of how their particular dog moves we know that dogs have huge morphological diversity in their form like all the breeds they're so different in how they're put together and but being able to understand those key characteristics of stance and movement and visually identifying that really gives people more information about their dogs and how they're moving because we know that some dogs are much more natural movers and they move well and in balance with their structure or their behavior or a combination of these things um and some dogs do not so i think the first step in that is increasing your understanding of gait patterns and movement and those form indicators because when a handler can see movement that's not balanced and ideal and they start to develop the skills of not only how they can um identify whether that movement pattern is correct or not but knowing how to make changes to help improve it it really makes a big difference for those dogs um so yeah i think like watching dogs move i just don't i you can't do too much of watching lots of different types of dogs move around and be like they're walking their head is in the correct position their body is well aligned they're now trotting oh look that dog's a little bit out of balance in that trot like just watch all the dogs move all the time so how do we distinguish i know you guys were talking about this a little bit earlier with like you know dogs who maybe are active in their daily life or they run a lot on you know in the woods or on a ranch or whatever um how do you just distinguish between those dogs who are just active versus a dog who's actually physically coordinated and aware what are those differences i so to me a dog that's that's active right they're moving they're expending energy they're going in forward momentum getting from point a to point b they can sometimes appear to be the fastest dogs right especially in sports you're like that dog is so fast like look at that dog just tear it up but a dog that's coordinated and has really good proprioception right they use their body movement with intention and with purpose and every move every muscle that they move for collection extension lead changes it has it's very purposefully done right the dog just looks very smooth like they're just flowing in air so i think you can really see the differences there between a dog that's i i'm gonna use the word spastic and frantic looking right but for most people even when i bring new people or family members right that i'll talk to clients and they're watching dogs run and they'll

see the dog running that might take out every bar but they're like wow look at that dog like that dog's so fast and i'm you know you just it looks like a cartoon character right the dog is fast but the dog is just expending energy versus you get a dog that probably has faster time right but it looks it just looks so effortless right because every move that they're making is so intentional because that dog is so aware of their body in space okay yeah and i think as well like in my in my hydrotherapy rehab one of the the providers we learned from was really big on dogs need to move forward in the medium plane like forwards is their primarily primary type of movement and that is correct but the reality is for sports dogs we're also asking them a ton to move in those other planes of movement so we ask them to turn to the side and we ask them to twist their bodies um so i think a dog that has really great movement and proprioception and body awareness not only can they move forwards really smoothly but they can move in those other planes of movement really well as well i know that i think that i see it the most personally in dogs is the transitions between positions and between movement patterns where you see if they have good proprioception strength body awareness and they can put that all together in a really nice way if a dog's got gaps in muscles or in movement patterns or they've got a particular weakness you often see it break down and get like uncoordinated looking in those transitions so can they decelerate and come to a nice stand can they accelerate and move smoothly through gate patterns to get into a gallop or does it look like disjointed and sort of you know like chunky kind of in the movement so yeah i mean i always talk about like fluency and movement and i think what i really mean with fluency and movement is that they can move effortlessly through transitions between positions between movements how do dogs benefit you know mentally and emotionally when they become more aware of their bodies how does like that aspect fit in it's it's very close i think it's very closely related right it's very closely connected because one definitely affects the other right a dog that's mentally regulated they can really think about their movement and they have better access to the prefrontal cortex of their brain right they can really intentionally have that purposeful movement and motion for their body they're more likely to move with purpose with balance with coordination instead of that rushing and frantic and like herky-jerky type

movements and over time when you have a dog that can move with purpose and intention you do tend to see less injury i mean obviously things can still happen but you just don't see it quite as much with those dogs and i feel like you see way more sloppy movements right and it can be any sport it does it's not exclusive to agility right obedience right sloppy sits or the forging with the healing or the swinging out with their rear like they lose control of their body like they're moving their front end and rear end completely two separate dogs are happening there and so there's there's a huge connection there with mental regulation and physical regulation and i've definitely found also so yeah i've got the over aroused border collie that is the very typical ridiculous dog that foams in the mouth doing agility but i actually started fitness primarily with um my first border collie who was very very dog reactive 100 of dogs she was a very anxious stressed dog and she's actually the main reason i really progressed with my um fitness training and wanted to be qualified because what i found was that the agility ring was a really stressful place for her there was dogs she was scared of the dogs having any kind of pressure was was really tough for her um when i added fitness in and made sure that she felt strong and confident in her movements it took one thing off her plate and it really helped overall with her arousal and her stress levels in the ring because she felt confident in her body she didn't have to worry about that so much and i think it was really for her the thing that not only helped her in the ring because i managed to get her up to agility champion despite her being like really like 100 of dogs within 10 meters she would try and bite them she was she was very very anxious and scared around dogs but not only that i think we couldn't have kept training and agility without our fitness training because it was the only thing i think that she really saw as no pressure high reinforcement rate genuinely fun without the dogs attached without the pressure of the ring attached without the new environments attached so i really don't think i would have got to where i did with her without fitness training that's interesting i don't think i've heard you share about that before so that was you know no she was a really tough dog and i learned a ton with her and she was a very cool little dog but i mean she was meant to be my first proper agility dog and then like 100 of dogs she was reactive too it took so it took me all of my dogs i got after her it took me sort of eight to ten months to

integrate them into the house to a point where i felt comfortable and safe with them in the same space so she was a very challenging dog yeah i get that um okay so if that was kind of talking about you know mentally and emotionally how how fitness and kind of help you know what about the relationship between maybe impulse control and physical movement um can you guys talk about that a little bit and kind of how fitness fits in all right so i am impulse control and the physical movement component of the way dogs operate there's a deep connection there because the mental state directly impacts and affects how the dogs move and use their bodies and it really allows dogs to have what i call controlled energy which is a form of stillness right like so many people like kelly mentioned they don't train their dogs to be still because so often we look at stillness as that's it it's down things are off like just turn the dog off and they're still but i can certainly guarantee you that as my dog is waiting on her place for 30 45 minutes for her turn her stillness is she's not off right like she's got so much controlled energy that she's able to maintain that stillness and still be mentally ready to go whenever it's time right and when a dog has a good foundation a solid foundation of impulse control they're just more capable mentally to be present with us in the moment and to move with intention rather than simply moving as a reaction right and when we get that intentional movement we get that smooth fluid accurate movement that we're looking for with the dog and when we don't have that we get the dog going off the chart on the arousal scale and they move frantically they move spastically they take down bars they misread lines they crash into the owners on their recalls they i mean you name it right we've all seen it right you've seen the the craziness that happens and people will say oh my dog's just so excited to play this sport but really the dog is just mentally outside their threshold of being able to comprehend what it is that we want and then of course that leads into a whole nother you know frustration and other behavioral things but i do think that there's a big gap there's a big link there and if you're not careful and you don't make sure that you grow both of them together you can easily build a very big gap in your dog's understanding for being able to perform even controlled energy and see it as stillness and be able to perform their sport but definitely i think that movement and impulse

control are heavily connected i think i think it ties in as well to um what ashley was talking about before with proprioception um so when we learn about like rehab and and and stuff like that we learn about the types of like groups of movement patterns and there's a group of movement patterns which is conscious learned behaviors and often that's what we're working on in fitness the next group of of movement patterns is um movements they do sort of unconsciously like walking and um trotting and running but what i've found with my fitness work is that really tying into that those learned behaviors and that group of motor patterns where they they learn how to hold a position and they learn how to be still it kind of flows through to that next group neurologically of movement patterns where they can have more conscious control and thoughtful movement patterns and those things link together really well a dog that is able to like consciously hold their body in positions and move through forwards when cued backwards when cued they have more proprioception and conscious control over those movement patterns that are traditionally like unconscious or just they just do them naturally so that's the other reason that i really like fitness training especially for the dogs that perhaps in their sports aren't so careful of their body and thoughtful because we can control and slowly build conscious proprioception and awareness and control of their body through those learned behaviors and then start to move those through those more natural movement patterns so they having body control through all of their life and their movements because being aware of their movements and having control of them is how they're going to be great athletes but also how they're going to help hopefully help prevent injury and not just be ridiculous crazy beasts fair enough um is it more thinking about kind of fitness movements and exercises is it important for the dog to you know really understand what the movement is versus just you know kind of repeating the pattern or following a lure or you know how does that factor in does does it matter and then how do we know if it does matter you know when we're actually at that point rather than the dogs just kind of you know following a cookie all right i think it it matters because repetition without awareness can create habits without building true physical skill right like if the dog understands a movement when when a dog starts to really understand a movement then they become very intentional about that movement and it becomes second nature right like

if i if we're walking along and i just push you in the pool you don't have to think about how you're going to swim to the top right you just swim and you come up for air and then you're able to get out of the pool and then push me in for pushing you in right but you don't have to think about it so i think when the dogs truly understand what it is that we're asking them to do and how to use their body i think that it just becomes second nature for them and to me the fitness component of it right it's just it's just the beginning it's just what we're doing in a very controlled environment it's what we can do in other areas of our dogs training to help them regain that sort of control and power to their body and movements but then when we add speed to it and we add pressure to it and we bring it to the ring to get it into their performance for their sport of choice it at that point becomes second nature right because we can take all of these little skills that we need for our dogs right for weave poles and running contacts and obedience precision healing and the send out so the dock diving right all these specific movements we can break them down to the most fundamental level in a very secure safe little space and we can teach the dog how to how to do those movements without the pressure without the stress without the arousal and then we can slowly start to build that all in so that when we introduce it to our dog in the ring at a performance it's like being pushed into the pool right the dog just knows how to swim so we've got that part so we have very intentional movement at that point from the dog which is what we all want because if the dog they all move so differently right so it's very hard to put them in a box and say well it's a border collie so it has to weave like this well my dog might not weave that way right but this you know this is my dog structure this is how she's going to move this is where she's most comfortable and we can teach it to them in that in the most fundamental level right you don't live there forever but you have to be able to teach it to them in that in that level so that you get the very intentional movement which is what what we need and and definitely with an intentional movement as well they're like ideal or correct muscle engagement um and that's why i love fitness because we can really set up our exercises teach the skills but also like set the whole thing up in a way that really drives correct muscle engagement um yeah i mean like this little dude he's four kgs he's smaller than our cats um if you put him

on weave poles he tries to single step through he's he's shorter than like he's shorter than the distance between the poles and his body lens and like that is not biomechanically possible so so um it's they all move in really really strange and wonderful ways but because he's strong and he knows how to engage his muscles um it really meant he's had really great longevity so i was still competing him at agility he turns 13 soon and i was still competing him earlier this year and he got a challenge in his last show and a challenge is what they use for gaining titles in new zealand and you have to win a class or come second in a big class to get a challenge here in new zealand so it's quite a challenging it's like it's a hard thing to get a challenge and like there's absolutely he's he's a little freak he's a weirdo that i don't know what he is he's terribly put together he's tiny he's very cute he's very naughty but like this i i genuinely think there's absolutely no way he would have performed to the level that he he was able to but also had the longevity if i didn't teach him really early how to engage his tiny tiny muscles yeah so thinking about that um what role does like reinforcement placement and timing kind of play in developing that level of like quality movement i mean reinforcement and placement and timing right it's incredibly powerful because it can really and it does shape how our dog moves especially if we're teaching all of this at the most fundamental level and if we're wrong and where we tell the dog that they're right right like that can really influence their posture and their balance and how they weight shift and i think that the timing of when we reinforce in this particular topic it helps the dog understand what part of their body that they need to activate in order to achieve that particular movement right so you always want to try to reinforce quality and intention right not just the completion of the exercise that you're looking at because again i think it all just really comes back to having that good proprioception and for the dog that's in front of you that that dog is understanding where their body is in space and how to properly move it and use it yeah i definitely find as well like being thoughtful as a handler of of where the bulk of your reinforcement is placed while you're working dogs can be something because sometimes i think people when they're doing fitness training don't think about like you might have treats in your hand but the fact that the bowl is down there to the side can really influence your dog's head position therefore

their form so reinforcement placement i think is huge in fitness and i think you can train skills not in the form we would like with the correct muscle engagement by having reinforcement in the wrong place so sometimes reinforcement can be the very small tweak that can make a really big difference in how a dog performs and exercise their form and therefore their muscle engagement so how important is progression with what we're talking about that like building layer by layer in canine fitness um kind of like if we're thinking about you know are we building to an end behavior right or an end state are we you know thinking about you know come from foundation skills all the way to like what advanced fitness maybe looks like like how important is thinking about it that way if our primary goal is maybe our sports skills sorry date date date i think progression it really matters right because we want to look at fitness as layered skill building right if we move too quickly then our dog learns to compensate and use momentum instead of using control and intentional purposeful movement and building strength and balance right but there's i don't think there's necessarily one end point right what's enough for this dog is not going to be what's enough for the next dog but it really matters and it re i think that you really start to see a difference when you can sit down and you can say these are my goals right here's my short-term goals here's my long-term goals these are the goals that i have control of the outcome right i have control of how my dog understands to move their body through the weave poles i don't have control if my dog is going to double step or single step i do have control of teaching my dog not to cross over and misstep through the weave poles right so i looking at that one specific thing then i can come over and i can work on fitness exercises that start at the most fundamental level of just weight shifting and shoulder work and activating those stabilizer muscles and really just breaking it down little by little and then again just slowly building on it to mimic that exercise that they're going to be doing in their sport so i i don't think there's necessarily a goal like in reaching like okay i've like we've done all these fitness exercises this is it it's more about it's ever changing right like i'm constantly changing my performance dogs fitness goals and what we're working on based on the information that i gather when we go and do skill training right like all of my dogs are primarily agility right now my son has an

obedience dog but after we do like a skills training session then i can go back and reflect and say okay this is i'm really starting to see a trend of some weakness here so i really need to come back to the fitness foundation level and start building this up and then taking it to the field in that manner and i think that's how you really can heavily utilize fitness to benefit your dog sport long term versus just a like you see a problem right now how do i fix that just right now right i think it's multi multi layers and like forever forever something right it's never you're never done right there is no end like it's just there's always something like all training mm-hmm yeah um i think that people don't realize like what i call fitness foundations some of those skills i'm still working on with grid and he's five because you you never can spend too long on the foundations and you always have things like ashley said that you might need to come back and fix or adjust depending on their life at that current situation and whilst we always want to continue to progress and challenge the dogs the reality is is that what they do over their lifespan changes dramatically at the time of the year at that particular year and at that age group um i've got i'm just finishing up my puppy and senior dog class at the moment and it works really well because what the puppies are learning uh often skills that are really appropriate for senior dogs as well um and it's really interesting to see the parallels in what the puppy dogs are learning and what we're going back and adding strength or fixing up or filling in gaps with the senior dogs so it's about the most important thing with progressing fitness in my opinion is being able to have some awareness of what your dog needs and picking the appropriate thing for them right there and then and that's for their life but also for their sports and that is progress because it's going to change constantly through their lifespan um but yeah and you can never do too much foundations i feel like that's true of all sports all aspects of sports and all aspects of training and yeah so uh so you're both offering fitness classes in june um i wanted to just have you each maybe talk a little bit about your class that you'll be offering what you're going to cover in it maybe who would be the best fit to kind of sign up i i have my patients in the details class running this in june and this is a class it's a structured class that i built this whole formula on one of my naughty little border collies who had some issues

with arousal and so utilizing fitness and the the proprioception of the dog the body awareness of the dog and really just peeling back all of the layers to go back to the most fundamental level of how to use your body and how to move it and then tying that into the emotional side of the dog that sees a jump and they just brain falls out right so it's it was a a trial a trial experiment that i did with my own dog and it turned into just a systematic approach to using fitness and movement games very purposeful intentional movement games to help our dogs maintain a sense of emotional regularity right so that when you have a dog that you can't even get like a six obstacle sequence in or even get any kind of work in what can we do to help that dog and help regulate their mental state um and with that using fitness since it does there is a strong correlation there between fitness and emotional state and arousal mental state so someone that is maybe struggling with their dog even in training showing up and just losing their mind or being naughty or all the things that like you you picture you're going to the training field and you're going to train whatever whatever sport it may be right and then you get there and your dog is like and they just you know lose their mind right they can't hold a start line they're just barking or nipping at you or orbiting around you or running the fence line dot you know barking at another dog but they're clearly over threshold over face over arouse whatever the term is that you want to coin it with but this is a class about helping dogs regulate their emotions through teaching them how to move their body like not just a dog body or a border collie body right but how to move your dog's body and what is the best system in place for that and patterns if you will for fitness with that awesome kelly you can tell us about your class uh yep i've got my fun fitness foundations class um resetting which is trying to help handlers enjoy fitness training so we want to make it fun so there's challenges throughout the the class um just to try and get you guys out doing a little bit more fitness it's really aimed at people that either want to want to take a start of fitness training and really focus on those foundations but also for people that perhaps have gaps in their foundations or particular skills they're really finding challenging that they really want to address and work on so the curriculum sort of covers all of what i would consider the foundation fitness skills so some movement skills some um posture position skills

um but also the training aspects so we talk about how to train stillness we talk about how to train deliberate movement patterns um some of those reinforcement skills as well and then focusing all of those training mechanics on teaching skills that your dog understands those foundation fitness skills so they understand them and can perform them in good form um so it would i mean it really would suit a lot of people because um most of us have gaps in our foundations um i also have in the next three week round uh back a rear end specific fitness course for those people that are like actually was talking about pro-perception there's dogs that don't know that their back legs are attached to their bodies aimed at some fun exercises to help handlers develop strategies and dogs to really increase their pro-perception and awareness of the fact that they have a back end and they can move it by themselves deliberately in a certain position so yeah two two classes that are really going to help people with foundations or gaps in their foundations they need to address awesome all right well thank you both so much for coming on the podcast yeah thanks for having us yeah thank you very much sorry about my naughty terrier it's all good and thanks to our listeners and our viewers for tuning in we'll be back next week this time with sarah rita to talk about contact healing if you haven't already subscribed to the podcast either on itunes the podcast app of your choice or over on youtube to make sure you never miss an episode today's show is brought to you by the fenzy dog sports academy special thanks to niss fenzy for supporting this podcast music provided royalty free by bensound.com the track featured here is called button editing provided by chris line thanks again for tuning in and happy training