E99: 레슬리 에이드(Leslie Eide) - "카발레티를 활용한 카나인 피트니스"

So a lot of focus on just being able to live life happily with a pack of dogs, with the house and work schedules. And we're just starting at 10 and a half months old to start to really introduce him to some foundation agility training. Awesome. Well, congrats on the recent UKI stuff. That's awesome. Yeah. So what came first, the interest in dog sports or the interest in veterinary medicine? And then how did you kind of wind up focusing on sports medicine? So I think that's a really good question. I've actually never had anyone ask me it that way before. And it really made me think. And honestly, the answer is dog sports first before veterinary medicine. So about a month to go in my swimming career at university, I realized, oh, my God, my swimming life is ending. I can get a dog. First thing I knew I was going to do with that dog was I knew it was going to have to be better trained than any of the dogs I grew up with. Sorry, mom and dad. But that was my first goal with getting a dog. And then my second goal was like, I really want to do agility with it. I think I'd probably seen agility on Animal Planet and was like, oh, I really want a dog to do that with. And so I kind of left one sport that was just me with swimming and then could focus on developing my skills for a new sport. And then around the same time, I also realized because, you know, this would have been spring semester of my senior year at university. So it dawned on me, I'm going to graduate and then I have to do something with my life. And I don't really know what I'm going to do. Like swimming was my life. So my undergraduate degrees were actually in economics and European studies. And that doesn't really bode well to like a single profession. So I didn't really want to like necessarily go into academia or like, God forbid, politics. So I was like, what can I do with an economics degree? I don't know. And someone actually was like, well, you know, you're so good with your puppy. Why don't you become a vet? And I was like, okay, I'll do that. So that's literally kind of how I got on the road to veterinary medicine. So definitely dog sports came first, veterinary medicine second. The focus on sports medicine was also kind of a similar story. My initial interest in going to veterinary school was actually to become a behaviorist. And I made it all the way through my internship thinking that that was what I wanted to do.

And then in my internship, again, it kind of dawned on me that that's going to be a really hard career path, even in veterinary medicine, especially with my situation where if I went from my internship to a residency, there were a whole bunch of other loops I would have to jump through to actually be able to become a behaviorist. And my surgeon mentor during my internship said, hey, you know, there's this whole new field of sports medicine and rehab coming up. You already do sports with your dogs. You know more about it than I even know about it. So maybe you should look into that. And so he basically showed me, you know, all the resources that were out there and gave me the first textbook. And that started me on the path that way. And it just was a nice fit because it does definitely have an aspect of behavior and dog training. But you still got to do the diagnostic part and the challenging part of figuring out what's going on with the dog and coming up with a treatment plan for it. I heard you recently won the American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Alternative Path Resident Grant. And I wanted to congratulate you. Thank you. And ask if you could share a little bit about what you're working on. Yeah, I think I can share a little bit about it. I don't think I'm supposed to talk a whole bunch about it because part of the award was that I had to present my findings at a big conference in 2021. But basically, the question I've been working on for my entire residency is how does strength conditioning affect performance? You know, it's really, you know, everything that I teach and teach at FENSI with jumping gymnastics and now the Cavalettis is really looking at strength conditioning. And can we say, you know, does this kind of fitness program improve the dog's performance? Specifically for this grant, I did have to change my model. I really, really wanted agility to be my model. I'm sure you can guess why. I really like agility. But agility does not, it's not a good model for measuring performance. And so I did switch to fly ball. So it's now going to be, we're going to be measuring fly ball performance to see if there's improvement with dogs that start a conditioning program. Interesting. Interesting. I'll have to have you back on once you have done your big talk on it and can kind of share the results and get into it a little more. Yeah, definitely. So I was hoping we could talk about your Cavaletti class that you mentioned. To kind of start us out, for anyone not familiar with dog fitness stuff, can you just briefly kind of explain what Cavalettis are? Yeah.

Yeah. So Cavaletti is, it's a great word, fun word to say. It's actually, it comes from the Italian, I think, for little horse. And so really everything we talk about Cavalettis completely comes from the horse world. And the definition there is basically they're rails that can be adjusted height-wise and space-wise. And traditionally there's three different heights that you can set them at in the setups for horses. And really they're meant to help the horse understand its stride length and increase strength in the horse and, you know, improve body awareness. And so we basically just, you know, stole that idea and moved it over to the dog world. So it's still, to me, if someone says Cavalettis, what I picture in my mind is, you know, rails that are held up by some kind of standard on each end. And I can adjust both the height and the distance between rails. Now for most people, that kind of looks like poles and cones, right? Yeah. So most commercial sets are poles and cones. It's just an easy way to do it. You know, you can take a cone and put holes in it and then, you know, have some PVC that goes in the hole from cone to cone. Of all the, I guess, types of equipment out there and types of exercises, why Cavalettis to create a class around? Well, I think it's one of the hardest piece of equipment for people to come up with different ideas. Looking at jumping gymnastics for that kind of example, you know, I use all kinds of different fitness equipment for it. But in the very first class, I did have Cavalettis as trotting rails as like the very first assignment. And, you know, people did struggle with getting their dog to understand it. And sometimes they, you know, would take a large portion of the class. And then, you know, more and more questions started, you know, popping up about like, how do I do this? How do I teach my dog to do this? And I was like, well, I think that makes for a good class to be able to teach that. I've had fairly good success getting lots of dogs to do that, especially since I use it in rehab on a day-to-day basis. But also I wanted a class that I could help people think outside the box and think of other ways to use that equipment. So it's not like you're just getting this piece of equipment and you only have one use for it. I want you to be able to basically plan a whole fitness program around just the single piece. That's so cool because I feel like a lot of the equipment does kind of take up space and it's a little on the bulky side.

And it's just such a neat piece of equipment that can kind of be packed away in a relatively small space and fit in the closet and whatever else, you know. So what kind of dogs can benefit from the exercises in the class? Are there specific types of sports or types of competition that they're most beneficial for? You know, what are the benefits of this stuff? Yeah. So, I mean, I really think this can be a universal class. I mean, I think it can benefit all ranges of dogs, whether you're not doing any sports or, you know, your high level agility dog. You know, I look at it as a lot of the exercises can be very low intensity and low impact, but we can make modifications to them and suddenly they become a little bit more high intensity. Specifically, I think it's a lot of the exercises. Specifically, I think when I want to use Cavaletti, my goals of the exercise are things like improving body awareness, improving flexibility. And then, you know, I can definitely also use it if strength is my goal. I just have to make some changes to my setup. And then definitely I can also use it as a cardio exercise, you know, where I don't have to actually do so much cardio with my dog. That's always the hard part about getting your dog to do cardio. You know, when I say take him for a run, that usually means a person has to run with them as well. But Cavaletti, we can kind of get around that a little bit. That's pretty neat. So for those who are familiar with Cavalettis and are probably used to kind of that idea of the dogs trotting across them, I know you're going well beyond that in this class. Can you kind of share one or two examples of the other ways you'll be using them or teaching the people to handle the dogs using them, I guess, in this class? Yeah, I mean, we're definitely going to have some jumping exercises in there and crawling and combinations of exercises. So, you know, different movement patterns of, you know, not just doing it straight, but also let's work on, you know, doing it in a circle or figure eight. Hopefully, lots of variety and, you know, will also help the students think of new exercises on their own that they can do with the equipment. What are some of the other things you'll talk about in the class? So we're definitely going to talk about some tips to how to train it and how to train your eye so you can, you know, see what kind of adjustment needs to be made to how you set it up.

So that's one of, I think, one of the hardest thing with Cavaletti is that, you know, there is a basic formula you can start with, but really no dog reads the textbook and fits exactly in the formula. So you can start with that formula, but then you have to usually make adjustments to the spacing or the height to better fit your dog. And then once you have, you know, that figured out, then how do you, how do you change the rails to continue to challenge them? But I'm also going to drop in a little bit of training tips, like using markers to help your dog know where the reinforcement is coming. That, you know, kind of fits in really well with the Cavalettis of, because a lot of times we don't want them looking at us during the exercise. So we need to have their focus somewhere else. So I'm talking about that. And then definitely each assignment or exercise will have a little description of what the purpose of this exercise is. Like, why would you choose to do it? So if listeners are thinking about signing up, can you share a little about who might be a good fit for the class? What do they or their dog need to know kind of going in? So I think this is a class that, you know, really there's not a lot of required pre-knowledge. You know, I try to plan it out. So we start with like the easy stuff first and build off that. So, you know, your dog can start out, even if it has to be on leash, we can make that work. You know, knowing how to walk with you, I guess, is the biggest requirement. You know, that's kind of where we start and we build off of that. And it's really, you know, it's not something, like I said, I think it's easy to make adjustments. So if your dog is new to fitness, I think this is a great place to start. It can be very low impact, low intensity. But if your dog's been doing fitness and you're just looking for some more ideas of things that you can fit to your program, this is a great place to get ideas and modifications to make some, add some excitement to your fitness program. It sounds like a great class. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. So one last question here. What's a lesson you've learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dogs? Yeah, this is one of my favorite questions of yours. So it always makes me think because I'm not good about thinking back and being like, oh, what's a lesson? And I'm constantly reminded that I need to be better about keeping data, writing things down of what we need to work on, what our results were after a training session.

But the other thing that really I was just reminded of this past weekend was really also kind of letting the dog tell you when they're ready for the next step, when they're ready for the next challenge. And so that kind of comes from fitness of interpreting, even if we use the Cavaletti class as an example, once they can trot through the rails or the poles without looking at me, looking straight ahead, basically telling me that they understand that behavior, now I know they're ready for the next challenge. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, Leslie. This has been good. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to start teaching this class, and I hope people are excited to take it. It certainly seemed like it. There was a good buzz going on the alumni list. So it's good stuff. Awesome. Thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week, this time with Loretta Mueller, to talk about training agility in small spaces. 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 Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie 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. o Thank you.