Training Log for Jan 29

But first, today's weight update: 65 pounds! YES, we're finally below 70 pounds!

Now, about yesterday's retrieve session:
Weather: sunny, dry, 2.5C
Distractions: other dogs, people, one horse

Locations of all retrieves. Blue dots are dummy's, green dots are where I've released her to retrieve.

We did eleven retrieves total. A bit much, in hindsight, but she worked really well the whole time; fast, sure, stubborn. She KNEW where the dummy's were and she was gonna GET them, damnit! Way to go, Luna!

The longest retrieve was nr. 11, in the lower left corner. 241 yards/221 meters, to be exact.

The start of our walk. I'd just gotten off my bike, and this shows Luna's mood perfectly; I'm ready, I'm ready, toss one already! Let's play!

Coming in with dummy nr. 1, 186 yards.

I tossed dummy nr. 2 behind her, in the lower area.

Coming in with dummy nr. 2, 182 yards. The one horse showed up here; when I sent Luna to get this dummy, the horse was at the top of the sandy track, to the left of the tarmac.

Walking away from dummy nr. 3. She voluntarily heels all the way to the release point. Her ears are back because I'm taking a picture, without the lens in her face she looks happier.

Coming in with dummy nr. 3, 229 yards. You can see a person with a GSD in the background, she was about where Luna is in this picture when I sent her to get the dummy. She very carefully went past the person and her dog, and then took off to where she remembered the dummy to be. The drop point is behind the line of trees.

I wanted to take a picture without Luna in it, but I guess this speaks volumes; hey you, stop messin' with that camera and toss another dummy!

Again, hoping I'll tell her to 'Get It!' I tossed dummy nr. 6 behind the thorny bushes, behind Luna in this shot.

Yihaaa! Coming in with dummy nr. 6, 105 yards. This is clearly one of the dummy's that got mauled by a Labrador on our Gundog training camp two weeks ago.

And coming in with the last one, dummy nr. 11, 241 yards!

Dummy's nr. 4 & 5 were tossed between the trees, she got nr. 5 first and then, after a long search, came back with nr. 5.

Dummy's nr. 7 to 10 were again tossed between the trees. She got nr. 8 first, then nr. 9, then nr. 10. Then she searched and searched for nr. 7, but she kept going the other direction right before hitting nr. 7, so finally she came back and said, 'I don't know!' So I walked her a little closer to nr. 7 and reset her. This time she found it!

We had a great time, and I LOVE seeing how much Luna enjoys this game when it is just the two of us. She has great memory, and quite good stamina for finding several dummy's in a row. I love seeing her take off at top speed and come back at top speed!

All in all, we spent two hours in the park, including the walk and cycling to the park. Fantastic weather, but my bike is messed up now. My gears have stopped working, so it's almost as if the chain has come off. Have to remember to fix that, today, cause I need my bike tomorrow!

Training Log for Jan 26

Luna hoping to see her favorite kittycat, while playing ball in the street. Look how fat she was!

A quick note of all the retrieves we’ve done in the park today.
Weather conditions: 5C, muddy, windy.
Distractions: My mom, and our older dog Cedric

R1: Dropped it next to the gravel path leading past the park’s oldest restaurant, Luna saw this. Then I took her with me all the way to the end of the path before I lined her up and sent her to get the dummy. On her way back to me she had to pass a dog - female Rottie with a muzzle on, who ran after her a couple of meters - which she handled beautifully. She just kept right on going, only made an arc around the other dog and was all proud delivering the dummy to me. Great speed both out and back.

R2: Tossed it in the bush when she wasn’t looking. Initially she ran back to the location of the first dummy - which, for shepherd standards was FAR away - and I had to point in the dummy’s general direction and encourage her to search in the right area before she found it. She was working well, just couldn’t see the dummy even when she was right next to it - it’s orange - which I know about. So... a bit messy, but she didn’t give up and, being a shepherd, I LOVE that she ran back to where the first dummy was!

R3: Where was this.... hmmm.... oh, I remember; on the outside of a tall wire fence, between trees but a pretty open area. Again a hard place to see the dummy because the ground was brown, too. Luna saw me drop this dummy. Then, I took her away again, just continued on our walk, and my mom decided to turn left into a gravel path with heavy brush on both sides. I took Luna in here about 30 feet, from where she had no visual of the dummy or it’s general location. Then, I sent her. She went blasting off again, which I love to see because it means that she KNOWS there’s a dummy up ahead somewhere. She was away for a little while, then came back through the brush behind me, no dummy. I could tell she was still working though, just checkin’ if we hadn’t taken off without her, so I reminded her; ‘where’s the dummy?!’ Oh, right, I know! She took off again and came back almost instantly with the dummy in her mouth and along the route we’d taken. Yay! This was great; she had to work out of my sight, a good hundred meters away from me, and she did great! Whoohoo!

R4: I placed the dummy on top of a stone bench, Luna saw this and then I walked away with her. We walked about 200 meters away, and when I was ready to send her, other dogs were running around near the bench. Hmmm... interesting. I sent Luna, figured I could help her if she found the presence of other dogs daunting, but not at all! She ran right to the bench, jumped ON the bench - yay, she had remembered it was NOT on the ground! - and came blasting back to me with the dummy and a grumbling dog - lotta noise that meant nothing - running after her, whom she paid absolutely no attention. Wow, brave girl! I KNOW you can do it! Haha!

After R4 there were no retrieves for a while due to heavy dog traffic. I’m not tossin’ dummy’s with the risk of loosing them! Instead I let her climb up on some log piles, which she loved to do. Nice balance, careful steps and jumps. Good girl!

R5: Placed the dummy on top of a stone electricity box of some kind, it’s as tall as Luna standing on her hind legs. I placed the dummy 1/4 off the edge so she could grab it. Took her away again, about 80 meters because if I took her further I couldn’t see cyclists coming, sent her out, she ran, stood up against the building and took the dummy right off. Then she came running full speed back to me again. Awesome!

R6: Tossed the dummy in the undergrowth, visible to me. Luna saw where it was. Again, walking, walking, walking away. This one was nice, because Luna kinda went on with her own business instead of heeling - with eyecontact! - all the time until I would release her to find the dummy. We walked about 300 meters away, with twists and turns in the road, a crosstrack, and the dummy and it’s location out of sight from where I sent her. No problemo, she blasted off, my mom called our older dog - he’s as deaf as they come, but habits die hard I guess ;-) - which I hoped wouldn’t make Luna turn back before finding the dummy. It didn’t, because when she came back she had it! Great memory stuff. And, most importantly, we had a fantastic time.

Next time I’m gonna try having her stay, and then I’ll walk a good space away and toss some dummy’s. See if she can do those as well. In any case, it’s FUN!

Oh, and now that I've seen the picture at the top of this post; I'll weigh her again sometime today or tomorrow, she's finally slimmed down, so I'm curious to see what the scale says!

Still overfeeding.

Oh! Aha!

I just weighed Luna again, and once again the scale said 70,5 pounds. Huh?!

So, today I did another calculation of how much food she's supposed to get, and I come up with 246 grams. In other words, she's still getting too much food (I was giving her 300 grams). Also, I'm thinking maybe this food is too rich for her. I don't want to feed her a tiny bit of food just so she won't gain weight.

Also, to give myself more room for treats other than her 'boring' - for which she works way too well - kibble, I think that when this bag of food runs out (I'm guessing another week or so) I'll put her back on the pre-ground raw meat mix I had her on before the kibble. Then I can use cheese, ground beef and chicken as treats (the raw mix is way too gross and stinky to use as treats, takes all day to get the stench off my hands!). AND she can eat a larger volume of food. AND she did fine on the pre-ground mix (that's what she was on in April).

Why did I change to kibble? Because I couldn't figure out how to have handy treats AND feed her the raw mix, without overfeeding. Now I've figured it out! So, in about two weeks she'll be back on the 'good-old' raw mix, and I'm really curious to see how she'll do!

Thanks for reading my food rambles. ;-)

Just a thought.

Hmmm, I thought this morning that it was actually a good thing, Luna being used as a boxing ball by the black dog last Sunday. I have seen NOTHING indicating that her knee was affected by the event, and that means her knee has healed really well! Yay!

Also, Luna's weight is 69 pounds today. Cool! She's beginning to look like the sleek racing machine she was up to last spring.

A little work on the retrieve.

January 2010, our first Gun Dog training week. Luna is about to put that dummy into my hands. Yes, it was COLD!

Yesterday Luna and I worked on delivering a dumbbell to hand and finding the hand in lots of different places.

We will be going to a Gun Dog training week in January and I want to make sure that this time, we come prepared!

Last year we took the course with nothing but knowing how to deliver a dumbbell/dummy/other object to my hand, and although Luna did fantastically well (out of the 20 retrieves that week, she missed about 5 of them and got the other ones all by herself or with a little help from me), I want to make sure that SHE is more secure in knowing that when I send her, there WILL be a dummy for her to find. Not so much so that she'll do even better at the course, but simply to expand her knowledge of the game. I'm using the book Positive Gun Dogs as my guideline, and when January comes around I will likely just use my old, not-specifically-trained cues to tell her what to do if I am not sure that she'll be able to use her properly-trained knowledge by then. Object of the course is a week of fun quality time, not perfect performance.

Anyway, about last night; I started with just clicking for holding the dumbbell on her own, then moved on to putting it on the floor and clicking for returning the dumbbell to my hand. Once she was good at that, I began moving my hand around; up, down, tossing the dumbbell to my left and hiding my hand behind my right leg, and vice versa. She did very well, I'd say about 80% success in finding my hand an placing the dumbbell. Fun times!

I have to make sure I set up a video camera next time, so that I'll be able to make notes of what exactly happened and keep a training progress log.

Also, her knee is still going strong, and yesterday was our first off-leash cycling trip since the injury. We went for 3 miles, and I could tell she enjoyed being off-leash after such a long time! She received lots of treats for staying next to my right leg and for running back into position after stopping to sniff or pee.

Forgot to weigh her yesterday, but today her weight is... um... *goes to get scale, weighs herself and then herself WITH the dog* Um, OK, 70.5 pounds. This keeps happening! The scale goes down a little bit, then when I'm thinking 'yay, she's loosing weight!' the scale goes UP again!

Not that this means I'll feed her less or exercise her more. She LOOKS better, maybe I should just use my eyes and my hands to see how she's doing. Saves me a bunch of useless bewilderment. Oh, well...

Weight update: 70,1 pounds.

Just a quickie for now, to keep records; yesterday Luna weighed in at 70,1 pounds. Last week she was 70,3 pounds, which means that the scale is finally moving down! In any case, Luna already looks much better now than she did 4 weeks ago. Her ideal weight is 61,7 pounds, so I’m hoping that’s where she’ll end. If not, I want to keep her at a maximum of 66 pounds.

Also, from now on I’ll weigh her at least once every two weeks, just to make sure she doesn’t end up getting to the point where I’m like; ‘Huh, she’s fat! How did that happen?’

The picture shows Luna at 23 months, about to start on 2 pounds of cow tripe. Sadly, she can’t eat that anymore these days. She’ll be all gassy and burpy and uncomfortable the next day, often accompanied by diarrhea. Poor girl. I’m still puzzled as to what went wrong, she ate tripe regularly for months and months before all of a sudden it bothered her.

We came back from our trip to a friend last Sunday, and we had a blast!

Firstly, Luna’s knee behaved beautifully all four days, never once did she limp or make any other move indicating a protesting knee. That’s SO nice I could scream! YAY!

She played with my friend’s dog, a three year old, male black Lab every day. Biting each others necks, legs, tackling each other, playing ‘who has the biggest mouth’ and basically just having a grand old time. Whenever they began playing in such a way that Luna started spinning on her hind end, we redirected them to different kinds of play. This included not letting Luna have toys in her mouth, because she would immediately instigate a game of ‘catch me if you can’ which put a lot of stress on her hind legs.

When going for walks, I mostly kept Luna on leash. Sunday she was reliable (in such a way that she wouldn’t play tight turn games) enough to allow her off leash playtime and she handled that very well.

On Friday morning, Luna and I joined my friend’s gundog class, where it became apparent that Luna and I have a) not done any retrieving for a while and b) have mostly been doing easily visible marked retrieves and c) she’d last been in this location March of last year. All in all, she did well! There were some things we didn’t do, such as stopping her on a whistle cue to direct her toward a dummy and some other things I don’t remember. We did a marked retrieve across water, which she did really well considering the circumstances. She was basically as good as the other dogs; they all stopped at the bank, wondering how on earth to get to the dummy on the other side, then figuring it out and going through the little stream to fetch the dummy.

We did a couple of straightforward marked retrieves on land where the helper tossed the dummy and stood near where it fell. Luna went out to get these nice and fast, dropped the dummy once as she almost got back to me, then, on my ‘hey, you forgot something’, went back and delivered the dummy to hand. This is something she does right 90% of the time we do retrieves ‘at home’, so this didn’t bother me at all. I knew this was just because of the new circumstances, and the most important thing for me, was that Luna enjoyed herself. Which she did!

Then, we had to ‘park’ our dogs, walk back about 40’ and call our dogs to us while the helper tossed a dummy toward the dog as it ran towards the handler. Luna looked at the dummy being thrown and kept on going, coming in nicely and at good speed. Yay!

Another thing we did, I think it was the first exercise; the helper placed dummies to the left and right of a central point, about 60’ away. The dogs saw this. Then, we had to put our dog in the middle and send her to get first one dummy, and then the other. Whilst the dog returned with the second dummy, the helper tossed a third dummy to the right side of the handler, which the dog had to ignore until being asked to go get it. Luna made a mess of this one. She had NO clue, but she DID remember the landing spot of the last dummy, so she went to check that out first. With a little guidance from the helper ‘look, here it is!’ she managed to retrieve all three of them. Not pretty, but she did it happily and confidently once she remembered the dummies.

Lastly, the helper had hidden a bunch of dummies in a wooded area. All dogs had to retrieve one. As they had not seen the dummies being placed, this was a blind retrieve, which means that the handler knows there’s a dummy, but the dog doesn’t. Luna went out into the wooded area nice and quick, searched for a little bit and then said ‘mommy, I can’t go without you!’ and so the helper walked with her into the wooded area, and from there on she took off and found a dummy. Yay! Good girl!

Obviously all this was too much to ask of Luna, I’m aware of that. I am really glad I’ve discovered clickertraining and really understand it now, because whenever Luna doesn’t do something, I just laugh and give her some hints. OK, laughing is a reinforcer, but I’d rather do that and have a happy dog than not laugh at all and have a dog that feels wrong. Also, this helper -a traditional trainer- was really nice about helping Luna when she didn’t know what to do. He just walked along with her, made some funny noises, tossed the dummy a second time if she didn’t remember it, and I think that’s really nice of him! I have seen him with his own dog and he’ll use coercion when his dog doesn’t do what he wants. Also, he uses intimidation with the other dogs in class, and says things like ‘keep the dog closer so you can put more pressure on her’. Hence my being pleased with how he helped my dog! The most important thing is that Luna had fun and learned that yes, she CAN do it even in a strange place with strange people and strange dogs.

Saturday we went to a gundog competition, and on Sunday we took a long walk before my friend brought us home. A nice weekend with much better weather than expected!

Our train trip on Thursday was less smooth than I hoped, but nonetheless Luna handled it nicely. Normally, we find a spot in the row of seats with the other travelers, but this time the train was so full that I decided we'd be better off just staying in the hall where the doors are. This meant Luna had to settle in a corner of the train, right next to the doors and with people passing us by at each station. I was a bit worried this would be too busy for her to relax, but no. I'd made a little corridor for her with me and my bags on one side of her, and the wall on the other side of her. This way she could lie down comfortably without worrying about other people stepping on her. And she did, all by herself, lie down about 5 minutes into the trip. At each station she sat up to check things out, but otherwise she remained calm. And I am proud of how well she managed to curl up in the small space she had, as this is not something we've ever trained! I had to stand for most of the trip, another thing that is different from our normal train-travel mode, but this too did not bother her. How I LOVE that dog!

The picture shows Luna at 7 months in a natural stand. Nice puppy!

More pilling videos and a break from blogging

Today I have two more videos for you, on how I feed my dog her pills in case she needs them.

Here is video number one, my second attempt to feed her the nighttime pill before she can eat dinner, which was a real mess the first time I filmed it. This time she did it so quickly that she even caught me by surprise!



And here is a video of me feeding her the same kind of pill during the day, where she has to take the pill before she gets the treats. This was the first time I did the whole thing with one hand, so it might not be so easy to see, but she keeps the pill in her mouth the second time around and eats the treats out of my hand. She loves to lick my hand clean once all the treats are gone. Isn't she a great girl!



Luna and I will be leaving in half an hour to visit a friend, where we will be staying until Sunday or possibly Monday morning. There will be no blogging until we get back. We're taking the train to get there, a very comfortable experience with Luna as she will settle immediately once we're seated and then proceed to sleep through the entire trip. She's awesome!

OK. A pilling fiasco. Yes, you may laugh!

Haha! I thought I’d film how I give Luna her last pill of the day (she gets 3 total as a maintenance dose) and OF COURSE everything was a mess! Yesterday we did the exact same thing for the first time, she took the pill, held it in her mouth and I could give her the OK to go eat. Which meant that she’d eat the pill as well.

Today though, she decided to do some testing of my criteria. ‘Does it count if I just ignore the pill and do Food Zen?’ No. ‘Does it count if I take and then drop the pill?’ No. ‘Does it count if I take it, pretend to chew it and drop it again?’ No. ‘Hmmm. Let me try that one again. Are you SURE it does not count when I take it, chew it and spit it back out?’ YES, I’m SURE that does NOT count!

And then, finally, I got smart, gave Luna the pill again, and while she was still pretend-chewing I said OK, and she dove into her food AND ate the pill. Haha, gotcha! ;-)

Then my dad came into the kitchen and asked about the ‘strange smell’ in the kitchen (Cedric’s raw meat dinner, which he’d just finished). So if you hear a man’s voice and mine talking in some strange language, the above was happening. This is after Luna starts eating her food. The language is Dutch.

Oh, also, Luna has a complete brainfart and has NO clue what ‘Park It’ (my cue for Sit) means.

The two pills she gets during the day, one for ‘breakfast’ and one for ‘lunch’, I do differently because she only gets one meal a day; I take the pill and about 10 treats (kibble from her daily ration - yes, she LOVES food). Then, I present the pill, wait for a few seconds until she realizes she won’t get the treats if she doesn’t take the pill first, she takes the pill, and I IMMEDIATELY Rapid-Fire those 10 treats. This ensures she swallows the pill AND makes it a fun game for both of us.

I will try to film our daytime pilling as well, and give the nighttime pill another shot. We still have 3 days before Thursday’s last pill!

She's doing well!

Luna has been moving very well for the last few days. She LOVES our daily trip with the bike and she’s Sad that she has to be on leash for now, but she behaves beautifully nonetheless. I stop and tell her to ‘go pee’ about 6 times on our trip, and she does so almost immediately, every time. How nice!

Only thing she has to get used to is that she cannot stick to the side of the road when we have to pass other people and cyclists, I really have to say ‘This way!’ or we catch an unsuspecting passerby in the leash. ;-) I DO kind of like this though, it shows how well she knows where she’s normally supposed to be when we’re cycling off leash; as close to the side of the road as possible, regardless of other traffic and unless I tell her to do otherwise. Now I get to see that it has truly become habit for her. Good girl!

And just to show how persistent a habit can be; I’ve moved the trash can in my room to a different place for about a week now. EVERY TIME I go to throw something away, I first turn to where the bin USED to be and then go; ‘oh, right, I moved it!’ I wonder how long that will last, and hopefully Luna will catch on quicker!

Above is a video of us cycling in better days, on our way to the park. Almost at the end I have to ask Luna to slow down, or she’ll overtake the cyclist in front of us! At the end she licks her lips, in anticipation of the treat that always comes when we stop!

FYI; yes, she’s off leash, but I do leash her as soon as I see another dog, or even if I feel that Luna isn’t really connected to me. Being able to cycle with her pretty much everywhere off leash is something that has developed over the years (she’s 5,5 now), and I feel perfectly safe and comfortable with this setup. If I don’t, for whatever reason, I immediately put her on leash. I don’t think I’d be doing this so easily with a bird dog!

YAY! A day of all four legs working nicely!

Whoohoo! I am HAPPY!

I’ve had Luna on a homeopathic anti-inflammatory treatment since last night that I thought would help her knee, and by golly, it did! I have not seen ONE wrong move from her today. That’s GREAT!

I’ll continue to give her this stuff for 7 days total, while sticking with the straight line exercise. Whew, I'm glad it’s helping, I feared we were back to square one! If she continues to do this well, I don’t think we’ll need to see the vet again. If she is again - or still - limping by Monday, I will call the vet and ask her advice.

The picture is Luna at 15 months at the beach, playing with our, in this shot, 11 year old West Highland White Terrier. They run, bark loudly, the little guy tries to bodyslam Luna, it’s massive fun. Sometimes Luna has to jump over Cedric - the Westie - to prevent collisions or landing on him. He looks like a real monster in this shot! ;-)

DAMN! The knee again.

Today was supposed to be the last day of no activity for Luna because of her knee injury. So this morning when she encountered a playmate (a ±90 pound male Rottweiler) I allowed her to play with him, although Luna is, compared to this guy, ‘only’ 68 pounds. And I KNOW they’ll play chase and I KNOW he’ll collide with her back end. Not on purpose, but just because he isn’t as agile and quick as Luna is.

Well, that’s exactly what happened. Luna yelped once but continued to play. Normally, yelping doesn’t bother me, it’s just something that can happen in play between dogs. Now, when I heard it, I thought, ‘damn, I hope her knee will be OK’. She was moving fine though, and she’s a DOG, and she’d already been confined for three weeks, so I let her play.

Sure enough though, when we got home and I towelled her off, I thought she held her tail a bit stiffly. And later when she came out of a dog bed, I thought I saw her limp. But then when I wanted to look closer, Luna was already walking fine again. Then, at lunch, mom said ‘she’s limping’, again upon exiting a dog bed. Again just one to three steps, but still. Then tonight, as she got off the little sofa in my room that’s kind of hers now, she stood on three legs for a second, somewhat limped two steps and then it was again as if nothing had happened.

But, obviously, her knee did not like the activity today. So, as of right now, I’ve decided to limit her activity to straight line exercise (going for walks and cycling on leash) and just tell everyone with a dog that Luna normally likes to play with, that Luna will NOT be playing with dogs for, say, two months. Let’s just see if we can get her weight down, get her well muscled again and then, when I’m sure it will be OK, she can play with other dogs again.

Since the limping only happens for a few steps after not moving for a while, I decided to stick with my strength- and endurance building schedule (in the shape of daily walks and cycling). That knee needs muscle support, and she can’t get that with an hour total of slow walking a day. All the vet can do is give her another round of anti-inflammatory pills, and, well, I just don’t think that’s really necessary.

I HAVE put her on a homeopathic treatment for bruising, sprains and such, and I will continue to do that until she stops limping. If the limping gets worse, I will go see the vet. Also, I’ll be giving her Reiki treatments and massages.

If anyone has any input as to what else I can do to help heal that knee, I’d love to hear about it! Swimming would probably be really good, right? We can do that, too.

And I keep thinking, if only I HADN’T thrown that ball last June, the one who’s catch created this injury in the first place, then she would still be fine now and not have this annoying weak spot. I’d almost wish it was HD, at least then she could keep on living a happy, active life. With this knee thing we have to be very careful, because if her knee tendons/ligaments(?) tear apart we have a real problem with an even longer rehab process!

Anyway, thanks for reading this lengthy rant.

Oh, almost forgot; the picture is Luna at 20 months, the skinniest - too skinny - she’s ever been, out for an early morning autumn walk in the park. What a lovely day that was! Don’t you just love a happy, dirty dog?!

More reactivity success!

Yay! Last night on our last walk of the day, we again met the dog we saw yesterday during our first Kaboom! session. I put Luna on leash and she behaved beautifully towards this dog. Inquisitive, a softly wagging tail and no stress (‘oh, it’s just a dog, not a monster’). I used verbal praise and petting to let her know what a good girl she was, and the owner of the other dog did the same. That was very nice!

Then two more dogs came our way, a blonde and a black Lab. Luna has been reactive to the black Lab before, so I decided to sit on my haunches with Luna sitting between my legs, and my arms around her stroking her chest. She felt very comfortable this way and was able to remain soft and inquisitive towards the two Labs, who were also very friendly and non-invasive. Again more verbal praise from me and the owner of the first dog (isn’t that nice?!), and I continued to hold Luna so that she was constantly physically connected to me. She actually did a little happy talking and tail wagging and, well, she just LOOKED happy! I am SO proud of her!

To top it all off, the owner of the two Labs had cookies, and when Luna located those she asked if Luna could have one. Of course! Anything that’ll help Luna believe that other dogs are good news!

All in all it was a GREAT experience for both of us. Fun, safe, relaxed. And yet another technique I can use to help my little girl. I decided on this one because I felt three dogs was a little too crowded to use a lot of treats, and because Luna was responding so well to verbal praise and being connected to me. It was very nice.

On the weight-loss front; she was 68 pounds today. In other words, no progress. And I have NO idea why! It may be muscle gain though, because she does LOOK thinner than three weeks ago. I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing now. As of this Friday she’s off hiatus (knee injury) and we can start introducing cycling again, and from there we should be back to regular activity in a couple of months. If her weight hasn’t improved by then, I’ll have her checked by the vet.

The picture shows a gorgeous head shot of Luna at 8 months. All these little gems I find now that I use a picture for each blog! I remember seeing a White Swiss Shepherd for the first time in real life, and thinking, ‘wow, they even have white eyelashes!’

Conditioning your performance dog.

Something I'm interested in, now that Luna has a 'weak' spot in the shape of her right hind knee. I'm just posting this here for future reference.

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Conditioning your performance dog

By www.fourmileaussies.com

There seems to be a lot of talk, methods and even confusion about how to condition your dog for performance events - especially agility. One popular method is running your dog, including on tread mills or even beside a bicycle for miles on end.

It seems to me that running a dog in a straight line is not the best 'agility' conditioning.  If you are trying to get an out of shape dog to lose weight and get fit, then this is probably a good start. However, if you are trying to get a dog in shape for running an agility course, you will probably need to do other exercises.

The reason I say this is because running slow and steady in a straight line uses different muscles than running an agility course. So your dog might look 'fit', however his 'agility' muscles may not be. Steady running in a straight line uses slow twitch muscles. It also does not build up the stablizing muscles/tendons/ligaments that will be needed to support the joint laterally during exercises like agility.

Weight lifters use free weights for several reasons versus the nautilus type of equipment. The nautilus equipment was developed to isolate a specific group of muscles and work them (specifically in exercise rehabilitation. They got popular in gyms though.) Free weights (when used correctly) work the main target muscle, however they also work the lateral muscles around a joint. The lateral muscles get worked because they are used to stablize the weight and support the joint (ie. not let the weight move side to side, but up and down.)

If your dog is in generally good doggie health (and you should probably consult with your vet before starting a conditioning program), then your dog could benefit from some fine tuning conditioning. Such as:

Ball throwing - Stand on porch, or even sit on your couch if your living room is big enough. Throw ball. Dog goes from stop to full speed very fast. This uses the dog's fast twitch muscle (and therefore will develop and condition them). This is good for fast starts at start line, or for regaining a fast pace after a call off or tight turn. Slow twitch muscles don't help here. Slow twitch muscles are endurance muscles. Fast twitch muscles are used for sudden bursts of speed (much like an agility course). So long distance running wouldn't benefit. (Note by me; I would only do this with the dog waiting until the ball stops moving before sending her to go get it. Sudden stops are no good.)

Dancing - Or actually standing on hind end. This helps strengthen the dog's hind end because all his weight is on it. I've heard of some people getting the dog to jump up and down on his hind end. I would work up to this slowly. This will help build the power (muscle bulk) needed to jump and push the dog up the A-frame. Also if you let the dog do this on his own, he will develop the lateral muscles needed to hold his balance on his own eventually.

Playing tug - Same effect as above. The dog is using his hind end to pull away from you. Less impact than jumping on hind end. However, tug with a big dog can have undesirable chiropractic effects on your back:)

Pulling (or taking owner for a walk) - I would recommend a harness (the kind that is like a V across his chest, not a straight strap). As the dog pulls against you, it helps build strength and power in the front end as well as hind. This will help a dog to climb the A-frame at less than full speed.

Begging - while sitting on haunches. This helps develop the muscles along the dog's back. It's not easy for a lot of dogs to sit like this at first. But it can help develop lateral muscles supporting his spine. I can't help but to wonder what all this weaving is doing to a dog's spine. However, if the spine is well muscled on either side, it will protect the spine more than if it is boney.

Playing with other dogs - This is really good exercise. My dogs run pretty darn fast for a while and then end up wrestling. They condition themselves (it helps to have aussies). But if you watch the way they run, they are making a lot of turns and cutting back and forth. This helps strengthen the lateral muscles around their joints (hopefully strong enough to ward off any ligament blow outs). It also gets them to blow off a lot of steam before I work with them.

The bottom line is that to avoid injuries and extend your dog's performance life, you need muscles that are strong enough to cushion and protect the various joints. If you are campaigning your dog for long distance running, then bike riding or a tread mill, would be appropriate. But for fast bursts of speed, sharp turns, climbing and jumping, you need to have a different conditioning program.

As always, go slow when starting and go at the dog's own pace. For some stoic or really driven dogs, you might have to tell them when it's time to quit because they won't until they are really hurt.

Don't forget to give your dog enough rest time and a massage to help them rebuild after a training session. You want your dog to be stronger in the end. Use your common sense. Constant pounding, jumping everyday, training over and over again, isn't good for your dog.

If you are still unsure about an appropriate pace, my recommendation is to do the same exercises as your dog is doing. If you wake up the next morning and you can't get out of bed, maybe you have over done it. If you condition your dog at a pace that your body is comfortable with, chances are, it won't be too fast for the dog.
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About the picture; Luna at 13 months playing fetch by herself (ie. she whacks the ball with her paw and then goes after it to ‘stop’ it from running off) after swimming in the lake. Isn’t she gorgeous?! What a great use of all those photos I have of the lady!

Finishing up training inspiration ideas & no more pills for the lady!

 Wow, time flies when you’re having fun!

For the past two and a half days I’ve been working hard on modifying BZ Training’s plans to my situation, adding and removing things as I went. I think I’m about done now.

This morning was Luna’s last 1 & 1/4 anti-inflammation/painkiller pill. Nice, because they were pretty sticky! And one less thing to forget. ;-)

Again, since the first pill, she has not limped once. From today until next Thursday we’ll have another week of no activity other than calm, straight line walking, and then we can finally start doing FUN- um, ACTIVE FUN things again!

My agenda says that we’ll start Levels training on Friday the 15th, so far I think I will stick to that plan... ahum... give myself some time to get off my butt....

We ARE still going for a longer walk whenever we can, though yesterday was a no-go due to dreary, wet weather & a little, old white dog depending on me for his potty breaks. This morning however, we- I, gathered all my stuff (whistle around my neck, 3 slices of cooked sausage in the treat bag along with 100g of kibbles, phone, Kleenex, house keys-) and off we went!

A nice walk, sunny and dry, nice temperature. I planned to do three ‘practice’ RRR’s (Really Reliable Recall), meaning ‘there’s no emergency but we’re just practicing’ and I got to do only ONE where I felt I was actually calling her away from something. Both other times she seemed to just be a little ways away ‘because I said to ‘mind your own business’’, but mentally she was still with me. Either way she did nice recalls and couldn’t get the sausage out of my hands quick enough! :-)

More plans for a lasting recovery.

 I just thought of another Levels behaviour we can work on while Luna is recovering from her knee injury. Scenting!

So now, we have the following items to work on while Luna has to take it easy; Zen, Down & Down Stay, Sit & Sit Stay, Handling, Watch, & Scenting.

Also, I will be taking Luna for longer walks on her flexi-lead and harness as of - weather permitting - tonight. We’ll then be doing 45 minutes, which is about 2,4 miles. Hopefully this will help keep her muscles in good condition and rush along her weight loss a little faster than it is going right now.

I said...

 NO playing with other dogs...

Well, I let her anyway, this morning, with Senna the Bernese Mountain Dog whom I actually suspect of having CAUSED Luna’s injury in the first place! AND I let them play on leash. *Sigh*

Well, that’s not going to happen anymore.

There IS however, good news! I have not seen Luna limp since yesterday. Yay!

AND, according to the client desk, a DVD (Susan Garrett’s Crate Games) I’d ordered about a month ago is finally on its way here! Yay, again!

I took this picture on September 18, when all was well with her legs.