Fit Dog Friday: Conditioning

I decided recently that Koira needed a bit more conditioning, and that Pallo could use it as well. We are coming up on a number of flyball tournaments, lure coursing weekends, and of course summer camping, hiking, and backpacking plans in the next few months. It will be easier on the dogs if they are both in really good physical condition.

Now, yes, my dogs are already pretty in shape. But right now, if I were to run Pallo full time at a two day flyball tournament, he would be dead tired by the end of Saturday and not fully recovered by Sunday morning, leaving him at risk for injury. Koira I think has a bit more endurance, but I have this crazy desire to see her totally ripped this summer. I want to have one of those dogs that even dog people stop and admire the muscles on.

I admit it. It is part vanity.

Koira diving for her toy

What this all means, though, is that I am starting a conditioning program with my dogs. I don't want to do too much of anything, but want to do enough of everything to get some good results. What this means is we will be stepping up the number of off leash walks and hikes for the dogs, slowly increasing them in length. I will also be trotting them on a bike a couple times per week (weather permitting) for 20 minutes. This is stuff we have been doing, I will just be increasing how much and how often we do them.

There are also things I plan to add to their conditioning routines. I recently built a spring pole for the dogs after a friend let them try out the one she had. They both totally loved it and got a really good work out from it, so I decided we needed one at our house. I'll share the how-to on making a spring pole in another post, but let me say it was super simple and cheap to make. I plan to let Koira use the spring pole for no more than 5 minutes at a time at first, and gradually build up to no more than 15 minutes at a time. I don't think she will ever get tired of the spring pole (though Pallo will if not continually encouraged), but I don't want to over work her on it.

Pallo with the spring pole

Koira leaping for the spring pole

Koira tugging like crazy on the spring pole, and using the tree to help

I am also planning on getting another lunge whip to make a new flirt pole. We had one before, but I don't have any idea what happened to it. The dogs love playing with it, so a new one will be being built soon. We will likely start out doing the same thing as with the spring pole- start with 5 minute max sessions, and build up to 15 minutes, and do it a few times per week. Again, I don't want to over work the dogs or have them get bored with the game, so I will always be stopping when they are still eager for more.

Pallo playing with the flirt pole

Koira trying to grab the flirt pole

Pulling is another conditioning game we will be working on. So far, I have been having Koira (in her freight pulling harness) pull an old tire across the yard 4-5 times every few days. The tire doesn't weigh a lot, but the slow and steady pulling of lighter weights can really help build condition without too much of an increased risk of injury. We might even end up competing in some weight pulls if we stick with it enough she enjoys it enough. Because Pallo doesn't like weight pull at all, I am not going to be having him do this one, though I may try again at some point to see if I can increase his enjoyment.

Pallo lure coursing at a recent CAT trial

Adding to this the other fun things we try to do whenever possible, including lure coursing, swimming, dock diving, and trips to the beach should start to make a big difference for the dogs in terms of condition. Since they also both have flyball once a week and Koira just started agility once a week as well, I am hoping I will see some big improvements by the time our next full weekend flyball tournament comes along in July.

(Also, thank you to my friend Kay who took all of the pictures in the posts on Monday, Wednesday, and today, other than Pallo lure coursing, which was taken on my camera by my friend Nicole. Thank you guys for the awesome photos!)

Fun Filled Weekend

We had a really fun weekend. Saturday morning started with a few hours at the local farmer's market, followed by a visit to a local agility trial. I'm tired and sunburned from the rest of our weekend adventures, so thought I'd just do a quick share of some of my favorite photos from agility.

2013 Photo Challenge: Join me?

I wanted to do a photo challenge for the new year. But, I am not good at doing the daily pictures. Themes always leave me feeling un-creative and lacking in ideas. Specific challenges make me want to rebel or make me bored with taking the same photo over and over.

So, I decided to create my own challenge, and I invite anyone else who is interested to join in. You can join with your blog, with Flickr, or any other way you choose to share your photos. This is not a daily, weekly, or monthly challenge. There is no limit to the number of pictures you can take to fulfill it. Take as many pictures as you want at a time.

Requirements for this challenge are pretty basic, and you can feel free to take your own spin on it if you would like. The basic idea, though? Photograph every dog breed in the AKC/UKC in the year 2013. Or, alternatively, photograph every dog sport. For extra challenge? Photograph every dog breed and every dog sport as a combination challenge. Feel free to pick your own kennel club if you are outside the United States.

Want to only take pictures of dogs actively competing in sports, and do that for all dog breeds? Great! Want to take pictures at only conformation shows, in the ring, and win pictures? Great! Want to photograph the widest variety of breeds possible, all while performing agility (or some other sport)? Great!

My personal goal for this will be to both photograph every breed in the AKC and UKC as well as every sport that is active in Oregon. My hope is that I will learn a lot about photographing dogs other than my own, and, at the same time, motivating myself to travel to different shows and competitions around my area to learn and photograph. My focus will be on quality of the pictures, trying to highlight something awesome about each breed and each sport.

Want to join? Let us know what you plan on using for your goal. If enough people are interested, I will put together a page with links to blogs who plan to participate. The Flickr group is open to everyone interested in the challenge, so feel free to join over there, whether or not you plan to post on your blog.

Flyball Training: Not that simple

A short note before you read on: Flyball is my sport of choice, as should be pretty obvious to any regular blog readers. It is simply the sport I choose to participate in above all others. When I compare it to agility, or obedience, or any other sport, I am doing so from my own perspective, with opinions born from my own experience. Feel free to express any disagreements in the comment area. This is all open to discussion, but please try to keep it friendly.


Many people seem to have a very simplistic view of flyball. A lot of people in the dog sport world have a simplistic and negative view of flyball. The strange part is, most of those people have never been to a flyball tournament, demo, or practice.

Giving all of these people the benefit of the doubt, that they simply don't know what flyball is all about, I want to share what flyball does for dog training. Every type of training with dogs has focus areas. Some things are really strong in them, and others, not so much.

Flyball on the surface has two behaviors that need to be trained: jumps, and the flyball box. It looks so simple when an experienced dog is on the course that sometime people want to just get out there with their totally untrained (at least for flyball) dog and are disappointed when the dog doesn't perform well, or at all.

Almost everyone views jumps as a simplistic obstacle for a dog to learn, whether they compete in obedience, agility, flyball, or simply play in the back yard. Most dogs learn to go over a jump easily. Some agility trainers take it a step farther by training and proofing jumps enough to give a dog accountability for keeping bars up. But, in the most basic sense, jumps are easy. No dispute there.

The flyball box is an obstacle that sounds simple. Dog jumps on box, box shoots out ball, dog catches ball, dog jumps off box. Training a fast, smooth, and safe box turn that holds up is a whole lot more complicated than that, but lets face it, its a pretty single purpose behavior. (My personal opinion is that there is not one other single obstacle or exercise used in any dog sport that is more complex and more complicated to train than a box turn. Feel free to disagree, and comment with examples if you would like.)

Flyball as a sport is a lot more than just the obstacles. Sure, the dog runs down over four jumps, hops on the box, grabs a ball, and runs back over four jumps. Sounds easy. Sounds simple. How much training can that possibly take?

For agility people, let me ask you a question: How far of a send out can you do with your dog and have them reliably perform the obstacle at that distance? How far can they send out to their hardest obstacle (be it weaves, a contact obstacle, or whatever)? Keep this in mind for a minute.

A flyball course is 51 feet from the box to the start line. Most dogs are started at least 10 feet into the run back area, and many are started closer to 30-50 feet. This means the send out to the flyball box for a dog can be anywhere from 60 to 110 feet. Will your dog perform reliably at that distance from you? (Herding people are probably laughing at these measly distances, knowing their dog can work reliably at much, much greater ones.)

Now take your agility dog or obedience or other trained dog and put them within 20 feet of 7 excited, barking, running dogs and 7 excited, running, yelling people. Ask your dog to perform for you. Some of your dogs may do great. Others will likely melt down. Being able to work in that type of environment is not required of these dogs. It is of flyball dogs.

Can your dog perform its task with another dog running full speed past him only inches away? Our flyball dogs have to learn to do this before than can ever compete. They pass other dogs like this up to two times in every heat of the race.

I'm not trying to say any other dog sport is super simple. I'm not saying agility is easy, or obedience is something we could do in our sleep, or even imply that. I know I could not just decide to jump onto an agility course or into an obedience ring with no specific training and do anything but make a fool of myself, and possibly risk injury to my dog. It takes training. All I am trying to say is that flyball takes training too. A lot of training.

My take on agility

First off, I will start by saying I don't run agility. I have never taken a class, and have watched precious few classes. And, I realize that for some people, it is everything they want in a dog sport, and they love it.

For me, flyball is the sport of choice. I love participating in it, watching it, training it, and just generally being around and helping out with the sport.

I spent the morning at an agility trial, which underlined for me some of the main things that makes me prefer flyball to agility. Now, keep in mind, this is my take on comparing the sports, and is totally based on my limited and admittedly biased experience with the two.

First and foremost, flyball is a team sport, while agility is an individual event. Yes, by individual I mean one dog one handler. Sure, you make a lot of friends, have people you hang out with at trials, people you train with, etc., but at the end of the day in agility, it is you and your dog, alone, who determine the outcome of the day. In flyball, it is the combined work of your four handlers, their four dogs, and your box loader. Often tons of help comes from a team captain, a pass caller, ball shagger, and your backup dogs and handlers. Sure, it is disappointing sometimes when your dog runs great and you lose the heat, or no finish, because of a mistake by someone else. That is something you don't experience in agility. But, in flyball, when you achieve something as a team, be it a new best time for the team, a new title for a dog, initiating a new dog, handler, or box loader, etc, it is something the whole team celebrates and goes through together. You don't just have friends or training buddies at a flyball tournament, you have teammates. And to me, that makes a huge difference.





At the agility trials I have attended, both with friends competing and just to watch, there is a lot of down time. Lets face it, watching people walk a course or rearrange equipment between classes is not all that exciting. Then, if competing, you spend most of the day sitting around waiting for your next run, generally (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) only getting out there and running 2-4 times total in a day, for about 30 second to a minute. At a flyball tournament, sure, we often get started a bit late. But, once the racing for the day begins, it keeps going steadily all day, with the exception of the very occasional conflict and generally a single lunch break. You get to get out there with your team and race normally 5-8 times in a day, and each race takes 5 minutes or longer. In between races, you can always watch the constant action, or else hang out with your team, talk strategy to people who it will effect directly, and eat from the potluck of great food most teams bring along. All in all, flyball days seem to move much faster, and have more packed into them, than agility days. Then again, I've never competed in agility.

The third thing is how much easier flyball is to understand by the casual observer. Break it down, and it is a race. The first team with four dogs to cross the finish line wins. The winner is indicated by the judge after each heat. You don't have to know much about the rules to get excited over who is going to win. Agility, while a lot of fun to watch, is much more precision oriented. Many things can go wrong on a course that someone unfamiliar with the specifics of agility will not understand, or even notice. At the end of a course, they may not have any idea if the dog did good, bad, or just okay. And, since it is individual format, not run head-to-head like flyball, there is nothing for the casual observer to grab onto and cheer for.

This photo, which I am using from Surf City Flyball Club's website (listed below), shows what I mean about a head-to-head race. An obvious winner, and something an audience can clap for even without knowing anything about the sport.

http://www.surfcityflyball.com/

Being the sport that I have immersed myself in (as we say, flyball is not just a sport, it's an addiction), there are a ton of other things I love about this sport. These are just the top three that going to the agility trial this morning brought into solid view for me. Those of you who do agility, please feel free to comment, correct, or generally brag about your sport being better. I just wanted to share why I think this sport is best for me, and would love to hear from some people as to why you love the sport you participate in.