It's no surprise that jumping is hard on your dog's body... so what can you to minimize that impact and keep them moving (and competing) as long as possible? This week, Kelly and I discuss the impact of jumping on sports dogs, how different sports impact things differently, and how handlers can approach fitness with jumping in mind.

Transcript 

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today I'll be talking to Kelly Daniel about the impact of jumping on our dogs bodies and what we can do to keep them fit and moving well for as long as possible. Hi Kelly, welcome back to the podcast.

Kelly Daniel: Hi. Thank you for having me back again. I always have fun, excited to chat and it's a good topic, so.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. But before we dive in, do you want to just take a minute and kind of remind folks a little bit about who you are, who your current dogs are, maybe share a little about a little bit about you and your background?

Kelly Daniel: Yep. My name is Kelly. I am lucky enough to live in the beautiful Waikato of New Zealand. It's currently middle of winter here, so it's a little bit icy as far as New Zealand gets anyway. I share my life with four dogs at the moment. I have border collie, a little terrier cross something and then two working cocker spaniels. I really like getting involved in any sports that I can, but primarily my main competitive sports that I train and compete in, agility and scent work. So detection work stuff.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Awesome. So you mentioned trying all the things and I think, you know, a lot of the dog sports that we all play in tend to ask our dogs to jump in one format or another. Right. But I don't know that we all necessarily stop to really think about what jumping can require from our dogs physically. So what is happening in a dog's body kind of during a jump?

Kelly Daniel: Yeah, I think a lot of us take it for granted because a lot of our dogs are quite natural athletes and I know a lot of us that started agility were lucky enough to start with a dog who was quite naturally talented. And I think that kind of almost like warps your perception a little bit of how physically demanding jumping is. If you watch dogs in their everyday life or their jobs, there's actually not many like dog jobs or in the everyday life where they do like tons of like repetitive jumping.

It's actually not super common. So when a dog has to jump, we kind of divide a dog's body into three parts. We have their rear end, their core and their front end. Your dog's rear end's main function is to propel them forwards, whether that be in walking and trotting and running or in jumping. So the first thing that's gonna happen is that your dog has to shift their weight back onto the hind limbs and engage those muscles.

It's then gonna put those muscles and those joints into extension to power the dog forwards. And that requires quite a lot of force from those muscles and those muscle groups to extend those joints with that weight force on them. And that's the kind of physics that's required to propel your dog up off the ground. But it kind of doesn't really stop there because when they have left the ground, your dog's core has to engage to stabilize them, because if they all wobble around when they're going through the air, it's going to change their trajectory, so they're not going to be able to do a nice jump.

So the core engagement is a really, really large component of jumping. And then when they land, they've got lots of weight force onto their front limbs. And that's super important because your dog's front limbs are actually not attached to their body with any bony joint. We have our collarbone and that attaches our front limbs or our hands onto our body with joints. But all your dog has is musculature.

So when they extend their front limbs forwards to land, there is a ton of force basically pushing on the soft tissues that are holding your dog's front limbs onto their body. So jumping is a really physically demanding skill and they really need a lot of control and muscle power and engagement to do it well.

Melissa Breau: So it sounds like, you know, you certainly have that push off and that landing piece. But, you know, are there parts that are, I guess, under more stress when jumping than others in that list, or are they all kind of equally important? Does it matter if we're talking about, you know, like an agility or an obedience jump versus something like jumping to catch a frisbee or jumping off a dock for something like dock diving?

Kelly Daniel: Yeah. So, I mean, the specific type of jump they're doing does put different strains in their body. So if they are going more vertical as opposed to more horizontal, if they're turning while they're jumping, that does sort of cause more parts of their body to work depending on the type of jump. But primarily the main skill of jumping is the same across the sports, that same engagement, propulsion and joint action. It's just sort of the smaller details and maybe the emphasis of what parts of the bodies are engaged more with those variations to jumping.

I think in terms of, like, strain on the body and potential for injury, perhaps it's some of the parts of the bodies you might not think about. So when your dog is jumping in the air and their hips are extended, there is actually quite a lot of force on the hip joints, sustained extension, but also the iliopsoas muscle or psoas muscle, so that is on the underneath of their lumbar spine and attaches into the femur.

And its main job is to flex. So bring the rear legs forwards and when they're in full extension up in the air, that muscle is extended really, really, really, really long. And then it has to contract quite quickly. And that has a lot of potential for injury if that muscle is weak. And iliopsoas muscle injuries are really common and they're especially common in dogs that are jumping. Cause that's a really common cause of injuring that muscle.

And then obviously landing is a big force on the soft tissue around the front limbs, particularly around the shoulders. And shoulder injuries? Well, the soft tissue around the shoulder being injured and jumping is really common, especially if it's a turning jump where they're turning and landing on one shoulder more than the other, especially if they slip out as well. So they're kind of the two main areas of the body that I do find with dogs that are jumping a lot, if they lack strength, do have potential for injury.

What separates a dog that you look at and go, oh man, that's an efficient jumper, maybe from, you know, one that's working harder than maybe they need to be. It's, it's kind of hard to, I mean, I can put lots of sort of values on, on jumping, but when you take it back to the sort of like essentials, does it look smooth and pretty when it's jumping A dog that looks smooth and pretty and it doesn't look like it's putting in a lot of effort is usually jumping pretty economically and pretty efficiently and in good form.

We can all kind of look at a dog and go, oh, that was a bit not so great with how that dog jumped. Like, we can probably think of a couple dogs that aren't. We'd call them not natural jumpers. And I think the point that's important is, is we can really work on any dog's jump jumping form. But some dogs are naturally more gifted at that than others.

We can work on that by teaching the skills, specifically by breaking them apart and also working on fitness to help focus on those parts they might find physically demanding. But yeah, I mean the, the be the, the main thing is that it's balanced, it flows and it's smooth. So what types of. You mentioned iliopsoas injuries. You know, what. What other types of injuries or wear and tear can really develop when dogs are, you know, repeatedly jumping without necessarily doing that physical prep work to support it.

I think a really interesting point here is that there is research about the age that you jump, your dog having potential to contribute to injury. And for me, this is really, really important. I am a person that really, really believes that you can do too much jump. And I think people don't consider how long it takes for some of your dog's joints to finish maturing and develop the soft tissue that's required to hold that joint in correct form.

So I guess that's the first point is I do think there are probably a lot of knees and elbows and shoulders and jumping dogs that possibly are not functioning as well because of too much early jumping. And there is research to back up that in terms of the amount of injuries that might occur with the age dogs have started jumping. Dogs primarily, like they do, have a lot of issues with knees and hips.

And if a dog is doing a lot of jumping and isn't doing it well and isn't conditioned to do that jumping, there is potential to injure those joints. And then obviously the shoulders is a big one and. And softer shoes. Toes is another one that I see quite commonly with landing and. Yeah, and toes are a real pain in the butt if you injure them because they have to walk on their toes all of the time.

So it's really hard to restrict that movement and let them prepare. And because our. Well, not our toes, our dog's toes, they don't actually have a lot of muscle in them. It's lots of ligaments and lots of tendons, and most of the musculature is actually a lot higher up. So if you damage a dog's toes, it's normally tendons and. Or ligaments which take so much longer to heal.

So for me, I guess the main ones are gonna be in terms of jumping specific injuries. Knees, iliopsoas, shoulders, and the soft tissue around the shoulder, like biceps or biceps tendonitis. And then toes are there subtle signs that folks should be watching for that a dog may be struggling physically long before it's like an obvious injury. Yeah. So you've gotta be the thing with jumping. We all know this because we all are geeky and do sports.

There is so many factors that contribute to how a dog might perform jumping, especially in the ring or in a training situation. It's never just one thing. And that's what I usually find. We've gotta look, we've gotta kind of rule out stuff. Is it the handler? Are they cueing late? Are they in the wrong position? Is it the training? Does the dog not understand a particular skill? And then if we've rolled those things out, then we're going to look at the dog's body.

All of those things normally contribute. So I do often find that dogs that their body doesn't function quite as well, or they might have a weak area contributing to poor jumping form. They also usually don't have the best understanding of some of those jump skills. And they may also, you know, it's all going to tie in. But the main indicators that I'm looking for for jumping issues that we could potentially tie back to the body is has there been changes in how they jump?

Where they used to jump an obstacle find and it's now different, or they're jumping it in a different way? We can look at performance indicators such as faults from knocked rails. Are they increasing how many rails they're dropping when they didn't normally used to drop that many rails? Then there's kind of movement indicators that for me, are a little bit of a red flag with jumping dogs. So are they stuttering their feet and putting extra steps in before a jump?

So they're struggling to prepare and move fluidly in the sequence that's required to do that jumping skill and then their form over the jump. So if they're not extending through the rear end properly, or they're tucking up their body, or they're like taking off really early and landing over the jump, those are all things that I would look at a dog and want to rule out any physical issues that could be contributing to those jump issues.

Melissa Breau: You know, how much is like injury prevention really about what we're talking about around, like jumping technique. Right. Versus ensuring that our dogs just have, you know, good overall fitness or, you know, compared to, you know, a fitness routine designed specifically to support the jumping that we're doing with our dog. Like, which of those three factors, you know, how do they all factor in, I guess, to injury prevention?

Kelly Daniel: Yeah, they tie together a lot. If we're targeting fitness towards jumping skills, we're gonna build muscles in the areas around the joints that are gonna help performance, but it's also gonna protect those joints. So it's kind of like a two in one. So if we're doing specific fitness training tailored towards our dog's needs and their sports needs, that is gonna increase performance, but it is also gonna have a protective effect because we're gonna add muscle mass and bulk and strength around joints and stabilize them.

So I don't think you can really separate them. Like, for me, I would say, like the rear end strength training for jump work, I'm primarily focusing that on performance. And then the front end strength, I'm primarily focusing that on protecting those joints. However, they both intertwine a lot.

Melissa Breau: Can you talk a little more about, you know, your approach to fitness for dog sports, kind of with that jumping piece in mind?

Kelly Daniel: Yeah. So everyone kind of knows I'm a bit geeky with the fitness. I really like. I really like it. But. And some people sometimes find a bit of pressure around fitness. I usually at some point in class say, to most people, anything you do is better than nothing. If you're doing one fitness workout a week, amazing. If you're managing to get in two or three, great. If one week you don't get one, it's not the end of the world.

If you are deliberately trying to do fitness with your dogs, it's better than nothing. But in saying that, when I'm approaching fitness for a particular dog or team, I'm gonna look at a couple of different things. I'm gonna look at what are the dog's individual needs? Do they have areas of their body because of structure or their breed or something is a little bit weaker? I'm gonna look at their sports needs.

So what physical skills do they need for their sports? And I'm gonna try and focus and target those in fitness, and then I'm gonna look a little bit generally for fitness and cross training, because we kind of need a little bit of everything. So that's kind of the three main things is gonna be the dog's individual needs, the sports specific needs, and then a little bit of general cross training.

If you are working, you know, fitness specifically because you want to improve your dog's jumping, how do you think about or how do you evaluate whether the exercises you're doing or a particular exercise is actually, you know, having the intended effect and actually benefiting your dog? That's an awesome question. Like, I want to repeat, anything you do is better than nothing. But if you can track progress, that's going to really, like, show you that your effort is worthwhile and you're getting those desired end goals.

So there's a couple of different ways we can assess how our dog's fitness is progressing. And it's kind of up to the handler what they are going to pick that works for them to track. I like to track in most of my Dogs and the dogs that I work with form and that form might be in positions and in movements. Form is a really big indicator of how much muscle they have and also if their body is working in balance so functionally, if that muscle is able to be used.

So I'm looking at how they hold a sit, how they hold a stand, and how they can move in a walk and a trot. So photos and videos are a really good way to record that over time. We can look at sports specific skills. So what is the average time over an agility course? Is it increasing in speed? Is their success rate and their fault rate decreasing like the number of rails that they take for for example, we can also take specific measurements of muscle mass or other fitness on the dog's body.

So we could measure circumference of certain areas. We could measure how many sit to stands they can do, for example, as a measure of functional rear end strength. So there's actual measurements that we can do on the dog as well. You mentioned that, you know, something is better than nothing. And I think a lot of the times, you know, folks do maybe have some limited fitness time, especially when they're kind of working around a fairly competitive dog who maybe has a pretty intense training schedule.

Melissa Breau: Right. So if somebody only does have this couple of minutes a week, are there things that you think of that kind of maximize the return on investment for that time or areas where you would focus?

Kelly Daniel: Yeah, so my go to is always going to be strength specific work because muscle has so many benefits to a dog's functional life, sporting life and supporting those joints. So my go to is always going to be strength exercises.

I generally find that most dogs get enough cardiovascular fitness like they go out for walks, they do their sports training. And I do find as well that a lot of really intense agility handlers perhaps maybe do like a priority on jump training and those jump skills. And I think if you like shift priority a little bit to specific fitness, strength, skills, you're going to get more bang for your buck.

And we're gonna decrease the total number of jumps that a dog is doing in a week. And dogs only have a limited number of jumps in their life and you don't know what that number is. And I think sometimes we do so much training. Well, I don't cause I don't do that much training with my dogs. But I think sometimes the priority is like we do agility, we have to do the jump work.

And there is other ways you can approach skills that is perhaps going to be less wear and tear on your dog's body than a ton of jumping. It's kind of the reason why I'm not super into the plyometric box exercise workouts if that's the only fitness that you're doing. Because I think that that's kind of just doing more jumping. And I think there's other better ways we can target muscles for sports dogs that have better bang for your buck in terms of fitness.

So yeah, my go to is specific strength exercises performed with good form and slow, which is really hard for agility dogs and lots of us sports handlers. Fast is better. Didn't you know? Obviously not always. Not always, yeah.

Melissa Breau: So we're talking about this because you've got your fit to jump fitness fragility dogs class on the schedule for the August term at FDSA. So talk to me a little more about the class. Maybe who might want to sign up what you cover all the good stuff.

Kelly Daniel: So it's one of my favorite classes because it really combines whole picture fitness for sports dogs with really being specific to the sports skills that they need. So we really explore a lot of different aspects of agility. We're breaking down the biomechanics of the movements they require for those skills and we're matching them with specific fitness exercises.

But as well as covering that sort of cross training and broad picture. So at the end of the class, an agility dog would have a really great range of workouts and specific exercises to target their needs. But because a lot of agility is jumping, we do cover aspects of jumping for other sports as well. So we have a couple of lectures where we are kind of applying those agility skills and exercises to other jumping exercises in sports.

So I cover stuff like a scale jump for working trials or tracking. We talk through like box terms for flyball, we talk about the long distance required for dock diving. So I've kind of got like a little bit of like guess jumping lectures and it's really just a really in depth fitness that would really work for a wide range of sports dogs. But any sports dogs that do basically jumping as part of their routine, this would be really appropriate for.

I do also cover a few like drills on and like fun exercises that I use to train jumping skills with my dogs. And the reason I put them in is because like I said, I don't like to do lots of jumping with my dog. So instead I try and do really smart, short, really targeted exercises where I'm training a specific jump skill. So I include a few of those in there. As well to match up with the fitness exercises.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. That sounds really interesting to have, like, you know, kind of those different takes on some of the different ways that our dogs jump to. Even if your sole focus is agility or whether one of the, you know, one of those is really your sole focus and kind of figuring out how to apply it. But yeah, and I mean, the.

I think the jumping is like in the sports that have a jump, if they can't do it, well, that can be make or break for those exercises. Like if you're doing working trials and your dog can't do a scale jump, like, you don't pass that trial. Yeah. So I think that. Yeah, really. And I know a lot of dogs struggle with some of the more difficult jumping skills, like a scale jump or a long jump for some of the other sports. So I think it's a really important one to focus on getting strength and biomechanics correct for your dog.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Kelly.

Kelly Daniel: Thank you for having me. It's always fun.

Melissa Breau: It is always fun. And thanks to all of our listeners and our viewers for tuning in. We'll be back next week, this time with Michelle Ellertson to talk about shaping your nosework dog's learning and designing nosework challenges to really build those skills.

If you haven't already, subscribe to our 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 Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by Benson.com the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio and video editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

Credits

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi 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!