Agility puts a lot of strain and stress on our dogs' bodies... but fitness training can go a long way to ensuring they still enjoy a long sports career. Join me and Ashley for a conversation on how workling on canine fitness can improve your dog's agility skills, especially when it comes to technical jump training!

 Transcription

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 we'll be talking to Ashley Escobar about fitness jumping and agility training. Hi, Ashley, welcome back to the podcast.

Ashley Escobar: Hello. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Should be a fun topic to talk about. I am excited.

Melissa Breau: To start us out, you want to just remind everybody kind of a little bit about you.

Ashley Escobar: Hi, I'm Ashley Escobar. I primarily do agility coaching and canine fitness coaching. I share my life with two border collies and a few Australian Shepherds. And my kids also compete in agility and dog sports. So we're just all in the whole family, lots of dogs, lots of stuff happening.

Melissa Breau: Probably makes for both chaos and fun.

Ashley Escobar: Pure, pure chaos. Pure fun. So, as I mentioned in the intro, I'd love to talk about kind of that intersection of fitness and agility jumping today. So to start us off, can you just talk a little bit about why fitness is so important for agility dogs in particular?

Ashley Escobar: Yes. So agility is probably, I feel like one of the most unnatural sports that we do with dogs. Right. We're asking them to jump over plastic equipment and to run up contacts where they touch a specific section. And a lot of physical demands that we ask of the dog. It's a huge ask. And if you really break down the pieces of it, if the dogs are not conditioned muscularly for those specific skills, it can really be a tough challenge and a tough ask of them. So I feel like there's such a strong correlation between agility, dogs, performance dogs and the conditioning aspect that goes into that.

And, and I like to really nerd out on it and break down the biomechanics of it, of the movements that they're going to be doing. Not just the hard backsides in or the hard weave entry, but like structurally, what's happening to the dog's body when they go into that, like, what muscles are contracting, what muscles are loading, what muscles are getting ready to flex and extend? And I like to work backwards from there and then build exercises to support the dog in those challenging movements.

So I know this isn't kind of one of the questions I prep, but so can you talk just a second about why it's not good enough to just do the movement, like why you need to build it separately if that makes sense, instead of just, well, if the dog needs to build muscle for a backside, why not just do more backsides, right? Yes. So I think of it like, if you're knitting or sewing by hand and you get the stitch in, you get it basically within the lines.

But is there a proper technique that you could do where you could thread it only between two threads of fiber versus four threads of fiber? Because the end result, although you might have a kind of straight line, but if you were to do it with the very proper, precise, accurate stitching, your design would look like it was professionally made. Right. So the agility dogs, they have way more on the line than just not a pretty piece of artwork.

They could very easily strain or tear or get injured. And no one wants to have an injured dog because they're so stoic. And they could go a long time before they are like, hey, I'm hurt over here. Like, something's off. And they're so good at, like, compensating. And, you know, it's. It's tough to pinpoint injuries, especially if they're a little superficial or soft tissue. So giving them the proper conditioning components to these big ask that we have, it really goes beyond teaching them the skill of the.

Of the request to begin with. Like, I'm a huge proponent of jump education. I spend most of my dog's time in their foundation flat work of teaching them where to take off on a jump, how to approach a jump, when to add a stride. So they have all of those skills. But then I need. You need to make sure that those muscles, the stabilizer muscles and their spinal flexion muscles, are able to contract and extend just at the right moments.

And if you don't have the muscles present to do it, then you're not going to be able to do it successfully. It's much like the football players. We live near Jacksonville, so we get to watch the Jacksonville Jaguars practice all the time. And it's my favorite to go do. I don't care about going to the games, but I love the practice because you get to see all of their physical fitness routine stuff, and they are not snapping balls and running down the lines.

Like, that's the easy stuff. Right. They are doing the agility ladders, and they're doing the tight turns and the running and turning really tight around the, like, all of the stuff that we do with the agility dogs, like, it's so cool to watch because you get to see it in human form. Right. So I think that it gets overlooked really quickly with our dogs because we just take for Granted that they'll run and wrap that wing or run and take those weave poles and we don't really stop and think about what is their body doing, like how much torque are we putting on those ligaments and those joints and can we make it easier for them muscular wise so that they can do this sport for longer?

You mentioned kind of jump training in there specifically is like one piece of it. So let's dive into that a little more. Can. Can you talk a little bit about kind of the role that fitness or strength training plays in building safe, confident, jumping, fragility dogs? And you know what, what type of issues might we see in jump training that could really be aided or even solved by some fitness work instead?

So I think that a lot of performance and consistency issues, they don't always come from the skill of jumping itself or the lack thereof. Right. But many dogs, their physical ability to execute the movement is where we will start to see problems arise. Right. Like we might see bars getting knocked or inconsistent takeoff point from the dog at a jump, whether it be the dog is moving in a forward direction over the jump or we're asking them to take the backside, which both of those.

If we get knocked, bars, an inconsistent takeoff point. Yes, it could be early takeoff syndrome, but you don't. That's not the most common. It does happen, but it, you know, it has to be diagnosed and that's not the most common. But usually that is going to stem from a weaker core and a weaker rear. Those are things that we can fix. Like, we can fix that away from agility.

We can fix that with a tailored, specific conditioning program for that dog. Wide turns or wide jumping or dogs that are jumping 30 inches when the bar is only set at 16. Right. That's a core stability issue in the dog. The dog understands the criteria of not knocking the bar, but they don't possess the strong enough core to be able to add in that stride closer to the bar and then collectively go over the bar, right?

So they just go in, they're like, I'm keeping this bar up because I know she wants that. And then they end up jumping like 30 inches. Like, we've all been at a trial and seen that dog. That's like Superman. And most people, it's like, wow, look at that dog jumping. But if you think about the biomechanics of it, like, dogs are not energy wasters. They're very efficient in their movement.

They're very honest. And so that's a core stability issue. So that's something that could easily be addressed with a conditioning program. And then you'll see the inconsistent stride patterns where you'll have dogs like stutter jumping or sometimes they add in a stride, sometimes they don't. And it's not indicative of where the handler was or the handler cues because of course that plays a role in everything too. But that would be more of like a flexibility and balance issue with the dog.

Like sometimes the dog's trajectory and lead change and all the things leading up to the jump, they don't have strong enough stabilizer muscles to render them this consistent fluid. Like you've seen the dogs that just look like they're floating on air when they run agility. And then you've seen the dogs that look like they're ping ponging around, right? A lot of it comes down to their overall physical conditioning for those tasks at hand.

And then of course, all of it renders and comes back to injury prevention, right? Like if they have limited strength and balance and it forces them into awkward jumping patterns or inconsistent striding, wide, wide jumps, turning after they land, all of those things lead to more probability of them sustaining some kind of an injury. And so we want to work backwards from that and get away from that and avoid injuries at all costs, especially on the course.

So giving them a nice strong, specific to their sports training, conditioning, training program really helps alleviate a lot of that. When you're watching a dog, you know, kind of take a course or approach a jump, especially like a more technical approach, you know, what are you looking for in the moment to kind of evaluate their form or evaluate their effort, like how are you breaking it down as you kind of watch it happen?

I like to really look at it on film, obviously, because you can slow it down. But when you're looking at it just in person, I like to look at how the dog is getting their body over the jump. And the backside jump is the most common. Like I've just, there's been a lot of more opportunities for folks, especially in my area, to participate in the more international style courses.

So a lot more backside trainings, a lot more throttle trainings and demands on the dogs. And then watching the dogs try to play this out when they have good jump skills, but they may not have the conditioning to support that. So when they come around to the backside of the jump, let's say, are they pulling their body over the jump or are they adding a stride, lowering their head into a neutral position and really digging in deep, contracting their rear end and their lower spinal muscles to push their body over the jump, the most common.

I went to an agility trial a couple of weekends ago and watched a premier run. Most of the dogs that I watched took. They pulled their bodies over the jump. They might still keep the bar up, and that just might be their jumping style. One could argue that. I feel like that if they have the proper conditioning to their bodies, then it's going to be easier for them to load their rear and use their body in a mechanical way that gives them the advantage.

The same thing with turning. The other thing that I look at is if they're being cued to make a turn, are they turning before or some. Or in air, if you will, or are they landing and then turning? Because those are two very different trajectories. Say, you know, shaving off some time. Yes. But for me, it's more important that my dog is not having that heavy torque once they land, because the impact of the landing on the shoulders, like having a bicep injury and you know, from rehab and in clinic and coming from that side, a bicep injury is no fun for the dog, no fun for the handler, and a very long time to recover from.

And you see a lot of common. You'll see commonly bicep injuries from dogs that land on a jump where their line was maybe not the best for the dog. And then the dog needed to make a sharp turn, so they land on impact. And while all of that force is going into their front end and then they quickly turn. So. So you've got force loading and then torque to the side.

If that dog had better conditioning for the jump, could the dog have perhaps added a stride, loaded their rear, and really push their self over the jump versus pulling and putting all of that effort on the front end? I feel like, yes, they could have. I mean, you've been doing this for a little while now, at least. So as. As you've been kind of. That was not what I was trying to imply, but I'd love to have you talk for a moment, maybe just about how your approach has evolved or changed or, you know, for teaching jumping or just the technical skills.

Are there any big lessons that you feel you've learned over your time in the sport and your time kind of doing fitness work that you kind of want to share? It has really evolved, I would say, in the last five to seven years, versus whenever I first started. I come from horses and conditioning horses and the rehab side of horses and canines and everything in the very beginning was the skill.

Like, does. Does the dog have the skill to understand, to go behind the bar. And that is a huge part of it. Don't. Don't get me wrong at all. But looking. And then it was all about the rear. Like, does the dog have a strong rear? And then does the pivot disc? And the dog with the feet elevated and the back feet spinning around, became like everyone. Like it was a household thing.

Like, if you had a dog and you did anything, like you had taught this dog how to put their feet on something and pivot around. And then handstands became really popular. And this is one that always kind of got me because, look, my dog is so strong in the rear, they can walk their rear end up the wall. And I'm like. But they're loading their front. Like, they've got a really strong front end with that.

I love it. So I feel like the conditioning was very isolated to front or rear. And I think here, recently, in the last five to seven years, at least with my own clients, in my own business, I've really tried to be more. More broad with the dog. Like, there's so much more to the dog, muscular wise, than just the front and the rear, right? Like, the core is.

Is really something that we have to try hard to condition and strengthen their core. And not just their core, their, you know, their lower abdominal areas, but their obliques and their spinal muscles that run along their core and. And the stabilizer muscles that support that. Right? So we, instead of just looking at the large muscles, I like to always break it down and watch the dog make the move and see what stabilizer muscles are being used, because those are muscles that we take for granted that they're going to do their job.

And if we don't strengthen them correctly and the dog gets fatigued on course, then you see a lot of psoas injuries or you see a lot of shoulder injuries, because the stabilizer muscles, they're tiny and they get tired really easy. So if you fatigue them on run one and two and then you go in for run three and the dog's already like, my stabilizer muscles are not up for this, right?

And then they get, you know, a strain because they start compensating and then you see some injuries there. So I think, yes, the big takeaway is there's so many moving parts. And I think really looking at the dog as a whole, instead of just saying that's. That's a weak rear end, like, that's. We just need to work on that rear. We just need to work on the core, really being able to break it down and look at the dog section by section for the movement that biomechanics that's happening in that motion that they're doing.

Is that something where like we're really looking at it on a dog by dog level or is that something where like we know for agility, for a skill like a backside, it's going to be these muscle groups kind of consistently regardless of the specific dog. It is definitely these muscle groups regardless of the dog. Where I see that I have dogs that have slightly different needs would be if I have a longer backed dog or if I have a very square dog.

So I'm going to do a little bit differently as far as building a plan for those two types of dogs. Because the length of the back really dictates a lot for our dogs and what we're asking them to do. A little more agility focused question here, but you know, in your experience kind of what, what do you focus on or what kind of helps a dog become more independent and specifically more committed?

On course, especially when we're talking about elements like a backside or like more technical element, I find that really the, I find that a lot of people like to hurry up and get to the really fancy stuff. So if there's not a lot of value put in for the what I just told my clients, it's just old fashioned dog training. Right. Like we're just going to spend some time here and turn off the camera.

It's not pretty, it's not fun. But just really like reinforcement builds behavior and we just play the play the flat work games with our dogs and teach them to independently read lines and use your physical body cues to help them with that. And then you can start adding in the more technical components to it. But the dog will have that understanding like the strong kindergarten that they went to for how to drive that line.

No matter if we're asking them to take the jump and extension or we're asking them to add that stride and take it in collection. So I find that that really helps giving, I think foundations is. It's so overlooked or you get, or you get folks that live in foundation land forever and they are like afraid to come out. But man those foundations, when you get them to come out, they're brilliant on course because their dogs have such a good understanding of all of the components that are to come from there, right?

Melissa Breau: Yeah, for sure. So we're talking about this stuff because this weekend you're doing a workshop for Fenzi on building strength specifically for backside jumps. So can you talk a little bit about the. I know we've talked quite a bit about kind of breaking down the skills, but can you talk specifically about the fitness requirements that come with doing a backside for our dogs?

Ashley Escobar: Yes, the fitness requirements that come for backsides and throttles, right.

Depending on where you are for what the ask of the dog really have to be broken down and looked at. Like we talked about the whole dog. So we need rear, rear end strength, we need hip stabilizers, pelvic stabilizer muscles to be targeted and worked. Because our dogs live their life in a forwards and sometimes backwards plane of motion, right. We don't see them out there doing lateral steps and, you know, side bends and all these things in the wild, right?

Like they just don't. They move forwards. If they get kind of jammed, they move backwards. They, that's, that's it. Like they're pretty simple creatures. Like. Yeah. So the backside, what's happening with the backside jump is we're asking our dogs to go down this plane of motion with high speed and then not take that door that's wide open, right. We want them to just very gently turn off, away from that and come around to the back door with grace and keep the bar up and be really tight with their turns and their landings and not turn once they land, right?

Like that's the goal. Like save those tenths of a second and turn before you take the jump. So shoulder stabilizer muscles, front end, neck muscles have to be nice and conditioned for this. Spinal muscles, core, obliques. I mean, it's really a total body workout, but very specific to the muscles that if we were to video a dog taking a backside of a jump, we could pinpoint where the muscles are contracting and extending, extending, and then target those muscles with very specific cherry picked exercises for that.

So go ahead and talk to me a little bit more about those cherry picked exercises. What are you talking about in the workshop? Who might want to join you? So anyone who has started to introduce their dog to backside jumps, or anyone who is getting ready to start introducing their dog to backside jumps. Because we are going to cover set point work and takeoff point, right? And the takeoff point in which we want our dogs to follow the rules, if you will, for a backside jump, I have very specific criteria for my dogs.

It's not good enough for you just to go around to the back and take the jump, right? Because again, I want that turn before you take off. I don't want the turn once you land. So we're going to work on some exercises that specifically condition our dogs too. For that collection that has to happen for primarily the backside wrap or the threadle wrap where our dog needs to add that stride.

Stay really close to the wing turn before they start to get into the jumping motion. And then the takeoff point is another piece that we do cover in the workshop, which when I was recording, I was super worried I was going to run out of time because I the ex. There's so like, there's quite a bit of exercises in this workshop, but I think it's so important that we show our dogs exactly where.

When I cue this cue, this is where I want you to go set up to take off for this jump and then some exercises to condition them for being able to make that jump. Once they're adding in motion, everything is done low impact. Every. I did most. I think almost all of the videos, the demonstration videos were done in my studio indoors. So there's no speed limit for this.

This is. It's how I start all of my dogs when they're learning backside jumps so that I can really just lay that solid foundation. The other thing that these exercises or the other teams that this exercises are good for are people that are struggling right now with their backside or throttle jumps. Maybe their dogs are dropping the bars or pulling the bars down, or their dogs will only slice it and jump and extend extensions.

So they're taking everything as a backside slice and then having to turn on landing because that can. That can certainly cost you an off course. That can certainly cost you some more time and be the difference between being in the ribbons and knots. So we want to maximize all of that in our dog's efforts. And then of course, the injury prevention component of that as well.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Any maybe final thoughts or key points you kind of want to leave folks with?

Ashley Escobar: I don't think that I have any of these exercises that have been in a workshop or a class before. I know I've had lots of people ask me that already. Are these exercises we've already done? The answer to that is no, because these exercises I have specifically just nerded out with my baby dog, Teal, because she's just turned to the end of June, so she's kind of up and coming in her trialing career.

And she is my international prospect dog. So all of her skills on the flats, but her whole journey throughout this, her conditioning for these backsides and throttles and harder weave entries and things like that, I've documented and recorded all of the stuff that I've done with her, and I'm very happy with the results and her physical capabilities. It's not that she's just, you know, a freak of nature.

Border collie. Right. Like, she's got muscles in places where if she did not have a fitness program, she would not have those muscles. Could she still get over the bar? I'm sure she could, but she very methodically can calculate where to add in that stride. And I'm very happy with her takeoff points on her backside wraps and her backside slices and her throttle jumps as well. I've really been pleased with how the conditioning program has helped her.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast to talk about this, Ashley. Yeah, thanks for having me. My pleasure. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. Don't miss it. 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 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.

 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!