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Fit Dogs. True Athletes.

How Much is Too Much?

12/18/2014

7 Comments

 
With the announcement of the qualifications for the AKC National Agility Championships 2016, I began to wonder about what we are putting our dogs through to get to the 'big' events. Are dog sports unique? Should we push our dogs to go and go and go? Or should we start to treat them like human athletes? As a veterinarian solely practicing sports medicine, I worry about pushing our dogs to injuries and burn out. 

Lets look at agility in general. Most agility organizations in the United States have some sort of national event. It is a yearly event and you have a year to qualify. From the onset, there is no set 'off season'. AKC holds their national event in March, with a qualifying period from December to December. USDAA holds their national event in October with a qualifying period from September to September (I know there are other organizations, but these are the two I'm most familiar with). In some areas of the country, there are months that local trials are not held, but more and more people will travel to continue to compete. Ideally if you compete in AKC and USDAA, having one nationals in the fall and one in the spring is perfect. Training builds up to each event, you compete, and then you take a break. A Break from Competing. Why doesn't this happen? Why do people feel it's necessary to continue to push their dog to compete weekend after weekend?  
We have no research in competitive dogs and what pushing them to continuously compete does to their body and mind, all I can do is extrapolate from human sports.


I competed as a swimmer from the age of 7 to 21. I competed year round, one to two weekends a month. There were 2 championship events a year, followed by at least 2 weeks off after, followed by cross training to work back into the new season. No competing after the championship event for 1-2 months. 

Sounds familiar, this could easily be an agility schedule. 

When I was young, I swam every event possible, often 4-6 a day, similar to a daily USDAA schedule. As, I grew, I started to specialize, sometimes only swimming 5-6 events in a weekend, similar to an AKC schedule. When I became a college swimmer, that schedule got even shorter, the competitive season was Oct to February-5 months, with a total of 18-20 days of competition, only swimming 4-5 events at each meet. The 'off-season' was spent conditioning, cross-training, and maintain swimming fitness. All very similar to what we expect of our dogs competitive wise. 
So, I thought, maybe swimmers are unique, lets look at professional athletes: football, basketball, and baseball. 
The NFL plays 14 games over 15 weeks. Even with playoffs, we are looking at a 5 month season and a 7 month 'off-season'. The NBA teams play 82 games between October 28 and April 15, again a 6 month 'off-season'. And, Major League Baseball teams play 162 games in 180 days, again, a 6 month 'off-season'. In fact, every sport I looked into had an off season, and my sport of choice, swimming, had one of the shortest as a youngster, yet we ALWAYS had time off from competing.  


Shouldn't we be giving our dogs an 'off-season'?
Ideally, the time off would happen after the national event.  Conditioning should occur year round to keep our dogs in the best shape possible and prevent injury. Conditioning includes strength work, core work, and cardiac/endurance work. This can be done hiking, running, swimming, along with using special canine conditioning equipment to strengthen and work the core. I realize it's near to impossible to tell your dog we are not doing anything for a month. Time off means not competing, not pushing our dogs to do more than they should, not running our dogs into the ground. It means giving them the best foundation to be the best athlete they can be. Isn't it time we admit that our dogs are athletes and treat them that way?


7 Comments
Robert J Porter link
12/19/2014 06:18:51 am

Really great blog post, Leslie!

Reply
Leslie Eide link
12/19/2014 07:47:51 am

Thanks Robert!

Reply
Jean Owen link
12/19/2014 10:35:44 am

i totally agree with your point of veiw and I think far too many ask far too much of their dogs.

Reply
Margaret
12/1/2016 11:30:55 pm

Very well written. It's the same in the UK.. There are too many people who seem to treat their dogs like machines. They work them from the minute they arrive, pushing for more speed and to be ready to compete the minute they can...train every chance they get. They are booked into every possible run at every show. The rules are being changed all of the time , does it matter if the time on a course is a few seconds longer, the fastest dog will win but the dogs that do get a clear round are being penalised because they are a few seconds slower....I always thought agility was about the control of the dog to get round clear obviously within a reasonable time.... When did it become important to push the dog to the utmost limits and to poss injury for a sport? Unfortunately it does feel like the throw away society we have today...its not up to scratch, it's broken, it's burnt out ......oh I'll just get another one. The other side is also the social side seems to be suffering with more doing one to one training and not being in a club . with not having a group to feel they can help at shows and help each other .....

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Ann harmes link
12/2/2016 01:54:51 am

Totally agree! It is becoming available in the U.K. Too that so many shows have even back to back week long events/ camps that you could compete ad train the entire summer! This trend affects all levels too /Our national squad qualification process requires frantic points collection throughout the year and then squad attendance - thus eating into that critical downtime - it's very tough on these dogs and to do this year on year it is terribly hard for these athletes to maintain fitness and mental wellness continually and not have downtime just being dogs.

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Sarah Johnson
12/20/2017 10:26:25 am

Very well said. I missed this blog the first time around. Here we are 3 years later. The dog agility injury rate continues to rise. I competed at the National level of two other sports, Gymnastics and bicycle racing, time trial, (also road, criterum and track). #1 . No off season. In most other sports, you are only allowed to compete in your district, state and regional in which you live! I think it is crazy everybody drives and flies to outside of their region. As you explain, all other sports take time off, off season, when you learn your new skills (ice skating, gymnastics) or HIT( high intensity interval training), cross training and then you taper prior to peak for Nationals. With multiple organizations there is no off season in agility. #2. We keep adding more classes to each day of competition. Agility started with 2 -4 classes a day and it keeps going up with some offering 8 + classes. #3. Surface. They say only compete your dog on good surfaces, well in CA that is not possible. There are minimal places that allow us to rent for agility trials. After the drought, the ground is hard, little grass and full of gopher holes. In the winter, if outside it is rain or shine. If indoors, it is very hard, uneven packed dirt by the end of the day.

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Jason T link
1/12/2021 12:39:19 am

This is a great post, thanks for sharing it.

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