Hi, I thought I'd start a new topic based on a conversation in this thread on conditioning a dog for show:

http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/320576/page/0/fpart/1

In it Brad Higgs describes how he used cavaletti poles to exercise his dog and increase musculature.

I started my small dog on cavaletti poles in order to increase her muscle tone, reach and improve her gait. There is not much info out there pertaining to cavalettis and dogs (lots for horses, though) but this is a good article:

http://www.everythinggolden.com/new_page_61.htm

In it the author says to measure the length from the ground to the dogs elbow, double that, and place the poles that far apart. It seemed a bit far to me so at first I only put the poles 1 and a 1/2 times as far apart - now I see that this is not creating any extension for my dog, so I am going to increase the distance.

Has anyone else used this exercise for conditioning their dog? Can you describe what you did and how it helped? (# of poles, spacing, how often you ran the course, etc.)

Videos would be great, of course And any advice would be more than welcome!

I'm glad you started this topic, Cindy. This past weekend, I attended a seminar with Chris Zink, who is a canine sports medicine specialist, and there was considerable discussion of using cavaletti for numerous purposes. The part I paid the most attention to was using them for teaching a dog to trot instead of ambling or pacing during heeling, and that is something I have a problem with and so I'm looking forward to using cavaletti for that purpose.

She suggests starting with eight 5-foot poles, spaced approximately dog height apart. The best distance will vary depending on the dog and what you are trying to accomplish. And then you can gradually increase or decrease in increments of one inch at a time to get the dog to extend or collect the trot.

I don't want to misquote Chris on anything she told us, but she has a book out called "Agility Advantage" that is supposed to cover the use of cavaletti.

I hope you'll get some other interest in this thread. I'd like to talk more about it, but I have an expedited job and have to get back to work (darn). I'll have more time in a couple of days. I'd like to know exactly what materials people are using to make their cavaletti and the supports, etc.

Like I said in the other thread they worked fantastic for my boy, he picked it up pretty easy. I started like they recommend at the distance from ground to elbow x 2 and he struggled for the first few times, I'm guessing because he's lazy, but soon got the hang of it and after about a week I increased the distance about 1/2 inch then another week then another 1/2 inch and that's where he's at for the moment. I'm wondering if this is his limit as when I tried to move them again he started trying to double step them instead of striding out. It really improved his movement and was great for conditioning. The poles I'm using aren't very high, maybe 1 1/2 - 2 inches?

Cheri - when you say "dog height" does that mean from ground to shoulder?
I have started out with 9 poles, but trotting my dog through them only 10 or 15 times seems like so little an amount, how can it do any good? It only takes about 5 min.
So it is day 3 and I started going up and back and counting that as one (so one way - 30 times over the 9 poles).

I hope that's not too much, too soon.

 Quote: cindy shepard

Cheri - when you say "dog height" does that mean from ground to shoulder?
I have started out with 9 poles, but trotting my dog through them only 10 or 15 times seems like so little an amount, how can it do any good? It only takes about 5 min.
So it is day 3 and I started going up and back and counting that as one (so one way - 30 times over the 9 poles).

I hope that's not too much, too soon.

Dog height I've read is supposed to be from ground to elbow. As far as the amount of times it depends on the dog after about 10 goes I could see my boys stride getting tired as he started to clip the odd pole and could just tell he was tiring a bit so I guess it depends on your dog my girl could go all day on my boys setup, she has much better reach than him. How fit is your girl? She may be right to do what you're doing or more but I stick to 15-20 times for my boy now he's getting better once or twice a day and it keeps his movement good and in shape,as well as his other exercise.

 Quote: cindy shepard

Cheri - when you say "dog height" does that mean from ground to shoulder?
I have started out with 9 poles, but trotting my dog through them only 10 or 15 times seems like so little an amount, how can it do any good? It only takes about 5 min.
So it is day 3 and I started going up and back and counting that as one (so one way - 30 times over the 9 poles).

I hope that's not too much, too soon.

The height of a dog is measured from the ground to the top of the withers. Dr. Zink's seminar was so extensive I couldn't possibly summarize it here, and I've probably forgotten a lot of the details already, but I was paying close attention to the part about teaching a dog to trot properly instead of pacing or ambling. For that purpose, specifically, she said to use the eight poles, and do twelve repetitions a day. Apparently, that is the ideal number for making new neurotransmitter pathways in the brain, etc., etc.

She also talked about using cavaletti and other randomly spaced objects for the dog to trot over as a proprioception exercise (teaching the dog to pay attention to where he is placing his feet, especially useful for dogs competing in agility).

I realize, Cindy, you are wanting to use the cavaletti as a conditioning exercise, and, unfortunately, I don't remember there being much discussion about that particular thing. There's got to be some other resources on the web that go into that in more detail.

Cindy, I just wanted to add that if that location in your sig pic is where you live, I would think just hiking around in those hills would be a great conditioning exercise!

As was discussed in the other thread, in order to build muscle, there has to be some resistance involved, which can be in the form of carrying added weight, pulling weight, or simply moving your own weight in different ways. In that sense, I think a MinPin (I think that's what you said the breed is) trotting over cavaletti is getting muscle resistance as he picks up his legs and moves his body up and over. With a bigger dog, you would have to raise the cavaletti a bit to get more of a workout. But remember that too much aerobic exercise, that is, long walks or jogs that don't involve weight resistance, can result a leaner body. Think of a long distance runner's body versus a weight-lifter's body.

Sorry yeah, if you want the height of a dog it's to the top of the whithers, I was talking about getting a height to work out the spacing of your poles, I've read is supposed to be ground to elbow doubled. The only other thing I've found that was fantastic for conditioning was swimming, actually retrieving in the water as it made my boy swim harder to fetch the toy and I'd do this for 1/2 an hour non stop and worked great, but then I had to stop swimming cause work got in the way and the cavalettis actually increased his muscle mass plus better defintion and condition. When he's older it's gonna be weight pulling as well.

 Quote: Brad Higgs

Sorry yeah, if you want the height of a dog it's to the top of the whithers, I was talking about getting a height to work out the spacing of your poles, I've read is supposed to be ground to elbow doubled.

I think, for some breeds, ground to elbow doubled might be close to the same measurement as ground to withers. That said, though, I think getting an exact, to-the-centimeter measurement is less important than observing the dog as it trots over the cavaletti, and determining if you want to lengthen or shorten the stride.

Brad, forgive me if you've already mentioned this, but what are you using for your cavaletti? PVC poles? What about the supports or risers?

At the moment Cheri I'm just using 1 1/2 or 2 inch pvc pipe flat on the ground, it's just enough to get him to lift his feet and stride out, once his leg heals and I get him back into some shape I'm going to be looking at lifting them up a bit not sure how high though gotta look into it.