Hot 🥵 Tips
Heat Stress is not linked to a specific temperature. Specific temperature charts are not accurate or helpful.
Heat stress is also a LIFE THREATENING medical emergency so know the signs and what to do.
The TEMPERATURE your dog LIVES and WORKS (including sports) in, is the biggest predictor of heat stress.
Risk increases dramatically 5degrees Celsius above their standard working temperature.
Dogs can get heat stress in negative temperatures, and they might be perfectly fine at 28C.
Depending on the intensity and type of exercise, the risk and appropriate working temps are different.
If your dog is brachycephalic the risk is higher.
If your dog lives in the Ac and never goes outside above 20C their temp tolerance will be lower.
Coming out of winter your dogs risk temps will be lower than at the end of summer.
Different breed are more/less able to cool.
If they are working at maximum intensity - e.g. sledding - the risk is higher so max temps will be lower.
If your dog is FIT the risk is lower.
This is one of our favourite games!! It’s important to teach it carefully at the start especially if you have a sensitive dog - you don’t want to create a sense of panic that you are gone - but done well, you will have a very happy enthusiastic doggo 🤩!
Rear Foot Target 🎯 troubleshooting, plus a massive shout out to Carly @superwoofers.aus who has create an amazing 🤩 fun challenge for everyone to get involved in and to support the @dogsrefugehome
I hope that the pups find their forever homes soon!! 🏡
Don’t forget you can still submit your videos for awesome prized including cool tees from the amazing @the_furry_gremlins
And if you didn’t get a chance to submit the video before the deadline, we hope you will still enjoy the fun with your pups over the break so that they can enjoy on the holidays too even though it is ridiculously hot 🥵 and tag us when you get a chance to try it!
And stay tuned for more awesome fun in the new year as we launch 🚀 a bunch of new stuff so you can go out and live your #fitdoglife to the fullest!!
Merry Superwoofmas and I hope to see more of you in the new year!
xxMeg
What a fun year it has been! Love Dog Training Co specialised, launched a new website, and released our first ever course!! I got certified as a CSCC, my Lilu got strong enough to run free and tug again (seriously this was my biggest wish), we took up sledding, the dogs did lots of work over at detection for good, we did loads of retrieving and swimming, and I fixed my tendonopathy. Can’t wait for wait 2024 brings!!
SNIFFING IS FITNESS!!
I bet you didn’t think I could turn an enrichment game into a fitness exercise! But I can ;)
Check out our fitness inspired treasure hunt for Woofmas!
I took advantage of washing day to hide some new dehydrated lamb treats around the house! 🏡
(ignore the house chaos it’s washing day, and lilu exploded a stuffed toy 🧸 earlier).
High intensity sniffing like lilu is doing - checking all the nooks and crannies is a great workout for the diaphragm and core, and it’s a baseline “Zone 1” cardio activity for most dogs too when done well.
This is 14 or so minutes of sniffing compressed into 17secs!! You will notice I mainly leave her to it. I think I gave her 5 cues - “Find it” to start the exercise (she would have done it without because of context cues but this gets the power into my cue for when I want it later, Next one after the first two when she was done with her treatos - she just moved on herself after - and I tasked her to a spot twice - one was to help her learn some scent theory - getting her nose higher to source the target in the drawer - and the second was just a bonus task. I didn’t stop the search after she found the last one, I didn’t open the drawer for her, I didn’t micromanage her searching. I just let her use her powers of dogness. If your dog is confident in the environment and doesn’t show signs of stress ot fatigue, the they are happy and being a dog!! you don’t need to stop or help them - actually that often makes it less fun!!
This type of activity is especially good for dogs that might be anxious about the world 🌎 to make sure they get moving on the regular!! If you missed it my lovely colleague @n2tk9 gave a fab presentation about the power of fitness for reactive dogs at the Aggression in dogs conference earlier this year!
It’s also great for dogs recovering from injury or surgery restricted to leash walks (but make sure that you put the treats low down and don’t make them s
CHASE ME!!!
Recall is super fun 🤩 and it is a great way to increase your dogs heart rate and get some heart rate variability into your dogs workout 🏋️
If you want to increase their top speed and take off, a recall reps session cycling between running at least 200m (footy field) and walking back is a great way to achieve that!
This #superwoofmas challenge day 7 entry @superwoofers.aus with a fitness twist!
The day I learned that running could be a reinforcer was the day Lilu and I cracked the recall puzzle 🧩!!
If you are paying attention I am also rolling herding into it - when she comes around I reward her by letting her stop the movement (not that I could get away if I tried 😂)
I use the chase (and chance to round me up) as a reward for recall, and as a marker, it works as a recall alone too, and as a bonus, plays into her natural strength.
I also find CHASE ME to be an awesome way to reward still behaviours for wriggly dogs that like to move, you can swap it out and circle ⭕️ around behind sometimes too!!
Tag me in your fun if you decide to get your chase on, and don’t forget to joint the WOOFMAS challenge!!
POP!!
When there is respiratory event inducing smoke outside you play fitness inside!
We’ve accepted the @superwoofers.aus #superwoofmas challenge and we’re giving it a fun fitness twist! Follow along to see how you can use some of these simple foundation skills to give your dog a workout 🏋️
Lilu is demonstrating a pop up. It’s used to train the core and rear stabilisers, which she needs lots of for when she goes in to nutcase mode 🤪
#fundamentals #foundations #caninefitness #fitdoglife #aussieshepherd
Paws up and stretch for hip flexors and hamstring mobility and strength through the core.
#fitdogs #caninefitness
Just a bit of completely pressure free backing up
#forcefree #ppgaustralia #nopressure #blacklab #blacklabsquad #fitdoglife
Stop using pressure to teach fitness behaviours!!
For a 🆓 pressure free rear foot targeting behaviour, keep an eye 👁️ out as I’ll be teaching it as part of the #12daysofwoofmas on @superwoofers.aus
Jumping is one of our summer projects.
To jump safely, you need to be really strong 💪
If you’ve ever had YOUR trainer assign you hops or box jumps you know how tough it is!
The same is true for your dog 🐶
Even if they are already a great athlete, going up ⬆️ uses different muscles to going forward ➡️
So as well as skills, you need to build the strength, power and proprioreception to do it properly!
And when you have a strong foundation, you can build amazing things.
#agilitydog #jumping #jumpingdog #fitdog #fitdoglife
