K9 Nut

26/08/2024

Training dogs for sports is a pretty complex topic. There are SO many things to take into account and it is just not as studied or researched of a field like human rehabilitation/physio therapy. Because there is so much more information about humans we do try to use that information and cross apply it to dogs in areas we feel like we can.

Knowing the balance is a skill we can learn, develop and improve on but also lose if we don't maintain it is important to me in my health but also for my sport dogs.

I've taken some extra time recently to study balance and why some of the balance exercises I do with my sport dogs are effective and learning what I can do else can help improve this skill even more.

I've learned a ton with me research and going to be taking that and improving my exercises and general routines for balance for my own dogs and with that I'm going to be making a program to share with others. The one critical thing I learned through my research is that balance is way more complex than we like to think and I can say confidently that we are not doing enough in our structured plans to help our dogs given how many factors impact balance.

If you want to be part of the group of people that learn how to have a structured approach for teaching and improving balance within your sport dogs, join my email list and as soon as this program is done you will be the first to know.

Join the list here:
https://k9nut.podia.com/

13/08/2024

Today is the LIVE webinar for the first webinar in the Canine Fitness for Jumping webinar series. So you can join still today to be able to watch the webinar live, if you do miss today you can still join as the webinar recording will be posted in a Facebook group and that group will be active for 3 weeks. Working spots have that time to post videos and auditors have that time to post any questions. The group will still be available forever, so you can reference that material any time after that, it just won't be closely monitored for questions beyond the 3 week period. Because we have to then pivot to the 2nd webinar in the series, which will be held live on September 11.

Get more details and sign up to join the groups to watch this webinar and the next one at k9nut.com/webinars

07/08/2024

Accidents like this happen but with concentrated effort of fitness to help our dogs with this kind of jump we are staking the desk in our favor that they won’t happen. Check out the Canine Fitness of Jumping Webinar Series to learn some exercises to help strengthen your dog for these exact type of scenarios

Details at K9Nut.com/webinars

(Note this was 2022 and we thankfully haven’t had any incidents like this while following a protocol that helps to keep him stronger)

06/08/2024

Canine Fitness for Jumping Webinar Series will have the first of the two LIVE sessions next week!

How these webinars work is that there will be a live presentation of the exercises and discussion on how to build those exercises into a circuit you can complete at home. During the live session both people with working spots and auditing spots can ask questions, ask for a more detailed demo, etc.

This live session will be recorded and after the live we will move the discussion to a Facebook group where you can re-watch the demo, see other demos with different size dogs (there will be a small, medium and large set of videos to watch), get your hand out, ask follow up questions, and see any progressions or alternate setups for the exercises. Those with working spots can post videos here for feedback and assessment of how they are doing the exercises.

And because this is a SERIES, the 2nd webinar will follow this same format but the exercises will advance to help the dog with more advanced jump efforts.

The first session is August 13th at 8pm EST and then we will be in that group for the following 3 weeks

The second session is September 11th at 8pm EST and again with a follow-up 3 weeks.

Bundle pricing is available and you can sign-up to work or audit this series here: https://forms.gle/bYY9hxREWNvhR1K46

05/08/2024

Canine Fitness for Jumping Webinar series is NOW open for registration. If you want to learn some exercises that will improve your dog's jumping effort in agility than this is the webinar series for you!!

Registration can be done here for both working and auditing spots
https://forms.gle/C9pLcUuxQnoc1Nji7

If you have any questions feel free to send me a DM

29/07/2024

Canine Fitness for Jumping!!! The single most common obstacle our dog's see while doing agility is a jump.

There is SO much fitness that our dogs need to properly navigate all the jumps on a course from various speeds, approach angles and exit angles. And this doesn't even then take in to account the different type of jumps.

Putting concentrated effort into improving your dog's fitness will not only help prevent injury but can also improve their performance. General fitness is great, but concentrated exercises that help work the important muscle but also using those muscles in similar patterns that they will need to be used in agility is important.

This month I will be launching a set of webinars with auditing AND limits working spots for a series of exercises to help improve your dog's fitness specifically for jumping.

Webinar One: Fitness for Jumping - will focus on the typical jump approaches like wraps and slices

Webinar Two: Fitness for Advanced Jumping - will focus on the differences that are required for harder efforts like backside/threadle slices and wraps

If you want a spot in these webinars, comment below that you want IN!!

Also if you are already a member of the K9Nut Canine Fitness Routines group, you will get first dibs on these spots, plus a discount :) Not part of that group yet but want to learn more, check out k9nut.com/fitness-routines

25/07/2024

If your dog could play in the summer Olympic Games, which sport would they pick??

Alchemy would totaling pick surfing🏄
Tavi I think would do a canoe sport 🚣

23/07/2024

What is the most random thing you use for canine fitness equipment?

Alchemy is using a stadium seat cushion for his workout 😁

08/07/2024

One of the beneficial parts to having a regular canine fitness routine is using it to help manage a canine athlete's weight. We all know our dog's weights can go up and down and those that are competing in agility it is ever important that we keep our dogs at a lower weight. Reading this article, they have a very clear statement.

"An increased risk of stifle injury with increased body weight was identified."

If you need help coming up with a fitness program to help get to and maintain a healthy weight, check out my 10minute fitness routines, they are short, easy to follow and have variety to keep you and your dog from getting bored.

https://k9nut.com/fitness-routines/

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2024.1335939/full

ObjectivesOur aim was to determine risk factors for developing stifle injuries in canine agility athletes. We hypothesized that increased weight, increased f...

08/07/2024

Added my latest maps from this past weekend in St. Thomas Ontario for one day of UKI

03/07/2024

Love getting messages like this after a canine fitness coaching session!!

With a well structured fitness plan, dogs have fun, humans have fun and dogs then take naps 😂 that is one of my many goals when I come up with fitness plans for teams!!

If you’re looking for a custom fitness plan for your dog send me a message and we can see what kind of work we can do together

24/06/2024

We have Megan Foster (of Fostering Excellence in Agility with Megan Foster) coming to town this week and plenty of room for auditors in all workshops. Workshops are June 28-30 in Fenton, MI

Each workshop comes with a lecture to watch before hand, post and ask questions before and after ON TOP of the live, in-person workshop

Come learn from the one of the best dog trainers in dog sports!!

These are the topics we have lined up:
Friday AM 1030-1pm Workshop 1 Timing of Cues
Friday PM 2-430pm Workshop 2 Reality Lines
Saturday AM 9-1230pm Workshop 1 Course Analysis/Connect the Dots
Saturday PM 130-5pm Workshop 2 Course Analysis/Connect the Dots
Sunday AM 9-1230pm Workshop 1 Agility Handler Mechanics
Sunday PM 130-5pm Workshop 2 More Effective Coursework

You can register for auditing any or all of these workshop here:
https://forms.gle/1NvXhkhQ8ud5MPfu5

21/06/2024

Also lots of audit spots for the weekend available!! Message me if you want more details on the 3 fun, educational days of agility with Megan Foster, June 28-30!!!

Send a message to learn more

21/06/2024

One way I like to acclamate my dogs to heat is using our cavalettis

It’s a fairly low stress exercise and it easily to stop when time is up and get dogs cooled down. If I know I’m going to be spending a lot of time in the heat during a season I make sure to build up our time working outside so the dogs can build up a greater tolerance for the heat.

And then making sure we don’t push it, know your dogs signs of being hot and spot before they get over heated

11/06/2024

I approach agility lessons a little different. I don't have this massive library of videos that I just send you to look at and learn from. The first step I do with anyone wanting to work on a skill is learn from you and your dog about where you are currently at. From there I build a lesson to help get you from where you are at to where you want to be. Even with the same skill, the path from A to B isn't always the same for each handler/dog team, which I is why I prefer this approach, a unique, custom lesson.

This week I filled a custom video lesson for someone who wanted to improve their threadle wrap skill and change their physical cue. So they already had the skill, so the path to changing the arm but not verbal was what my lesson focused on. And while I may be able to share this video with someone else, I generally don't because everyone is in a different starting place.

If you are interested in a custom lesson plan for a skill, or custom skills and drill course to setup and work on a skill send me a message and we can talk about how I can best help you with this approach

11/06/2024

My approach to agility lessons is a little different. I don't have a massive library of videos that I send you to help you learn a skill. What I do is instead get information from you and figure out where you are currently at and then create a CUSTOM lesson for you to get where you want to be. Its a customized approach and it is not one size fits all, or one video that I just send over and over again.

This past week I made a video for someone wanting to get a better threadle wrap and already had the verbal cue but wanted to switch to a same side arm cue (instead of off arm). So I made them their own step by step video based on where they were at.

If you are interested in this more customized approach to learning any agility skill send me a message and let me see if I would be a good fit for helping you

09/06/2024

Huge thank you to Sleeping Giant Dog Sports for inviting me out for two days of agility workshops!! SO impressed with the skill of all the dogs and handlers I worked with the past two days!! I loved getting to push them and test them and see teams growing just in two days!!!

03/06/2024

21/05/2024

If you’re really interested in canine conditioning take this body scores survey and help out a great organization collect some important data

The PVWDC is conducting a survey about people's ability to identify dogs' body condition scores based on photographs. You can take the survey at bit.ly/PVWDC-BCS!

12/05/2024

Do you travel with your dog? Do you struggle to maintain their fitness routines while you’re away from home?

Share with me where you plan to travel this year and if we get enough comments I’ll post a FREE fitness routine anyone can easily follow when you travel, no matter how you travel or where you travel (well as long your dog travels with you, don’t have the technology yet to do it remotely 😂)

03/05/2024

With nicer weather happening, just a reminder that I can do virtual agility lessons. If you want live coaching and have access to even just a few pieces of equipment, we can schedule a lesson and cover any topic you'd be interested in practicing together.

I also can give you setups and sequences to practice in whatever space you have, so if you don't know what to practice, I can help with that too (Without it having to be a lesson)

Send me a DM if you want to learn more!

30/04/2024

It’s the last day of Canine Fitness Month, hope you enjoyed some of the equipment combination workouts.

At the end of the day you can get a lot of bang for your buck without combining pieces or combining by just a few, it doesn’t need to be fancy, as long as you are getting in some fitness workouts you’ll dog will benefit

My last video is sharing my favorite way to combine equipment and that’s in a movement pattern, dish-to-dish style, especially for young dogs but I do this will all my dogs because it’s a basic pattern and just fun for them! And it’s a fun way to use a lot of pieces all at once :)

24/04/2024

So exciting to be kicking off several people on custom fitness plans this week!! I'm so excited to work 1:1 with people and create a custom fitness plan for them and their dog that helps them met whatever goal they are working on. This week alone we have worked on a custom plan for very active senior dog to help her live her best life as she ages, active sport dog looking to just supplement sport with fitness and another sport dog looking for help with just injury prevention.

I can work with anyone because I do this all online with Zoom calls. There is lots of support in-between calls to, so you can successfully start and work through a program with confidence.

Whether you have done fitness before or are completely new, I work with all levels and will meet you where you are at. You don't need a long list of equipment we will make do with what you have, all you have to have is the desire to do your workout 2-3 times a week.

If you want more information on how to get started with fitness routines with me, please send me a DM

(Tavi is showing that we also do demos for you, to help in providing clarity on what the exercise is)

22/04/2024

Another commonly used piece of canine fitness equipment is the Klimb, and you can pair the Klimb with so many other pieces

In this combination we have Klimbs paired with a sitting platform. Having a surface that is the proper sitting with for you dog is important for a lot of exercises so we can help control how a dog moves through an exercise. Make sure what ever you use it has a nice, non-slip surface on it!

So this exercise is a squat to stand using he sitting platform to control the rear end and the Klimbs for a front limb target

19/04/2024

Here is an equipment combination and exercise for you to play with over the weekend.

Using a balance pad (can use another stable block here too), a single cavaletti and two balance discs, he have the dog pop up and pivot in one motion

I left a few errors in the video so you can see how the dogs want to just step back and forth, which that is a good exercises on it’s own, but the advanced version would be to get the nice pops I show.

Only a few more days in April and of this series of exercises with equipment combinations, so if there is a combination of products you’d like me to feature put them in the comments

18/04/2024

Here is a combination exercise, that fits in well with my theme this month, and can really be done with a huge variety of objects, but this setup worked great and a nice challenge for my more advanced dog

16/04/2024

There are different types of coaching that I offer, I customize each coaching relationship with each person. In general they fall into two buckets, fitness focused and agility focused.

With both programs I offer both one time/single lessons on the topic of your choice, or the more popular option is the monthly commitment, where we work together over a month with weekly meetings to you on track with your goals.

This can included reviewing your fitness exercises live, to make sure exercises are going well and advance them as needed, or for the agility side, we can review training/trial videos, discuss upcoming events and come up with a plan for how to prepare, or I even can work with you to create custom drills for what you need to work on and fit it into the space you have.

If you want more details on how to get started with coaching please send me the DM.

15/04/2024

Today’s combo products exercise was a request from Beth Neely to show an exercise with a Klimb and propel. There are already a lot out there so I went with something in the Advanced category and if you have a larger dog you would need two Klimbs and 2 propels to be able to do this

Advanced side stepping, going up and over and back. This requires slow and control side stepping motion and can really help teach your dog how to control there same side limbs.

If you have any equipment combinations you’d like an exercise for, throw them in the comments and maybe your suggestion will be picked next!!!

11/04/2024

This month we have a featured trick video in Wag Nation! Love pulling out some trick training to share with others and also reminds me that a certain young boy doesn't have nearly as many tricks as the other, so might be time to start doing some more trick training again

Any tricks we should train and film to share that you'd like to see??

10/04/2024

My favorite combos often have cones involved, I love using cones to help make exercises more dynamic, as well as the benefits like getting in spinal flexion! This is why I do teach all my dogs to understand how to wrap cones, and then it’s just a matter of generalizing it for each exercise.

This exercise uses the cones to create speed, so that the dog can learn to find balance even after moving faster, which is harder than finding balance when we guide them or they are already moving relatively slow

Adding this level of speed and dynamics comes after learning these behaviors first in a controlled way.