수전과의 미니 Q&A: 신체 인식 운동 및 반려견 어질리티를 위한 워밍업

Mini Q&A With Susan Body Awareness Exercises And My Warm Up For Dog Agility

What are your top five body awareness exercises? Okay. Super question. And the answer is, it depends. So, my top five puppy body awareness exercises are going to be different than my top five say competition dog exercises. And within the competition dog, it really depends on what my dog's strengths and weaknesses are. So, for example, for a puppy, sit down, stand, love them. I love them on, you know, sit down, stand on a plank where those paws aren't going to move and I'm going to move around your body. And can you, you know, get off balance a little bit one way, a little bit the other. Sit down, stand, big, big, big fan of those for puppies. And as my dog grows up a little bit, I love sidestepping, side passing. I start quite young with my puppies. Things like back up is a great exercise where they learn how to weight shift their body back and step in a really controlled manner. Of course, I love things like Cavaletti's for body awareness exercises and really control things like that. But I would say for sport, I really want my dog having an awareness of how to use their limbs. So, it might be lifting up one limb at a time, but it's about strength, mobility, proprioception, flexibility. So, weight shifting, those are really big things for me. We in Agility Nation, we have well over 50 different fitness exercises in there from contributors from all over the world, veterinarians, physiotherapists, specialists. Could you tell me about your warm-up or cool-down routine? I have a 20-minute warm-up routine. I can do it in as small as eight, but the most important part of that warm-up routine is that my dog is really, really warmed up. I personally would like to get my body really, really warmed up, but there's a number of different things that I do during that 20 minutes. But it starts and it ends with a cool-down is walking. So, not trotting. I want my dog walking. And my cool-down is I want my dog's breathing to get back to normal. And both my warm-up and my cool-down, I do some exercises with my dogs. No matter what venue I'm at, I don't need special equipment for this. I'll just do a few little exercises. And that's really, those are the big, big things is get your dogs out there walking. Don't cheat them. Even when you're practicing at home, rehearse your warm-up and cool-down because success in the ring comes from having a routine that your dog can predict. Oh yeah, now we're going to go do agility. What would you say is the most important part of your warm-up routine? Again,