E265: 크리스 진크(Dr. Chris Zink) - 강아지 구조 평가

And I need to learn what their own needs are and how they express themselves and modify my training so that I can communicate with them for the best that suits them. You know, I had my very first border collie. I mistook drive, which she came with lots of, for toughness. And I realized very, very quickly that she was a very sensitive dog and that there was no relationship between the amount of drive a dog has and how sensitive they are. So things like that, every dog, an individual. And I want to have a relationship journey with every one of my dogs that suits them. Kind of evolves as you train with them. Yes, that's true. Okay. So you mentioned vet school, you mentioned kind of how you got into obedience, but you've specialized specifically in sports medicine and rehabilitation. So what led you to become a vet in the first place and then to choose that as your specialty? So I don't know. I'm one of those kids that always wanted to be a vet since they were the littlest or at least work with animals since they were the littlest. And veterinary medicine seemed like an obviously good way to do that. But what was really interesting was, you know, I started competing. At that time, there was really only obedience and a few other things that were specific to breeds like hunting tests, et cetera. But I started in obedience. And what started to happen was people would come up to me. They knew I was a vet. They were asking me questions. Man, I thought I learned everything in vet school, but I didn't because I had no answers for them. And they were all oftentimes, you know, musculoskeletal injuries, et cetera. And I realized really how little the field of veterinary medicine knew. And so from that time, I just started reading everything I could about human sports medicine and equine sports medicine and gathering as many answers as I could. And then over time, myself and 12 other veterinarians decided to make to develop this into a specialty. And because it's a specialty, what it means is that the people who are who are specialists have to have done a three year residency specializing either in horse or canine sports medicine. And then they have to pass an exam. So it's a pretty big deal. And so we had to design all of the requirements for the residency, et cetera. And then we had to put it through the American Veterinary Medical Association. That whole process took about 10 years. So it became a specialty in 2010 officially. That's so impressive. So you mentioned something in there. It just kind of surprised me. Was the horse field that far ahead of us that there was lots of information on that?

Yeah. And you know why? Because horses are worth a lot of money. Race horses and, you know, and the whole horse breeding field and everything. They have much more money than we than dog than the dog world. And so they could put that money into training veterinarians and also to pay for all of the equipment, et cetera. So, yeah, they were way ahead of us, surprisingly, kind of. That's so interesting. All right. So we touched on the obedience piece. We didn't really touch on all the other titling stuff that you've done. You know, I know that you've done agility, obviously obedience. You mentioned that rally, confirmation, tracking, hunt tests, barn hunt, lure coursing, fast cat nose work, kind of really all the things. As somebody who kind of specializes in sports medicine, which comes first to you? Do you choose dogs based on the sports you want to do or sports based on the dogs that you have? I always pick the best structured dog. Now, there's other things to consider temperament, health and all that. But if I'm just talking about structure, which I'll be talking about in my podcast, in my if I'm just talking about structure, which I'll be talking about in my webinar, then I'm going to pick the dog with the best overall structure that I know is best designed to reduce the risk of injuries. I'll be talking about that in my podcast. And then you can pick whatever sports you want, basically. Exactly. Then I've got everything open to me. And I don't have to do just one or a few. Yeah. So you mentioned best structure. So what factors do you consider to be important when we're looking at a dog structure specifically because we want to do dog sports? Well, I'm looking at the overall overall balance of the dog. I want to I want a certain thing in terms of length of body, length of neck, rib cage, how much rib cage. So the whole sort of the whole look of the dog. And then I look specifically at certain structures like we look at angulation of the front. That's probably the most important thing. We see so many dogs with front limb injuries. And then we want a rear that that balances that. And of course, we're going to look at gate because gate reflects structure as well. So we're going to also look at the gate of the dog. Even these little tiny puppies at eight weeks of age can tell us so much. So overall picture of balance and then front and rear and other little things that we might see. Just whatever kind of pops out at you, huh? Yes. So if you're looking at a specific breed, how do you kind of weigh, you know, that ideal picture versus the breed standard, which may or may not necessarily conform?

Yeah, that's actually a really big problem. You know, I call that going beyond confirmation. And I'll talk about that in the webinar as well. But one of the things that, you know, most of the time I pick a puppy, a breed, because I like the characteristics of that breed. I like, like I love the feistiness of a terrier, you know, and I love their bold outlook in life and everything. And so that may not be ideal for some of the performance events. For example, my little Norwich terrier is like a flying brick. You know, he's nine inches, but he weighs 15 pounds. If, you know, another dog that was nine inches tall might weigh three pounds if it was a Chihuahua or a Papillon or whatever. So, you know, I'm choosing, usually choosing a breed because I love who they are, who they're likely to be. So, for example, I might pick a puppy with longer legs out of all the Norwich terriers. I might want a little bit longer legs because they'll be able to run in agility better and do some of the things that I want to do. Or if, for example, on a more extreme example, if I really loved a brachycephalic breed, for example, like Boston Terriers, where I know that they struggle with breathing sometimes and that they do, they don't do well in the heat, et cetera. I might pick the one that has, for example, the longest muzzle in the litter. Or I might check their nostrils to make sure their nostrils are open because that's not true for all of these breeds. French Bulldogs, very, very popular breed. That's another one where I might pick the one that wouldn't get a championship because of these factors that are so extreme in the breed champions. And I would pick for better breathing, let's say. I think it's really interesting because you've mentioned you have a Golden, you have the Terrier, you mentioned a Border Collie. It seems like you've had a lot of different breeds. I have. I've actually put titles on breeds from five of the different groups. Wow. I just love exploring what dogs are like. Now, I have had Goldens all my life. After the Irish Wolfhound, I was given a six-month-old Golden Retriever. That was 1983. And I've had Goldens ever since. So they are my favorite dog and they're so easy and wonderful to live with. But I've explored with other breeds. With almost everything, huh? A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Yeah. So kind of back to the structure stuff. How do you kind of weigh? So you decide you want to get a breed like a Terrier. And how do you kind of weigh what you want to do versus what they enjoy, which is what they want to do temperamentally, against that physical structure?

And kind of indicate that indicates that, you know, maybe, okay, so agility is going to be harder for this dog because they're a little brick. Or like whatever, right? Like how do you kind of balance those pieces in your own head and kind of make those decisions? I think the first thing to do is to give the puppy during the first two years all of the experiences you can to get to know them, to learn what they like, what they're good at. You know, it was very interesting because when I got my Norwich, my current Norwich Helix, he is an intact male. And I started training him in puppy agility and doing puppy agility with him. I can't tell you how many times I cried all the way home from the class because I thought to myself, he'll never be able to do agility. All he wanted to do was sniff. And I mean, it was just, it was awful. And then he got his mock just so easily because he needed time to grow up. He was a young male. He just, and he was my first male Terrier. And I didn't know how male they really are. And, you know, it was just, it was, we needed that time to, to balance out his growth and maturity with what I wanted to do. And I was fully willing to not do agility with him if that didn't turn out. But in the end, it did turn out wonderfully. So, so I think we, I do think we tend to rush things a little bit. Sometimes we're eager to get going. We got this dog for a certain performance event and there's nothing wrong with doing those things. But we also, again, have to be always reading our puppy. And as they grow, recognizing that there are, you know, think about yourself during puberty. You know, if you, if you remember some of those times, you can really relate to your growing puppy. So in the end, then once the dog, once I know what I want to do with the dog and I know that the dog wants to do that thing, then I'm, you know, then I'm going to get, go ahead. But I'm also going to be always cognizant of their structure and what might be easier or more difficult for them. And so, for example, if I'm in a class and I have a flying brick and everyone else has border collies, I'm going to not compare myself to the others, but have my own goals and my own desires. And even if it, if it's a matter of stopping earlier or making some modification to the training situation, I'm not going to feel embarrassed that I'm doing this and no one else is. You know, I'm going to kind of direct it the way that I know is best for the dog. I think that's so hard to do sometimes.

You have the dog that's a little bit different or even temperamentally a little bit different, even if they're not necessarily a different breed and, and they're struggling for one reason or another and being, being able to say, you know what, this is just what my dog needs right now. Yeah. You have to avoid feeling judged, you know, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because what's in the end, you have your dog on your bed at night and you're going to sleep and your relationship is the thing that is the really big deal there. And you don't want to break that bond. So at what age is it actually possible? I know you mentioned kind of even eight week puppies can tell you a lot, which, what age is it really possible to get a good sense of what a puppy structure is going to be when they grow up? So in general, everyone says eight weeks and that's in general true. But there are other modifications to that. Some breeders of some breeds insist that they wait a little bit longer. And I think this is true for some of the, some of the toy breeds and also some of the really large breeds. I would trust the, I would always do the eight week evaluation, but I would also trust the breeders opinion if they also wanted to do an evaluation at a different age. The other thing is that many breeders have told me, and I believe them, I'm not a breeder, so I don't know, I don't have this experience, but they will tell you that they can see a lot about the puppy structure as soon as it's born and dried off. And I believe them, I've just not been there for that many whelpings, nor have I watched those puppies grow up into adults so that I would know, I'd be able to make a relationship. But I do believe that they see things as well, so I would trust the breeder on that as well. But the, but the main one is eight weeks plus or more than half a week. That's so interesting because all the little bitty puppies I've ever seen just look like fuzzy potatoes. I can't imagine trying to judge anything. I know they do look like little, that's right, but they see things like length of body relative to length of leg and neck and sort of the overall, overall structural things. They obviously won't be able to evaluate angulation or anything because there's no, the bones are just floating in a bunch of tissue. There are not even any joints yet. So do the things that you look for when you're evaluating puppy structure differ at all from what you look at when you have like a fully formed adult dog in front of you? Actually, no.

I mean, there are some differences in the sense that puppies have larger heads and, you know, and bigger feet relative to how, you know, how they're going to be. But actually, the cool thing is that a puppy at eight weeks is giving you an idea of what it's going to look like as an adult. So therefore, actually, if you attend my puppy evaluation webinar, you'll see that there's a lot about adult evaluation in there too because the two things mirror each other. So actually, it covers a lot more than just puppy structure. It'll cover a lot about adult structure too because we want to judge the puppy in a way that will help us assess what it will look like as an adult. So we're still looking kind of at overall body shape, that angulation on the front and the rear and puppy moving? Yeah. I have to say, it's got to be really cute to evaluate puppy movement when you've got a little. It's just like. Oh, it is. It's also interesting to get them to gate. Yeah. Just use a little bit of cheese or. Lots of treats. Yep. So you mentioned the webinar a couple of times in there. For those listening, Chris is doing a webinar for us on April 14th called Picking a Puppy, Four Steps to Evaluate Puppy Structure. So Chris, can you tell us a little more about what you're planning to cover? Okay. So we're going to look at things like what do you need to do to get ready? How do you set up a room where you're going to do this? What do you get it all done in advance? And how do you introduce the puppies in advance to that room and to make sure that they're comfortable? And then we're going to talk about how exactly you can get a puppy to stand up and stack just like a confirmation dog. And it's actually quite fun. It's all just about food and where you place the food and where you place the dog's feet, et cetera, and convince them to stay there. So that's a lot of fun with puppies. And then we're going to talk about what we're looking for specifically in terms of structure. And like I said, we're going to look at the balance. What does the whole picture look like? And then we're going to look at specific things like how much of the dog's body length is occupied by thorax versus the loin end of things. And we're going to look at front and rear angulation and some of the things that we might want to look at that are a little bit outside the box for conformation. So, yes, conformation is a really important thing to look at. But there's some things we're going to look at beyond conformation as well that will apply to performance.

Some of the things we talked about already, like length of nose for brachiocephalic breeds, et cetera. Excellent. Who is it a good fit for? Kind of who might want to think about signing up? Well, you know, here's the thing. It is about evaluating puppies, but actually you can't avoid it being about evaluating adults as well because we want our puppy structure to reflect what the adult structure is going to be like. So, of course, they're related. So, actually, anyone who's selecting a dog, whether it's a puppy or an adult dog at a shelter or a rescue or whatever, if you're going to want to do some performance with that dog or even maintain the dog for a healthy lifetime, it's not even necessarily about performance. Performance just is a greater amount of exercise training and conditioning and competing than you might do with your best friend. But why not pick a structure for your best friend that's going to be as healthy as possible even without those stresses of performance? So, honestly, really, it's going to be about structure in general too. So, I think that it would be useful for anyone who's ever considering getting another dog, whether it's a puppy or adult, which probably is everyone. Probably pretty close to everybody listening to the podcast. Yeah. So, to kind of round out our chat today, I've got one last question here. So, if we were to kind of drill down all the stuff we've been talking about, like is there one key piece of information you kind of want people to take away or one key point you want people to remember or understand? I think it would be to take every single dog as an individual. Just like every single human is an individual. And, you know, you have friends. Maybe you have friends that do something and you're like, okay, well, I don't really like that, but whatever. I really like them, you know, or whatever. We are developing a lifelong relationship. And that relationship is changing and growing and becoming stronger through the things that we do with our dogs in performance. Why do we do performance events? Well, in the end, I think all of us do it because it changes our relationship. It deepens and strengthens and makes more unique and interesting and fascinating our relationship with dogs. And the ribbons and whatever accolades are side effects of that that we might think of as we might, they might seem more obvious to us. But if we really go deep into our hearts, it's that relationship that it's about.

And just like you wouldn't try to make a friend different, hopefully, you want to let that relationship grow with the dog as an individual and relating to them as an individual. I guess that's the thing that I really would emphasize the most. Yeah, I mean, there's, I think most of the people listening to this can probably relate that there's really not a better feeling than a really awesome run in whatever sport you do with your dog where you feel connected and good together. And yeah, it hits back at that awesome, awesome relationship and just how well things you connect. Yeah. So awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Chris. This has been great. You're welcome. Thanks. Thank you for hosting it. Thank you, all of you listeners for staying on with us. And I hope you'll join us at the webinar because it's going to be fun. Yeah. All right. Thank you, like Chris said, to all of us for tuning in. And we'll be back next week with Stacey Barnett to talk nose work. If you haven't already, subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice. They have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensounds.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Line. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

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