I noticed a couple of weeks ago that Able has a strong preference for turning to the left (versus the right) when he grabs his tug toy and turns around to come back to me. This is bad enough that he’d rather make a 270 degree left turn than a 90-degree right turn – not something I want him doing on the agility course when he’s turning towards me.
I asked our animal physio about it and she suggested I try some cookie stretches to work on his flexibility in both directions.
Cookie Stretches
Cookie stretches are part of my older dog’s routine to keep her back supple. The idea is that I get her to bend around and touch her nose to her hip. The usual instructions to do this is to position her with her hips between my knees to keep the back end still, and use a cookie to lure her head around. The stretches should be done an equal number of times in both directions. Ideally your dog should support her own weight throughout the stretch, rather than leaning the outside hip against your leg.
Rik tends to get a bit over-the-top when I lure her with a cookie. A friend suggested switching to a hand target and I much prefer to do it this way – my fingers don’t get too slobbery and I can get through our nightly stretches quicker since I don’t have to stop and reload my hands so often. I do still give her a cookie after every few reps though, so that she’s an eager participant.
I have tried cookie stretches with Able a couple of times, but found it hard going with a wriggly squirmy pup so I decided to park it up until he had grown up a bit. Well, he still hasn’t grown up but it was time to rise to the challenge.
I found it difficult to keep his rear end still when I used the hand target. I found it difficult to keep his rear end from leaning on my knee when I used a cookie. Soon we were both getting pretty frustrated and my hands were covered in slobber. Did I mention that I tried to introduce this at dinnertime, and even worse, on a night when dinner was thirty minutes late?
Clunk!
I had a problem with Able bashing his muzzle into my cheekbones when he was younger. He was attempting to lick my face, but his nose just kept growing and growing and growing, and he clearly had no idea how long it was so I’d get clobbered in the face quite hard a couple of times a day. I learned to keep my head above easy reach when I bend down to pick things up, and the problem went away.
Until I started bending over my very excited puppy as I tried to encourage him to hold somewhat still while he followed a cookie with his front end.
Able managed to bash me right in the nose. It hurt like buggery and bled for a few minutes. Fortunately nothing’s broken, although for the first couple of minutes I thought there might be. I abandoned mission to clean up the blood. Able waited not-so-patiently by the scene of the crime in the hopes that I wouldn’t forget the rest of his dinner…
I think I’ll leave the cookie stretches another couple of weeks before I try again.
The Jump Grid Fix
When I’ve been doing jump bump grids with Able, I’ve had a major problem with him sproinging over the last two bumps in a single bound unless I make the gap uber-large. He’s a big young dog who can take ginormous strides, and he doesn’t see the point in wasting time when he’s on a mission to get his toy.
I’ve tried a few things to try and fix this but nothing really worked – unless I made the last gap at least 20% larger than the previous gaps, he’d hop over them both. And if I tried to reduce the spacing of the grid at all to encourage him to collect his stride, he’d sproing over the first two as well.
This week I finally read a tip online that seemed like it might work – to put his toy down in the gap that he usually sproings over for a couple of reps, and then try doing the full grid again. I tried it out on Wednesday night and I was astonished to see my boy actually stride through the grid and touch down in all the gaps! I wish I’d known about this idea months ago, but hopefully it will save someone else from the same pain.