I’ve been experimenting with how to wind Elly up (she can be easily distracted)–and hit the jackpot on that this weekend, which was fun. I actually ran her into the ring right from her crate, loosened the leash as I ran, threw it to the side and just kept on going! The first time I did that, she was an absolute loon, actually barked while standing on the table! So I did the same thing with Pairs, and she got a Q in that, which was fun.

Dancer: first place, starters jumpers 26″, Q, 24.04 sec, 105 yards
Elly: Q, P1 pairs

Dancer will have her first try at the teeter in a trial situation tomorrow (since she was a new pup). I am planning a calm early cue, clapping my way as she goes across the teeter, and continuing on. I’m also hoping for good contacts on the dog walk and a-frame. Oh, and great fast weaves. Not hoping for much, am I?

(For Elly, I’m hoping for a Q in Starters Snooker. She has two now, and that would be her starters snooker title. Whee! That would be fun!)

I cooked hot dogs for the girls today–organic chicken hot dogs, but still hot dogs. That’ll be their trial treats. I’ve packed their rain coats. I’ve found my warm base layer. And my wool socks, and my warm hat, and my raincoat. (The forecast for tomorrow is not great.)

I gave them a bath. I’ve brushed most of Dancer and some of Elly. I’m working my way around the two of them slowly. Dancer’s face actually looks pretty good, especially considering I’ve been doing a bit at a time all week. I finished off the last tuft of hair with a pair of scissors yesterday. Both of them have pretty good looking feet right now.

Newton’s first law: an object in motion stays in motion unless acted on by an outside force. An object at rest stays at rest unless acted on by an outside force.

Outside forces are friction, gravity, etc. So horizontal motion (like a dog jumping flat) is actually only subject to the force of gravity, the speed of the horizontal motion is irrelevant. BUT… the dog puts its legs down and generates propulsion (forward motion) by using its muscles. Theoretically more effort is required to go faster… but the most effort is required to start a stopped object or stop a moving object.

Imagine a dog in a pool, for example. Its weight is supported by the water (which also generates considerable resistance, but I’m neglecting that at the moment so I can generate this theoretical construct). It can touch its legs to the bottom to move itself horizontally, but there’s no impact. That would be the zero-stress situation: not supporting its weight and using its muscles alone for propulsion.

If a dog is running fairly level (level topline, little bouncing), than the amount of impact should be minimal, and each leg as it hits would simply generate propulsion. So flat jumping would seem to be best since all that has to happen is that the dog suspends all its legs momentarily while continuing flat forward motion. It will fall somewhat during that time, and that amount of impact would have to be absorbed.

I certainly think a slow collected jump generates less impact than a fast collected jump, but I’m less persuaded that a slow flat jump is better than a fast flat jump–I just don’t think there’s a lot of difference in impact between the two.

Now, if we neglect impact and think about muscle energy, which is also a stress to the dog’s body, it definitely requires more muscle effort to move faster than slower. Biochemically, it’s necessary to generate more ATP more rapidly, for example, which also creates byproducts (lactic acid) if done anaerobically (without sufficient oxygen for full respiration). Agility runs are definitely all-out sprints for the handler and for the dog. Adequate biochemical recovery time is definitely required.

If you’re wondering what a 1935 BIS winner looked like, check out this picture: 1935 poodles.

Now besides reading Anne Rogers Clark, who was one of the first professional handlers (male or female) in the conformation ring, I’ve been reading Blanche Saunders, who was one of the developers of competitive obedience. Her 1974 book The Story of Dog Obedience is readily available used for a few dollars. She was a poodle breeder and apparently an amazing dog trainer. The book is heavily larded with black and white photographs of black poodles with way too much hair, but by viewing them in bright light, you can see that the poodles were pretty amazing. My favorite is King Leo of Piperscroft taking the broad jump, in the early 1930s:

King Leo of Piperscroft, from the book The Story of Dog Obedience

I have been working on learning to groom the girls since the beginning of 2008, when I started feeling the pinch of the cost of grooming two dogs. I took a lesson from my groomer. I bought good supplies. And did I think of training the dogs to enjoy being groomed? No, I did not. There you have it. I am definitely an idiot.

Nor did it occur to me as I struggled through wiggling paws and squirmy noses. Not until I went to the Clicker Expo last month and saw a BOOK on clicking your way to successful grooming did it occur to me that I could train the dogs to enjoy being groomed. (Note that I didn’t buy the book. I skimmed it on the spot and noticed that it was the usual step-by-tiny-step approach of any clicker trainer.)

So for the last few weeks I’ve been working on tiny step by tiny step in the grooming process. Put the dog on the table. Click her for standing calmly. Brush a bit, click her for standing calmly. Hold the paw, click her for not jerking it away. Hold the paw and turn on the dremel, click her for letting me hold the paw without pulling it away. (At this point, I had the clicker under my foot, just in case you’re wondering how I had enough hands to pull that off.)

Today I dremeled Dancer’s toenails, clipped her paws neatly, clipped the hair around her tail, and gave her a light brushing, all while she stood pretty calmly. It certainly wasn’t a struggle. She even jumped on the grooming table voluntarily. I dremeled Elly’s front toenails and trimmed her face whiskers with a pair of scissors, and gave her a thorough brushing. She likes brushing more than Dancer. She let me clip a little extra hair from her feet. No struggle.

I really wish I’d thought of clicker training it earlier. (Note that we have a lot of steps to go to get to calm face shaving. But I feel sure we’ll get there.)

I tried that Monday. Not too long before I had a pause-less A-frame performance. Of course, that’s only one training session, and it’s a training session in the barn with no distractions, too. We’ll see what we get today and then tomorrow with Debbie.

Should dogs be jumped at lower heights for long-term soundness?

I used to teach high school physics, which is where mechanics (Newton’s three laws) is taught. I would like to suggest that simple high school level physics explains why it may be better to jump lower rather than higher.

Two physics equations apply to the jumping question. The first is:

** Force = mass multiplied by acceleration (F=ma)

The second is:

** Kinetic energy = 1/2 mass multipled by velocity multiplied by velocity (KE=.5mvv) (or KE=.5mv**2) (since I don’t have a symbol for squared, I’m using old FORTRAN notation in the second equation)

In jumping, the dog will have a constant force in the direction of the ground while it is in the air. That is, the dog’s mass and the acceleration of gravity do not change while the dog is in the air.

However, the higher the dog is in the air, the more time it will spend accelerating toward the ground, and the more velocity the dog will have toward the ground when it reaches the ground. Note that the downward velocity is unchanged whether the dog is jumping collected or extended; it is purely a function of the height of the apex of the jump. Thus, more height leads to more velocity when reaching the ground which increses the kinetic energy GEOMETRICALLY (it’s a squared function). An increase of 10% in velocity (about what you’d get with one jump height increase) would lead to an increase of about 20% in kinetic energy that needs to be absorbed when the dog reaches the ground.

Note as well that forward speed does not matter in this analysis; only the speed toward the ground creates kinetic energy that must be absorbed by landing.

Now, dogs are beautifully built for jumping, and in fact, their tendons, ligaments, and muscles in the legs act as springs to absorb some of that kinetic energy. A biophysicist could calculate the force that a dog can safely absorb, and it would vary with breed and structure (things like shoulder angles and hip flexion matter). That lies beyond my knowledge base.