{"id":9286,"date":"2022-01-07T16:46:01","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T14:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogsolutions.co.za\/course\/injury-prevention-strategies\/"},"modified":"2022-02-23T21:01:42","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T19:01:42","slug":"injury-prevention-strategies","status":"publish","type":"tva_lesson","link":"https:\/\/dogsolutions.co.za\/biokinetic-k9\/course\/injury-prevention-strategies\/","title":{"rendered":"Injury Prevention Strategies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Injury Prevention Strategies<\/h3>\n

It is always best to try and prevent an injury from occurring in the first place.<\/p>\n

Any exercise, sporting or even “fun” activity we do with our dog has a certain risk element to it, mainly because we are working with a moving physical being.  Accidents happen.<\/p>\n

But our goal is to be proactive and think about how we can reduce that risk. As trainers or handlers of these awesome dogs we need to do all we can.<\/p>\n

This course is designed to help give you some tools and skills to help build your dog’s body into a stronger working system so that you may engage in your favourite activities knowing that your dog’s body is stronger and is better equipped to handle the riggers that sport and play demand of the body<\/p>\n

Here are some main injury prevention tips that you can incorporate:<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

1 Fitness and Conditioning<\/h4>\n

Conditioning and fitness training – this is one of your BEST strategies that will help you prevent injuries to your dog.<\/p>\n

Consistent targeted exercises that you perform weekly with your dog will help tremendously! It helps your dog stay strong and the stronger your dog remains, the more resilient they become to the stresses of activity and sport.<\/p>\n

A balanced conditioning program performed regularly will improve your dog’s strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, health, balance, awareness endurance and stamina.<\/p>\n

Strength or resistance training improves strength, power and speed, one of the main fundamental requirements of most sports, and this is done through the increase of muscle mass associated with strength training and the decrease of injury when done correctly.<\/p>\n

Strength training is one of the most important parts of any training program for both humans and canines.<\/p>\n

If your dog is a competitive sporting athlete, then like humans, their training program requires more sport specific exercises, designed around their sport, but also around the individual dog, considering their structure, their sport their age and level of conditioning.<\/p>\n

Just like humans, a sporting canine athlete has different fitness requirements than that of a dog whose life centers around being a pet in a family home.<\/p>\n

Both dogs require and benefit from canine conditioning and fitness, however the sporting, working or competitive dog requires a more targeted approach to maximize their physical gains and strengthen any limitations their structure may present. Just like humans, not all sport dogs are born with an optimal sporting physical structure, but they are still able to train and compete in several sports and should enjoy safely doing so.<\/p>\n

   <\/p>\n

2 Warm Up and Cool Down<\/h4>\n

Warm-ups and cool-downs play a HUGE role in injury prevention. It is a simple but powerful thing that you can incorporate in your training that provides immense injury prevention benefits. We go into quite a bit of detail in our Warm-Up and Cool-Down Workshop.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Much of what we know is from human research into athletic performance but has provided a valuable cross-over to our canine athletes as there are loads of similarities on our musculoskeletal systems regarding how our tissues respond to stress\/exercise and how they recover.<\/p>\n

When warming up or cooling down your dog, here are some considerations to bear in mind:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Always try incorporating the movements that you will be training in your sport into your warm-up routine<\/li>\n
  2. Warm-ups should ALWAYS be done before any training, trialing, seminar, workshop, event or any engagement of physical activity.<\/li>\n
  3. Proper warm-ups take between 5 – 10 minutes (depending on the activity you are going to engage in and your dog’s fitness level)<\/li>\n
  4. A proper warm-up may last up to 20 minutes!  If after you have warmed up your dog, and there is an unexpected delay or your dog is required to wait a little longer before going onto the training field e.g. waiting their next turn in a workshop\/trial, you should “top-up” your warm-up with a few extra warm-up exercises to maintain its protective properties by keeping the body warm and mobile through the joints. — This information, I was told, was particularly useful for some trainers who found it difficult to warm-up their dog before protection work as the dog was always too excited to do the warm-up in a meaningful way while being on the training field just before protection work. They were able to do a complete warm-up routine for their protection training away from the training field and then could return to the training field within 10 minutes after completing their warm-up. Because residual benefits of a good warm-up may last for up to 20 minutes, they were more comfortable to then engage in protection work feeling more confident that their dog’s body still had the benefits of a good warm-up.<\/li>\n
  5. Cool-downs are between 5 – 10 minutes (similar to warm-ups) and contain some of your warm-up exercises with less repetition and some extra walking.  It’s all about lowering the heart rate and a gradual recovery of the heart rate and lowering of body temperature and blood pressure. Use this time to do a quick body check for injuries – you can discover more about this in our Body Checks for Injury Workshop<\/a>!<\/li>\n
  6. Cool-downs help reduce lactic acid build up in the muscles, reducing the chance of cramp and sore, stiff muscles or DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness) that we humans are familiar with after a big gym session.<\/li>\n
  7. Warm-ups and Cool-downs help keep training fun and enhance the bond with your dog instead of just dumping placing your dog in a crate after training, almost negative feedback after a good training session.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Don’t miss this opportunity of injury prevention because it sounds too simple and think that training is more important (I have been there!).  Warm-ups and Cool-Downs are an essential part of a canine athletes’ ability to perform at their best.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

    3 Age-Appropriate Training<\/h4>\n

    Always ensure that any activity you do with your dog is age appropriate.<\/p>\n

    Puppies, adult, senior dogs or dogs coming out of a recovery of an injury require different considerations when performing any exercises or skills required in their sports.  They all have different physical abilities and exercises may need to be modified to accommodate these abilities.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Young dogs and Puppies:<\/h5>\n

    Young dogs are dogs under the age of 18 months (prior to growth plate closure).  Because growth plates have not yet fully closed, we always want to be careful with young dog activities as these growth plates form the weakest part of their skeleton until they are fully closed.<\/p>\n

    Growth plates are found at the ends of long bones and various areas of the skeleton such as pelvis, vertebrae etc.  They are soft areas of developing cartilage tissue made of cartilage and as a puppy matures, this cartilaginous growth plate gradually calcifies and demineralizes to form denser bone and thereby grows the legs longer and stabilizes the pelvis for example. <\/p>\n

    If a growth plate is injured, the cartilage cells may slow or stop multiplying and dividing altogether. This may have disastrous consequences for a puppy and may cause the long bones to malform or grow abnormally, placing strain on joints and muscles as the dog matures. This adversely will affect a dog’s ability to do activities and increase propensity to future injury problems and poor quality of life.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

    Adult Dogs:<\/h5>\n

    As young dogs become adults and grow in experience, skill set ability and training, their training considerations also change while always being aware of what we are asking of them during training sessions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

    Senior\/Older Dogs or Dogs coming out of recovery:<\/h5>\n

    We need to be mindful of special conditions for these dogs. Watch them more closely for fatigue, ability to maintain balance problems and monitor your intensity levels (e.g. lover jumps or obstacles, number of runs through circuits etc) along with the number of repetitions closely. They may need more recovery time between sessions and even shorter sessions.<\/p>\n

      <\/p>\n

    4 Training Conditions and Surface Considerations<\/h4>\n

    Training conditions with respect to weather are important.<\/p>\n

    Hot, humid weather makes training much more difficult for any dog. If it is too warm, train at cooler times of the day and watch for fatigue more keenly. Dehydration during warm days will absolutely have an adverse effect on your dog’s ability to concentrate on a task at hand. ensure that your dog always has cool water available to prevent overheating and dehydration.  This is particularly true for working or high drive dogs who sometimes find EVERYTHING more attention grabbing than even drinking water.<\/p>\n

    Similarly, when training in very chilly weather ensure that your dog has sufficient warm-up to prepare their body.  To stop the weather from cooling down their body too rapidly after training, a proper cool-down will prevent cramps and slow the outside weather from cooling the body too rapidly.<\/p>\n

    Not all surfaces are created equal. Different sports and differing venues have different surfaces such as grass (or even dew on the grass), veld, Astroturf, sand, snow.  Some surfaces are more slippery, some are uneven and have divots or hazards, some are poorly laid out causing dogs to trip, slip or misstep. Always take caution in differing weather conditions.<\/p>\n

    The ideal and safe footing for training should:  <\/p>\n