Lauren Langman: 0:09

Welcome to the Absolute Dog Sex in a Squirrel podcast. I'm Lauren Langman. I'm one of the world's leading dog trainers and it's my mission to help owners become their dog's top priority. In each episode, you'll discover how to gain trust and communicate with your dog like never before, creating unbreakable bonds that make you the most exciting part of their world.

Introduction to Part II: 0:29

If you caught part one of this conversation with Lauren and Mel, you already know they dove deep into what recovery really looks like for our dogs after a competition weekend. So for this second part, Lauren is once again joined by the brilliant Mel Doyle, small animal physio, rehab expert and her personal go-to when it comes to keeping her dogs fit and thriving. Whether you're a weekend warrior or a professional handler, juggling multiple dogs and endless events, this episode will help you rethink, reset and rebuild your training schedule with purpose.

Mel Doyle: 1:05

Let's go ahead and dive into part two with Mel and using those all the different size but solid-based platforms to create what we want to create. Whether we're sort of loading the back end more, whether we're loading the front end more, whether we're creating like a balanced, even surface, whether we've got individual paws that are targeted Again, I don't think I mean you might correct me, but I don't think Jamie uses the pawpaws anymore- Very rarely, very rarely.

Mel Doyle: 1:26

And again. But you've got those individual targets and look at what I mean. You have to say Skittle's body shape, her physique is amazing, 100% different.

Lauren Langman: 1:38

Yeah, 100% changed as well. So it has changed completely. So she's lean, but muscly lean as well, so has changed completely. So she's she's lean, but muscly lean. So, um, but her body changes. But her body, and you're right, it has been since august last year where you put hands on you like we need more muscle here, we need to recruit better muscle here, because if not, this won't last yeah, and without the muscle she would because of the brain that she had.

Mel Doyle: 1:59

Without having the body to back up the brain, she would have very easily hurt herself because the body wasn't there to support what her brain wanted to do.

Lauren Langman: 2:05

Yeah, yeah so it makes makes complete sense. So I'm looking at this week, mel yep, and I'm now thinking hard um, if you were going to fit in the treadmill session with those dogs and they're competing again now, let's say, skittle obviously isn't. She's competing on sunday, but the other dogs are competing on saturday. Where are you going to fit a treadmill session in? Where's the best day to do that?

Mel Doyle: 2:26

so then you have to re-look at what you want to do on the Wednesday really, because Wednesday again is probably the day the last day to do it if you could do it on the Tuesday, but then you affect what you do.

Mel Doyle: 2:33

Wednesday, thursday yeah, yeah so you know it's, you know it might be. And again, sprint work doesn't necessarily have to be included within every week, you know. So we I know we're talking about a week here, but in a way you could talk about a month and go right, well, this, this week, we're going to do some sprint work and we're not going to do that this week, we're going to do this but we're not going to do that. So although we've got this sort of like collection of things we want to include, we don't necessarily include them every week. You know, like we're talking about. I say right, if I week when I'm not competing, I will do um, and everything would be. An ideal world would be lovely to do everything every week, but we can't fit it all in and it's like.

Lauren Langman: 3:11

It is like life, isn't it? There's so many things you want to do. There's part of me that next week is, um, a school holiday. Part of me wants to go abroad. Part of me wants to enjoy the horses here. Part of me wants to train the dogs all week. Part of me wants to go exploring the local area. Part of me wants to go in a camper van for a week. I want to do it all right, and it's about what you can fit in and and what you can't fit in, and then um, and then life as well, and doing life too. So, potentially, the treadmill session on like the wednesday yeah, potentially, or the tuesday is better.

Mel Doyle: 3:35

You're saying yeah, or the, or the third. Well, if you do it on the tuesday, you then affect what you can do on the wednesday. So you then would limit how much, because you wouldn't be able to do the agility training that you wanted to do on the wednesday um, so you couldn't do like the fast dog walk, you know the fast, really high, more high, so higher intensity um exercises.

Lauren Langman: 3:51

If you did a treadmill session on the tuesday, really, the treadmill could be the end of your wednesday session, so you could do yes yeah, and that you know, definitely sort of include those things at the end of the day.

Mel Doyle: 4:00

So your professional inputs, if you can, so if you can timetable, you know you see them at four o'clock, then see them at four o'clock, then that gives you all the rest of the day to do all the other things. But target them in the right way. So be something like you know do. Maybe you want to do a little bit of training, um, or you would do treadmill in the morning on the thursday before a professional on the thursday afternoon. For those dogs that are only doing work on the sunday, but those that are doing saturday, you might treadmill them on the Wednesday. So each dog might have a different plan for the week. It might not be every dog does exactly the same thing for each day of the week, um, so then Thursday potentially the treadmill early if they're competing Sunday only.

Lauren Langman: 4:30

If not, they could do um land-based on the Thursday. Still, and yeah, like to land-based because they did the treadmill on the.

Mel Doyle: 4:36

Wednesday, yeah, um, if for that dog, yes, that if the dog's done the treadmill on the Wednesday, then you can have a lighter land based in the morning. Um, you have a, you could have a lead walk and then you're professional in the afternoon. Excuse me, um, it's just really making sure that if you have something high intensity, like a pool session, a treadmill session, you've got a light day the next day or later. That you know you put it later on in the day so that it allows you the morning and the sort of you know um earlier part. So, say, on the dogs that were having a treadmill session, a professional, they could have like a treadmill session at lunchtime on thursday, um, professional thursday afternoon, and then you've got all of thursday morning that you could do some more. You could do some more skills training.

Mel Doyle: 5:15

So not as high intensity as wednesday, um, so again, thinking of this curve shape, wednesday being the peak, so you'll be coming off the curve. You know it might be. You just want to maybe work on a couple of weave entries, but you don't want to do 12 weaves, you just want to work on the entry. So you might just reward the entry or you might do put out three poles. I don't know whatever methods people use, but you know you've got sort of flexibility there to work on some things. But I wouldn't be doing like big, long, hard-running sequences on the thursday morning yeah, it makes complete sense.

Lauren Langman: 5:41

And then on the Friday really it's a travel day, so we're talking again lead work, or lead walking in the morning, or land base in the morning. No more agility work because we're traveling that day and that's a rest day, effectively, for them before competition.

Mel Doyle: 5:55

Again, it's sort of you're tapering down, so you taper up at the beginning of the week to a peak, and then you taper down towards the weekend, towards the weekend um. And if you aren't competing the following weekend, then you're sort of you could sort of spread your, your time out to be um wednesday, thursday, friday, and then taper down saturday, sunday, monday, build back up again for the following week. Do you see what I mean? So, um, and again, if you've got something like so, say, we've got the next four weekends of champ, but then the fifth weekend there's no champ, that would be, I'll go right, this is the time we're gonna have a little bit of downtime, we're gonna sort of come off of that high intensity and just let it taper off.

Mel Doyle: 6:27

And then the weekend, the weekend after, you've got another championship show for trying to work my head. Yes, you would hit the axe. Uh, no, you've got five weekends. You're actually staying as well, haven't you? So, um. And then the weekend after is possibly I don't know would that be a, you know? So it's building, thinking right, I've got championship, championship, championship. Do I want to do all of those? Um? Or, for example, like you've just run Sheba, you've won a champ ticket. Yes, you want to look towards winning three, but maybe she has a little bit of downtime as a result of the fact of the fact she's just done that part of my planning in my own dogs.

Lauren Langman: 6:57

If, say, venture won a championship, I actually would then probably knock off championship for six weeks. The reason I would do that is because it gives me time to focus on the other classes, but also she doesn't really need another one and I think, although you like to win the three, actually you just take a little bit of work off because you've already hit and achieved one of the goals. Um, so actually, um, it's, it's a nice way to look at it and I definitely have that mindset. The other thing you said which I thought was really interesting is um, we went to some beautiful beaches when we were in um in scotland. You saw some beautiful beaches. We saw some beautiful beaches.

Lauren Langman: 7:23

But I had to say to my really good friend, amy I had to say, amy, I can't go with you because Venture just will not work the day after racing around on a beach all night. She just will be exhausted and she just can't handle that Wild. I know it isn't right for her. The only dog I could take is Nell, our little sheepdog. She would come quite happily and run around the beach all day and all night, but actually, and because it's a really nice thing to do, isn't it when you're a competition? But is it the right thing to do and what's your take on it? Because we're not saying it's wrong or it's right for anybody else. What you do is what we're modelling here or talking about here. So it's not right, it's not wrong, it's just what you do no-transcript hours.

Mel Doyle: 8:13

It was a little bit of downtime, it's a bit of decompression, um, for all of us. Um, but at the same time there was no, there was going to be no competition afterwards. I wouldn't have gone on. For me, I wouldn't have gone on friday or saturday, because I was competing saturday, sunday, and I want my dogs to be at the freshest they can be.

Mel Doyle: 8:29

Um, I still want them to be dogs, I still want them to enjoy life, but at the same time I want to make sure that they don't hurt themselves. And if they are fatigued because they've been racing around the beach, they are more likely to hurt themselves. When they're doing agility, they're probably more likely to be more tired and not be able to give me their best if they've been running around a beach a lot and beaches. You know, it depends which part of the beach you're on as well. The sand can be really deep and really hard to move through, and right along the waterline it can be quite compact and quite nice. Um, it depends whether you've got a dog that's wanting to go in and out the water or whether they're just happy to go along the beach. But for me it was a Sunday trip. It wasn't a um, it wasn't a Friday or a.

Lauren Langman: 9:04

Saturday trip. Yeah, no, brilliant, I think, really interesting. And then another question for you, sort of based on that um and it kind of links, but it kind of doesn't. Often, me and you will both have our dogs on lead for a period and then off lead so they don't go straight off lead. But you've really converted me to harnesses, but not just any harness, a well-fitted harness and the type of harness and the double clips and everything else.

Lauren Langman: 9:22

I know again another thing my she's a lovely friend, but I nag and it's harnesses now, because I see the damage on the neck um, what's your take on that? And I now, once I've seen it, I have a real problem, but I can't unsee it. And then I have this thing I have to say it, um, because I can't just not say it, because this is um, and so I have to say it. I have to verbalize how I feel, which is a very I don't know, maybe it's my age or stage or I don't know. Whatever, there's a reason I have to say it, um. And so I have to say that um, oh, my god, where's the harness? Grab a harness on. She's a harness on, like, because I can see the type thing and it's the same as in a restrain if you're restraining dogs and you can see the like cut off the throat movement and what are your?

Lauren Langman: 9:54

thoughts. What are your thoughts in treating dogs, in seeing dogs as a, as a physio, as a professional in the in the field? What are your thoughts on that?

Mel Doyle: 10:02

I mean there are sort of a lot of thoughts about it and a lot of people say, well, a harness can affect movement. I think anything that we put on our dog can affect movement, but what we want to do is minimize the effect that that has on the dog's movement. Um, and I think a harness, um, that doesn't impact the front leg, being free to move, is really important. Um, well, fitting as well. Sometimes they can be quite baggy or they can be too far back. Um, it's also really important. It's, um, it needs to be. I want to say snug, but I don't mean tight, I mean snug. It needs to be to the body, it doesn't want to be slipping around from side to side.

Mel Doyle: 10:34

And I mean the harness that we talked about. I just think they're quite good because you can actually pick and choose each individual bit to fit the individual dog or have one made. I mean both of my two actually have ones that are specifically made for them. They are bespoke, so they only fit them, they don't fit anybody else. They are bespoke, so they only fit them, they don't fit anybody else. But I just think harnesses are really important because then you reduce the sort of pressure around the neck on all the other structures around that area as well. But even having a harness on doesn't mean that the dog can then pull, so it's really important that they can move in balance as well. You know, I do my best to make sure that, even though I've got a harness on that, actually when I'm walking backwards and forwards I want her focusing on me and not going and pulling into the harness and a harness won't stop a dog from pulling, that's not.

Lauren Langman: 11:17

It's a really interesting point because, um, one of my observations with skittle is, as much as I can teach great lead walking and she likes to pull in a harness, so she really does. So one of the things I've had to do is really work on balance walking. I wouldn't say it, the weird train away, the trainers that say they balance things, it's not, that's not. I mean, I've been walking, and where she's not pulling and effectively she can, you can see a walk in a trot gate. Often you can't see a walk in a trot gate from her. She still only has like a canter or a strong pull, um, or a hop on the spot, um, kangaroo style, um. And so I've actually used uh, rightly or wrongly, I've used the front clip and I've also used the head collar, but she will still try and toe into it if she can. So it's definitely something we need continued work on and it's something I actually think she needs schooling on.

Lauren Langman: 11:52

I think she's an animal that needs schooling on how to walk continually, and some of you might be shocked because you're listening like it's a two-year-old dog. I've got nell, who's a one-year-old dog who's never been taught to walk on a lead who walks perfectly on a collar, and I have yanks and pulls and some dogs have it in them to toe and they would like to toe. So, um, give us some of your thoughts on that, mel, anything you do to help or anything you'd observe and I definitely know I'm working on this and it's something I've really observed just because she's on a harness doesn't mean she's like not still running on two legs and her back is not part of the world and her front legs, like she's all front-ended, and so I do have to constantly like check myself not to just keep walking and be towed by her because she's strong and toes, yeah.

Mel Doyle: 12:33

I think it is being mindful, like you say there. You know it's being mindful to the whole sort of process, um and um. The other thing we've talked about we've done a lot with brave, you know. Bring brave into the equation of using a balance, a lead, to help balance her movement, to help walk her as best we can get her to walk, without her wanting to just go and chicken watch and um go up the driveway as quick as she can, but to move her. And what you say about balance is moving her in balance and moving any of them in balance so that they are equally loading each leg as they should in whatever gate they happen to be in um, without actually overloading other structures like that thoracic sling of muscle. You know, because anytime they're pulling all the muscular structures around the front legs and chest they are overworking and they're not designed although they can, they're not designed to to pull they um and they can very easily become too tight and overloaded, which is a lot of the time. What we have with brave is she uses that end a lot to help her move herself around because of her other little difficulties. But other dogs, like skittles, just want to get there as quick as possible and that's the quickest way. So you know it's still a balance.

Mel Doyle: 13:33

I've got a little chihuahua who's been coming to me because she's had luxating patella, um, and that just wants to pull down the road as well. So it's not sort of breed specific or sport specific, I think it's any dog, you know. And I think sort of teaching our dogs to walk on a lead without those things isn't going to be controlled by a gadget. It's what we put into it as well, and but things like head collars and harnesses and how we use the lead can help us get to the places we want to with them and manage them, because although, like you have a head collar on skittles, you don't walk along with her pulling into it so hard that her neck's at 90 degrees so that she's still wanting to go far as forward, um, it's just an aid to help manage her, to get her to walk better than what she was doing, so that sort of makes sense.

Lauren Langman: 14:13

Your stroking of the lead, for example. The stroking of the lead works very well with her. At the same time, you're changing tactics all the time because if you don't, she's picked up that one and she's moved on. She's now climbing the lead or she's.

Lauren Langman: 14:24

I've not had many dogs that challenge me as much as much as I love her. She's a big challenge really, like there's a lot of dog in a in a small package, um, whereas I've had much bigger dogs and much heavier dogs that are much easier to to live with and own um or be owned by, because they don't necessarily have the same mental space that she does. Her headspace is. I'm a winner and I'm gonna dunk anyone in my way. And if you just don't put her in with other dogs, I've learned, and because she she would dunk anyone if she can she'll put them under, like she's just in a hurry to get there, like she doesn't care who's in her way, um, and I mean, we all know people like that. Um, but they're gonna get there anyway, like whatever comes in their way. They're still like sonic the hedgehog and leaping and catching the hoops on the way. Uh, she's caught all the hoops and she's leaping and she's got them all and she doesn't care who's like. Put a head collar on her harness on her and the shiny kit some people even glitter them.

Lauren Langman: 15:12

Um, but the biggest thing is actually, we still need to rehearse that skill and we need to rehearse that skill correctly. Yeah, yeah, big, really big. Now a couple of other things. You talked on mel, and I don't want to go into nutrition too much here because obviously this is just what you do or what I do. We're not nutritionists, we're not qualified as nutritionists, not what preaching on, but just give us a couple of examples of things you might consider yourself, so things that you do that we can listen to so just for example, really so I want to whether it be a day where I've done like a high level of training.

Mel Doyle: 15:38

so like, let's say, the wednesday or thursday. If I'm not competing on a saturday, um, that evening I will give some high, some sort of high protein chew or kong or something, but something really high protein to help her body recover from what she's been doing that day and that I do without fail, and she gets that on a show as well. So like, on a Saturday night she will get that, and a Sunday night she will get that as well. And that, I think, is really important because we just whatever, whatever fuel we use, it's got to fuel the body to repair itself. Not only fuel it for what we want it to do, but also for repair is massive and protein is going to be the biggest source.

Lauren Langman: 16:17

I completely agree, and mine would get their filled kongs, they get their filled bones, they get them filled with with great quality protein and obviously the supplement things like shroom and things like prime and things like flexi that I know have really great um ingredients there to support and um almost for me, charge that um. But I agree completely. I always want to make sure they've got the right things and fresh when they're drinking afterwards and and, like you said, the right chews or the right um high energy snack effectively as well. So even within my treats and what I'm giving them, uh, in between working, I make sure that I wouldn't feed. For example, there's certain brands I wouldn't feed supermarket brands, so I'm not looking to give them things like that. I don't want to be giving them filler, I want to be giving them something.

Mel Doyle: 16:52

That's that's what I mean, yeah, so good, high quality protein, whatever source that happens to be. It could be a collagen chew, it could be, um, you know, some meat-based product in the evening. It could be, like you say, meat-based product through the day. But again, again, we need to be careful balancing that out, because we don't want too much food in the stomach for running, yeah, so we do have to be mindful of all of that. We can't just go and have loads of treats because I need to fill you up with high quality protein for you to repair if you're going to go and sprint around an agility circuit.

Lauren Langman: 17:21

Um, because we, that is something that wouldn't be very good at all I know this is a controversial question, but do you feed your dogs a lot in the morning of a competition, or how do you feed your dogs, or is everything completely normal and the um, they well, if they're competing, they'll get a very small, very small amount in the morning, just something just to start the day off.

Mel Doyle: 18:22

And then, um, my spaniel does get she. I, I give her sort of um it's a full meat pate and that's what she gets, the sort of her rewards, and going to and from the ring they're very small bits and I use that in my warm-up as well and my cool down um, but I give a very small amount in the morning and I know that other people have different thoughts and that's whatever. But I give something small because I don't want too much in her stomach, because I know she's going to get some more through through the day exactly the same.

Lauren Langman: 18:44

So we use a high protein pate. It's on the canine site and it's on the absolute dog site and you can get hold of them really nice high protein pates. I use different flavors, as in different protein sources deer, ostrich, lamb, goats, um, turkey venison, that type of um protein and mine get that throughout the day. But again, I realized quite quickly with a greedy dog like she the other day she's greedy, like she'll eat everything I give. She's greedy, um, she's hungry, like not hungry, but just greedy. She'll eat whatever. And but, similar to you, I'll do something little in the morning. It might be a raw egg or it might be um, some of their normal food or some of the dinner or a small amount, and I do like the idea of lining their tummy, but I don't like the idea of filling them when I know I'm going to be using food throughout the day of a competition day as well. So I'm always going to use enough food throughout the day and I know that's again controversial one, but I think it's worth just saying what we do.

Mel Doyle: 19:24

We're not recommending that we're just saying yeah, we do um and that's how we do it, and I think what I'm saying as well is, for me it's um, it's not that I'm just going, oh, I don't know, let's just do this. This is what. This is my reason for doing. It's the same with my physio work, you know. It's like anything we've talked about, like right, I want you to try and do this. The reason for it is x, y and z, because for me, what's the point of doing something if we don't know why we're doing it? We need to know why we're doing it. We need to know the end result that we're trying to get to, um, otherwise, what? What's, what's the purpose of doing it? So, and I've got such a science background that everything for me has got to have a reason why I'm doing it. I don't just like, oh, I just fancy doing that today. Let's find out why and what we're doing, you know. And so for me, it's for anybody who, who you know, said anything.

Mel Doyle: 20:12

I quite often, so many times, get questions at shows. I did this weekend, um, someone said, oh, mel's a physio, and I'm like oh, can I ask you a question? I'm like, you know, um, I, and I say I'm not. You know, I'm not commenting on what anybody else does. But if you've got any, ask why? Because anybody would be happy to share their, their clinical reasoning with. Why, if they're science-based. You know, and that's why I do the things I do, because there's sort of a reason behind it. I don't. I'm not one for following fads as well. So if you know, just because I see somebody else doing it doesn't mean so I'm going to follow and do it. I might go I wonder why they're doing that and reason out why. And if I can't see a reason why, then I wouldn't just do it because I saw somebody who's at the top of their game doing it. Um, I would be wanting to know why. And I think why is a really good question to ask, whatever we're in really.

Lauren Langman: 20:53

And anyone who doesn't like your.

Lauren Langman: 20:54

Why I always say I think, it's often just a self-confidence or they don't. They don't actually have the backing, and I don't say that in a critical way. I always encourage questions. I think questions are, questions are a good thing. And one more question swimming versus treadmill, because I know that I've often got the option of both. I know that some people will have the access to both and I know that since I've known you, I've used the treadmill way more than I probably used to, and we still have times when I mean the swimming just feels so fun, um, but actually um, you've got some fairly um again good, good reasoning behind what you've suggested and I definitely wholeheartedly understand and and go with that really and tell us a little bit about that, mel um, I mean they both have their place.

Mel Doyle: 21:29

I mean it's like anything, it's you know, it doesn't matter really what it is you're using, it's why you're using it and what you're trying to achieve by it. And I know sort of our discussions have evolved around um, the high energy dogs that just want to go from a to b as quick as possible and not really considering their movement so in the pool you have a lot less ability to control that. So there's no end of range in the pool, so the dog's legs can go in whatever direction they want them to go if they're not being managed by somebody you know as a therapist, for example, so they're just doing his activity. Now that's. That's okay if they're quite um, efficient and considered in their movement in the pool. So, but if you've got a dog that's high energy and just wants to go and go from a to b as quick as possible, they're not going to consider how they're moving in the pool. And if they've got any little underlying issues, those can easily be enhanced by a quick movement, because they've turned or they want to chase something, or you know, oh, there's somebody gone down there for x, y and z, if they're um, you know with other dogs in the pools.

Mel Doyle: 22:24

I know sometimes you have multiple in there. So I you know, I don't think any. Neither is bad, but I think the one advantage the treadmill has is we are got a lot more control over what happens in it. We can control the speed, we can control the water depth, we can control the temperature. We can control the speed, we can control the water depth, we can control the temperature. We can control so many more things about how the dogs are moving. So that's the only reason why. But the pool is fine, but something that's high energy and we just need to be careful more careful, I think, in the pool than the treadmill, because there's a lot more room for error.

Lauren Langman: 22:55

I would like to say that we can't always control, whereas we can control a lot more things in the treadmill and then my last one how much downtime now would you give a dog like finishing a season, so say they finish, not a hormonal season, so say the dogs finish competing in, say october? Um, would you give like a month, two months, a week, three weeks, like, how much like agility downtime do you give a dog if you've got like the best choice in the world, the best range, no big performance coming up, or what would be your sort of? Because I think there's a need for us to sometimes do agility, like I really want to do it, but I also go, I really need to book a holiday so I'll just give my dogs a good break because if not, I think we can easily keep training. So is there like a period of you go actually rest wise. This dog needs two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, six weeks, two months, like what's what's right right.

Mel Doyle: 23:35

I mean for me I I do get, I give a whole month off and I try and time it depending on what else I've got going on. Um, so, for example, phoenix had all of January off because I wanted to give her January off. And then I'm looking at at 12 weeks, build up to sort of her being at her best. You need to sort of think about a program of about 12 weeks and then they'll be at their peak for sort of two to three weeks. So I wanted her to try and be at her peak for the novice qualifiers. Um, that was what I aimed for. Now, obviously, unfortunately it didn't quite work for me. I had two poles down damn those poles which don't normally happen she had. No, I can't. I think I count on one hand how many poles this dog has down in a year.

Lauren Langman: 24:10

She's only been competing a year, probably not used to undulating sand in different spaces and it was particularly hard surface to work on right yeah, and I I looking at the video and analyzing it.

Mel Doyle: 24:19

The two that she had down, I think, were where the previous dogs, which were large dogs that run around and they dug up the surface. It was slightly deeper, it was undulating and she's not used to that.

Lauren Langman: 24:27

I think we had the same pole I think one of the poles was the same, yeah, similar area at least. Um, they're not used to it. They're not used to the ground. They're not used to working on sand like that. They're not used to working on undulating sand. They're not used to working on deep sand like that.

Mel Doyle: 24:40

Yeah, um and and now she'll probably. I will just tone things down now because for her the next sort of big thing will be the end of june. So I'm not gonna, I won't stop doing anything because I don't want to, I don't want to give her like a month off, like I gave her in january, because I don't want to lose everything that I built up until that point. But I will sort of take it down a notch now for her so that in June and July we start to peak up again you'll always give her a tick over, so she gets a tick over.

Lauren Langman: 25:03

Um, and if you had the choice, so you had longer than a month that you could give a dog off. Do you think longer, or do you think a month really is enough?

Mel Doyle: 25:08

and then, I think a month is plenty. I think a month is plenty. But I wouldn't also like stop doing all the fitness exercises and things we're doing. Those would still be in place. It would just be the agility training that would and like the sprint training and the harder sort of, you know, high intensity, things would just drop off, but everything else would stay in place. Because I don't want her to um become at a point where I've literally got to start like we did in August, basically with skittles. I don't want to go to that point. I don't want to get to the point where I've got to spend, you know, quite a period of time building muscle back up again and then start in skills training and then start in everything else. But I will just tailor it down a little bit and I think a month is just enough time for everything to just um decompress, but continue those things and then I'll build back up again um, great sounds, absolutely perfect.

Lauren Langman: 25:48

So give them a month and, equally, where there's time within a competition season to tick them over, take them over rather than push them hard. So if you've got a few weeks where the qualifiers maybe aren't coming so thick and fast and let them tone down a little and go from there. Mel, it's been epic. It's dark with you now, so it's like dark with you and it's gone, I know.

Mel Doyle: 26:04

I just realised I haven't got a light on and I'm like trying to keep the glow of my laptop on my face, so you can still see me, you're in pitch black mode.

Lauren Langman: 26:08

Thank you so much for joining us. I don't think it fun. Loads of fantastic information for people. I really hope it helps um dogs and me too, all over, and I appreciate all of your expertise and all of your time. Thank you for joining us. You're welcome.