Why Purpose Beats Gimmicks

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I think what's really important is to talk about why we're doing it and what we're trying to achieve. No matter what we do in life or with our dogs, there's always sort of gimmick things out there. You know, we can be easily swayed by fancy looking equipment and especially if we see things online. It can look really great, but it doesn't mean to say it's right to. So just because we can do it doesn't mean to say we should do it or it's going to give us the best outcomes.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Welcome to the Absolute Dogs Texting as Girl 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. So, Mel, we've been working together, known each other for a long time. Tell everybody what you do for a living, day to day, day in, day out, what you love and what you get to do, I suppose, for your work.

Integrated Physio And Hydro Explained

SPEAKER_00 1:03

My work, yeah. So I'm a canine physiotherapist and hydrotherapist, but I see that as an integrated role. It's not like one separates from the other. They both link in together. So I wouldn't say I'm particularly one or the other, but primarily probably physiotherapist for mainly small animals. I don't work with big animals, not in my remit.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Although you couldn't help it yesterday. We were riding boxes and you were taking videos and saying, What do you think of this? What do you think of that? You can't help it. You are for me, you're like the James Harriet of the physio world because you love what you do and you do what you love, and it is kind of part of your day-to-day. Like you can't not look at an animal.

Adapting Plans To Real Life

SPEAKER_00 1:39

No, it's no past. It's innate within me, and I think it's a little bit like you. You know, you watch a dog move and you just can't help but watch what's going on, you know, because it's just part of you. So, yeah, that's that's pretty much what I do. But I work for a range of people and dogs and scenarios with different funding levels, with different time constraints, you know. So it's adapting everything to fit basically what that person's got available, whether it be money, time, or you know, just physical ability as well, because you might have somebody who's just physically less able to do certain things, not able to get down on the floor, everything's got to be done from a chair. I have quite a few clients like that. So we have to adapt the exercise, show them how they can do it, but but in a different way.

Vet Referral And Scope Of Practice

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Now, I we were talking yesterday and we were working yesterday together, and we were talking exercise plans and fitness plans and conditioning, really, for my dog specifically, and looking and working with them. However, some of the things that came up, they kind of feel very much everybody needs to know some of these things. And there are so many things that people day-to-day might miss or could possibly do that don't really even take that long or maybe don't need huge resources that we could be doing. And I suppose it came back to some core foundations in exercise, in fitness, and in looking at dogs. Now, before we even go into this, I know that Mel, veterinary referral and working via referral for any um clients is really important. So, what we're going to say here is if you've got any struggles, if you've got any problems, people need to see their vets.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Absolutely. Vets first port call here in the UK. That is the way the legislation is at the moment, whether that changes the future, which we're really hoping it does. Whether that comes in my lifetime of working or I don't know, because in the human world it took nearly 40 years for it to happen for autonomy to basically be in place. But there are a lot of strides forward at the moment with the RCDS, with DEFRA. So we're really hoping that that becomes the case. But for the moment, every dog or animal must be on a veterinary referral to be seen by a veterinary physiotherapist. So yeah.

Foundations Over Equipment

SPEAKER_01 3:43

So looking at the dogs yesterday with exercise plans and treatment plans and what we're doing for our fitness plans, there are some things that we can discuss and we can work with. We can at least talk through the scenarios to give food for thought. Where do we start? Because there was a lot. I mean, we had a whole day and we managed to get through three dogs, right? Like it there's a lot that we can do, and we want to fine-tune and we want to tweak and we want to do our best. And also, we also chatted to some of our pro dog trainer students, and we chatted to some of our games club students about just general day-to-day awareness and again care that we can be doing. Now, where do we start with the core, with the exercise, with the fitness, with the conditioning? What would be some of your, I suppose, golden advice for someone who's limited on maybe time but really wants to get the best from their time and for their dog?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, I think, well, it doesn't matter really whether you've got a puppy, whether you've got a sports dog, whether you've got an older dog. Sort of some key core exercises for me are very, are very basic. And I think it probably surprised you in the beginning how basic they were.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

And also how slow everything was. I was like, surely you need to do this faster. We're talking sports dogs, Mel, and we were like, no, it's slower. And and what I've loved over the period of working with you, and let's just let the audience here know, we've known each other for roughly how long? Nearly 20 years. So a long time in terms of dogs, and then probably more closely worked together since Braves accident, which is probably five to six years ago now. So actually, in terms of physio sort of awareness and care, five to six years ago. Now, some of those exercises, yes, they surprised me. They they surprised me in how simple but not easy, actually. I'd say, I'd say, yeah, simple but not easy is probably the way to describe them. They're very simple, but they're not actually that easy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

And quite a lot of time I'll have clients come in and I'll say, right, we're gonna do this, and I will demonstrate it with the dog. And obviously, it's like anything, the more skilled you are at doing something, the easier you make it look. And quite often I can make something look quite easy, and then get I often always get my clients to help them try and do it while they're with me, because there's no point for me sending somebody away to do something if they really don't know what they're doing, I don't know how to do it, or the dog won't be part of it, because then I can actually adapt it to them to make the first little step. It's a bit like shaping in a way, we're sort of shaping the dog and owner together, so we might have an end result in mind, but we're gonna have a little first step which might not look like the end picture, and it might not look like the picture I can present to them, but anything is better than nothing, and that's sort of a really, I think, a key thing for me. Anything is better than nothing. We have an ideal, but then anything you do is always better than nothing. So yeah, it can look quite simple, but actually, when we I think it was really important is to talk about why we're doing it and what we're trying to achieve. No matter what we do in life or with our dogs, there's always sort of gimmick things out there. You know, we can be easily swayed by fancy-looking equipment, and especially if we see things online, it can look really great, but doesn't mean to say it's right to do. So just because we can do it doesn't mean to say we should do it, or it's going to give us the best outcomes, really, overall.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

So, which exercise could we consider as a real starting block or one of the exercises that is a real go-to?

The Balanced Stand And Stillness

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Like a lot of dogs will do this exercise. So, I think there's probably two key ones. One is a balanced stand, so basically having a stand from the dog that's evenly spaced in their leg position, that they're underneath them, that they're equal left and right, that they're putting enough weight through the right relevant limb, and then you can actually do little gentle weight shifts within the stand. That's probably my very first go-to because that doesn't matter whether it's a puppy or an older dog, you can work on that, and it the length of time that you spend doing that can also vary depending upon the dog, you know. So, an older dog you won't spend as long because they just won't be able to manage doing it for as long, but even for a short period of time, we're basically going to show the body what it should be doing. And a bit like dog training, the more we repeat what we want, the more likely we're gonna get that happen.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Now, that basic balanced stand sounds so easy. It does. Sounds so easy, and yeah, I would say Skittle is probably been what she's been working on for the last year to really refine, improve not only the basics of actually getting busy dog to stand, then on addition to that, there's a lot of fine-tuning and tweaking and actually working on where we want the four legs and how we want them balanced and what we need to remind her. And there's a lot there, Mel.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah. And definitely with sort of more sports dogs and puppies, I've definitely grow stillness into that as well. Stillness is really a key within the stand because any dog can stand briefly and then move off. But can they stand and hold it? Can they actually move into a balanced stand themselves? My favourite thing in the world is watching my dogs when they're out walking, if they might be off a lead and they stop and they choose to stand in a perfect balance. That just makes my day that gives me goosebumps because I think, yes, that's all been worth it. It's working.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, it's working. Now, a couple of tips as to how you would start your balance stand or how you would work with something excited in a balance stand because I think a lot of people will struggle with even how to start that.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

I certainly use a lot of I I mean, I don't know if sort of people are different terms for it, but I definitely have food in my hand or food on the floor or food on a raised platform where I've got forward focus on that, really.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

So we call that mouse game or choice game, yeah, but mouse game for us, where effectively the dog is looking at the the food and that creates the stillness. Yeah. So building from there.

The Square Sit And Transitions

SPEAKER_00 9:57

And I think that also then leads into so many other avenues as well. So not only is it good physically, but you can grow that within cooperative care or any form of handling or care. I use it a lot for showering because I work a lot on my own with my own dogs. So I'll use a raised step, I put a handful of food on there, my spaniel stands and stares at the food while I shower her, while I dry her off. I haven't got to have any discussion about how this ex this is going to go because she knows and she actually gets in the shower area and she goes and she stands in position and stands there before I even put the food on the step now because she's like, This is what we do. So I think it gives you a lot of other avenues, you know, when you've got that. I think then the next one for me after that is a sit and getting a nice balanced square sit.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

And again, a sit sounds so easy, but talk us through in detail without I mean we're on a podcast, we can't show people, which is tempting. But we were working with a little dog yesterday, and I actually said to you, I was can I supp I I suppose I was not disappointed, like I wanted it to be better, and yet I was really surprised by quite how not square that sit was, and quite how I suppose lapse. Yeah, there was a lot of like laxity in the hip area and a lot of laxity in the knee area and a lot of just general laxity.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

And in the core as well, so the core was struggling, and then I think from when you sort of then started to grow that sit, you then got to work on building a transition into a stand. So we want actually, and again, this is the ideal, it would be back feet stay still, dog walks forward into a stand, back feet don't move, and the dog powers up, we end up with a nice top line, so a nice straight top line, back legs engaged as well, not sagging down, sort of bum like going down towards the floor, so that using all the right muscles to do it. And quite often, before we go from that transition from the sit into the stand, there's a lovely little exercise that I do. They're in the sit, and we just get them to reach up for a little treat. So it just gets them to stretch up. We've done this with everyone, so we've done it with Brave in the beginning as well. It helps engage everything, gets that core activated as well before we even ask them to actually move into a stand. And I think that surprised you yesterday as well, with actually how difficult that dog found even that little exercise to do to just stretch up for a treat. Yeah, but it's also for me, anything we ask the dog to do, it needs to be achievable. If we set them up to do something that is beyond their ability, they're not gonna want to be part of that exercise, they're not gonna find it.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Same as us, if you're not getting success, you're kind of like, Why am I bothering? And and that's in all things, isn't it? You're like, I'm not getting any success. And it kind of depends on how gritty the dog or the human is, but at some point you'll give up because there's no success in it.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah, but with that little stretch, we don't want them to start to move into that stand. We just want them to lift almost like they're gonna micro leave their bum off the floor, but not take it off the floor. Um, and we want to encourage that nice straight top line as well within that, and that's for me a first step as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

So, one of the things you mentioned last night, which I thought was interesting because I know I'm the sort of person that wants it all, so I'm I'm quite quick to want it all. And like I said, we were looking at a friend's dog and working with friends' dog, and I think this can be anyone's dog really. One thing I wanted to do is make sure that everything was tucked in and know that was out and that was out, and that was out, and you said, Well, just sometimes you've got to go, I'll accept this and I'll forget that for a minute, and then we'll gradually build that. Yeah. What did you mean by that?

Prioritising Core Before Perfect Form

SPEAKER_00 13:12

So the dog was sitting with like one back leg slightly further forward, or she would tuck them like really close together underneath her instead of sort of more evenly balanced under her pelvis. But what she couldn't do is she couldn't engage her core while she was sitting. So for me, the first thing was let's get the core engaging first, let's not worry too much about what the back legs are doing. Yeah, yeah, they might not be even, but we can work on that later. But if we're if our core's weak, we then can't work on other things. So that's almost like the first thing, really. So I was like just getting her to sit within reason, not completely splayed with legs, but not worrying that they're completely level, not to the detail that we go with, like Skittles, for example, yeah, or your sporting dogs. Yeah, but we've got to start somewhere. If we went and asked that dog yesterday to have got all the legs in the right place and engaged the core, she would have gone, I'm out of here. I'm like, I can't do this, this is beyond my ability at the moment. So always pick the starting point. I think that is the art of physio. Like there's I think there's also an art in dog training. Massive.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

It's not just the science, it's absolutely not, and I think it's almost I I think the the science is there, but it if not applied correctly, I've met many vets who I wouldn't look after, let them look after a goldfish because I just think the the art isn't there or the the moment to capture this or that or read a situation. I think sometimes you have to like change something, don't you? And so that was right. Actually, you said she can't do it all, so I'm picking the core. Yeah. So that's what that's what we did. Yeah. And how did you pick the core and what did that look like?

SPEAKER_00 14:35

I think again that comes down to sort of skill, really. I think if you're looking at something, you know, working with a professional will help you because they'll be able to guide you. And again, I think that's the you know, like you said, I wanted everything.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Yeah, absolutely. I was like, I can't have that because the leg's out, I can't feed that because that's happening. But actually, I remember it's funny when I remember post-having Eliza. I was asked to do like a lie down and then sit up. And I was really shocked by how I wasn't physically aware of any of it, like I couldn't do it. And I remember feeling like a bit shocked. And then what he said to me was he said, see, if you put your hand here, there's a whole like gap. And you could put your fingers in like the gap in my tummy, and I was beyond shocked. I was so shocked because hadn't realized that, like, hadn't even looked for that information. He was a PT, he was obviously had worked with lots of people who had had a baby, and so was aware of that being quite typical of someone coming back into exercise. But I just that there was no awareness, and I would say that's almost not as extreme for the dogs, but that's almost where we were. There was no awareness of it. So it wasn't even like you come into that conscious incompetence. I was actually uh unconscious or something, that there was no awareness of of the incompetence or the inability really to do it, because it it wasn't even, it just isn't strong in that way, so there was no strength in that way. So a few of the things that I really noticed in that time for physio and and like I the I suppose the lack of there is no muscle in those spaces, the core wasn't together, and I suppose that's what we're working with as well. Actually, it's not pulled apart, but it's not there.

How Muscle Actually Grows

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah. And at the end of the day, I mean, uh the most amazing person who taught me, Barbara Holding, said if we have she she alike, and her analogy, her description of her dog is imagine a car. So for it's we can have the biggest engine power in the world, but if we've got no axle to drive that forward, it doesn't matter how big that engine power is. So we can have all the musculature in the back legs that we want, but if the core is weak, we're never going to get that drive forward. Yeah. So, and that power behind can vary from you know obviously a puppy to a sport dog to an elderly dog. But if the core is weak, so the core is always the first go-to, the first, always the first go-to. But then obviously you might need some professional sort of guidance as to know whether that where that stage is at, you know, to where to go. But certainly, I don't think you're gonna do a huge amount of issues if you just work on that little sit with that little stretch up and just look for getting that back nice and straight. I work with that with a lot of my dogs. Obviously, if you've got dogs that have got sort of lumbar sacral disease or any of those type of issues, then I go I would be making sure I've got professional sort of support with that because you don't want to overstack that lumbar spine because we've only got muscle that supports the lumbar spine in the dog, and the dog obviously is a quadruped, so gravity pulls that part of the spine down. So very different to us as human beings who we're stood upright and we've stacked, so our lumbar spine is on top of our pelvis. We can get away with probably a bit more in a day-to-day life, but obviously the stronger our core is, the better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

So one thing again that you said to me that I was, I suppose, not horrified, but a little bit disappointed with was how long it takes to grow muscle. Because I know you felt one of my dogs and you said, muscle's a bit down at the moment, I want to improve it. This was about, I don't know, a few months ago, and then you felt them again. You were like, actually, this is a lot better. But I was disappointed in how long it takes. Just talk us through that process.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

It's frustrating, isn't it? But we can't do anything about it. It's physiology, unfortunately. Yeah, you're looking, you'll see some small muscle changes up to three weeks after you start an exercise program. But six weeks you'll see the real changes. So it takes a good six weeks before you see real changes. But I think the other important part of that is we need to have the right amount of nutrition going in in order to grow muscle. Because if we don't, if we're sticking to the same like calorie input, but we want to increase muscle, we're never going to have that happen. In no matter sort of what we keep doing exercise-wise, we won't grow that that musculature. It's not there. No, because there's no building block to build it. That's it, there's no building block to build it.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

So it's a perfect way to describe it. So and six weeks, the right work, the right sort of physical work and the right um nutritional input.

Peaking Plans For Sport Dogs

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, definitely. And you know, with my sort of my sporting dogs, and I mean it's sort of physiologically known, you're looking at a 10 to 12 week program to build for peak as well. So I'm always looking for major events, like we've had Olympia recently, got Crufts coming up, which has really been tough because to build for Olympia and then to build for Crufts but also put a rest break in between. It's not enough. The timing is so tight and actually tighter than ideal, but then we, you know, I split it as evenly as possible.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

And how does that look? So you'll build up now to an event like Crufs from a point of view of the dog, because you're back into it already. We've had a bit of a break, but you are back into now the build-up. What does that process look like for you and um for Phoenix?

Tapering And Event Week Strategy

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yeah, so we like between Olympia and I managed to get her 12 days with no agility, so everything else continues as normal. So I'll just be maintaining her sort of land-based exercises, physio-wise. She'll be doing walks, she'll be doing all those things, but anything that really sort of is pushing her physically is it all eased off. So it's just like a maintenance, and then when we come back into it, it's just then growing everything that she's been doing to a point up to about a week before. So I'll be gradually coming back into agility training. So, like we've just started the last few days, so I've just gone down some down, gentle, some down planks, some one jump stuff, dropping the height, dropping the height. Yeah, she's on 20 centimetres, so everything's straight, no turns, no. Build up a course, nope, not trying to do anything like that. It's tread. I I have an underwater treadmill, so for me, it's that backing that once a week to try and like push her physically to a point where she's really a strong because also I'm just trying to minimise the chance of her injuring herself as well as being physically as gifted as she is to do what she wants to do, and we can perform the best that we can. And do you change anything nutritionally, or do you add anything or take anything away at any point? So, yeah, nutrition like goes up a gear as well, and it gradually builds up with her exercise plan as well. So, the more she's doing, the more nutrition she gets. So, like today, she's had breakfast as well, she's had some egg in that as well. Yeah. Um, so which she loves. She's great.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Oh, she loves it when she's bargained. Extra food. Extra food. So it all works in that same space. And then when you build up to the event, how does the last maybe week before the event look?

SPEAKER_00 21:06

So the last week, it just all tailors back down again. So certainly treadmill for B will be no later than a week before, but ideally sort of 10 to 12 days before. I won't do any training within the last sort of five, six days. My last training session will be again, probably a downplay. It won't be full courses, it might be just I might do a couple of dog walks, I might just do a bit of familiarisation almost.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Yeah, and it won't be here's how spread it looks, here's how a one jump looks, here's how tire might look.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

It's not completing any secret this or big event sort of coursework. Yeah, and but everything else will stay in place, sort of so it'll be a ticking back over down into a land-based physio exercises just to sort of maintain what we've got. So I'm not pushing in that last week to ten days, it's all tapered down so that when she comes out, she's ready to ready to rock.

Weekly Routines, Rest, And Reality

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Ready to rock, ready to roll, cannot wait. So, in terms of every owner, these are things we can achieve. But what does the time look like? And how many days a week, and how many when we go back to those basics, the stand, the sits, the stretch-ups, those types of exercises, what could we say is going to make a difference in a week? Like, how many times do we really need to do? Like, I get it, people are limited. You probably know more than most, having a busy home life as well as the the work world, as well as competing. It's it's a lot to fit in. What does that look like across a week for somebody?

Making It Fit Your Day

SPEAKER_00 22:28

So for it depends on what we're trying to do. So if we're trying to improve our physical uh state, yes, then we're really looking at probably five to six times a week at least with a little day off. And rest is another. Big important factor rest is very carefully planned into my week for my dog as well. Because again, in order for muscle to grow, it has to be rested. Yeah, good sleep as well is really important. But if we're looking at maintaining, so for her, like when I come to that last 10 days, I will probably be just looking at three to four days in the week where we're doing those sort of maintenance exercises. So if you're looking at maintaining three to four days a week, but if you're looking to grow and improve five to six days a week, really. But it doesn't have to be a long time, and I think that's something as well to really sort of stress is people go, you know, don't want to think that I've got to spend hours doing these things. I mean, it's like we talked about last night, 15 minutes. Yeah, you know, and if you haven't got 15 minutes, pick the first, you know, and I try to with my clients give them three to start with, three exercises.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Because I again I want it achievable for the owner as well. Because if I give them 10, yeah, I'm never going to get one done. Yeah. And I don't want that to happen. So I'd rather give three and say, right, this is the order. So if you're short on time, I just want you to do exercise one, yeah, six times a week, and it'll take you no more than five minutes. Yeah. And that could be, again, like we talked about last night, you know, if you've got young children, they're in the bath while you're sitting there, supervising bath time, bring a mat into the bathroom, do your sit to stands or do your sits and your little stretches. Where does it fit? Where can it fit? Yes, possible. Find a way to, you know, it might be the kettle's boiling while you're waiting for the kettle to boil, then just do a few there. I, you know, I I know how hard it is to try and like say my life's busy, how hard it is to try and fit things in on a day-to-day basis. But I think there's there are opportunities there, and it's also really good, I think, if you've got feedback, whether that be from another family member, whether that be from a professional, from a trainer, from someone else you're working for. Videoing it, put a mirror in the place. Yeah. And also if they don't see the dog for two weeks and then they come back and see it and they go, My God, look at the difference. It's really making a difference. I think that also helps as well. Because when we're in it day to day, it's hard to see those changes.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Yeah, massive. No, amazing, Mel. I think really fantastic for people to listen to, really fantastic for people to take from, and I really I know there's a lot more we can do. Now, I know in the future I want to talk exercise generally, but I think that's for another day. Thank you. This is amazing, and I hope everybody has taken a lot from it. Good, I hope so too.