conditioning??

just got a few questions with conditioning.

when having a dog pull objects like tires or heavy chains in the park can i use a normal harness or doi need to buy the special pulling ones?

why do people say use a 4ft+, 10ft+ lead when walking a dog?

thanks

 

Depends on how heavy the oblects are he is pulling. If it's pulling more then 20 pounds I would use a pulling harness. I just use a walking harness if I am having them pull some heavy chains or something. The length of the lead will decide how much slack or running room you want to give your dog. I usually use a 6 foot lead to walk my dog. I live in the city so I want to be sure I can control my animal for unexpected encounters with loose dogs and cats.

 

I use a pulling harness for up to 10 pound weights that I have her drag, which I need to begin again but I to live in the city but I go out to my neighborhood park which has a big open field and the lead that I use is about a 5ft lead for the resistance work.

 

if u want to pull get a pulling harness, better safe than sorry
and a dog prob gets more exercise on a long leash but less resistant training bc they pull less, and if you are walkin in a city where their are people and animals then u need short one to control your dog.

 

What I dont understand is why people think these dogs can LIVE on 40 pound chains, but they need to be babied when it's time to pull an even lighter chain???

I let my dogs drag chains from a 2" collar. Up to 1/2 of thier own weight.

I've never had an injury, and my dogs necks always "look" extremely powerfull.
They have to HOLD thier head up as they pull, working the neck muscles. They'll develop that "brahma bull" muscle mass between the shoulder blades.

anything over 1/2 of their weight I used a pull harness.

My fav is to FLIRT POLE with up to 1/2 thier body weight hanging from the collar.

The other thing, if your doing it in public, it LOOKS so much more PROFESSIONAL to have the dog in apull harness. And it gives a chance to expose people to the legal activities these dogs engage in.

Minute

 

Any chance of seeing pics of your dogs just to see the muscles on the neck minute? Would like to see the results from doing what you say. I have a collar with weights put inside but its no where near half of the dogs body weight.

 

you will get better result with a spring pole. horizontal & vertical will strengthn your dogs frontend real nice. working your dog in a park is going to get ya looked at by the crazy's.

 

Ben:
I use the spring pole also.

Your missing the DIRECTION of the resitance. A spring pole NEVER pulls the dogs neck DOWN.

If your going into a "head" hog, your dogs going to need to support that hogs weight the ENTIRE go. and it's in EXACTLY the same manner of resistance as dragging chains from the collar would provide.

Gog123:
IDK, if I have any pics on the 'puter. most of my pic's are "old school" actual prints on paper.

I do have some decent ones though, I'll see if I can locate and "scan" them or whetever.

http://www.apbt.online-pedigrees.com/modules.php?name=Public&file=printPedigree&dog_id=92450

That's the best example that I have floating around on line, but I can try to locate some more. Not the "best" pic as the 2" collar covers most of the 32#'ers neck, but if you follow the upper rib line, you'll see the "mass" of muscle but it gets hidden a good bit by the collar. I'll dig up some more. If I don't post 'em in a few days, kick me!

 

My freaking work computer blocks like every site, so lets see if this pic comes up.

This guy isn't even "Conditioned", but you can see the muscle... I'll still look for more.

 

If he is just pulling chains you can probably let him work them off the collar like was said above. If you are attaching substantial weight to those chains, I would look into getting a harness. The reason for the harness is it distributes the weight the dog is pulling evenly across his chest area rather than having it all pull directly on the dog's neck.

Different leash lengths depend on what your purpose for the walk is. If you are walking in a crowded area where other dogs could show up and your dog only wants to tear apart all other dogs - obviously you would use a short leash for control and to protect both your dog and others dogs. If you are out walking the dog and you want him to be free to expend energy while you are being a bit more "mellow" you would use a longer leash and allow him to zig zag back and forth, to run and hit the end of his leash, etc. Using different leads simply depends on how close you want to keep your dog to you.

As Ben said above, if you are really trying to condition the dog, you will want to do more than handwalking - you would want to add in swimming, flirt pole, spring pole, mill work, jenny work, etc.

 

Beautiful dog MinuteMan - he wants that puzzle ball bad!

 

How long,or how far are you making them pull half there body weight from a 2inch collar?

 

thanks for posting minute some lovely dogs. Collar ive got is a fair weight not sure exactly how much but not even a 1/4 of the dogs weight. I thought having it on when say free running so when its off the dog feels lighter and better...like if you go jogging with bricks in a bag on your bag then run without it?

 

i am with ben. i dont like the drag weights. you can hurt your dog if they snag something on the ground. i like a weight hanging to the side (10 feet ) the the springpole and attach the dogs collar to this counter weight with a leash so they have to pull this pendulum weight the same time they are working the spring pole... make sure they can keep their back feet on the ground.... you also can use bunji cords to make the dog pull towards the springpole....

good luck


Home (americantimesproject)

 

dont work a dog on a springpole more then 2 fifteen minute sessions aday

rest 2 days in a row following 5 days

 

I'm not using a weighted COLLAR. I'm attaching chains TO the collar.

So the red dog there was about a 50 # dog, I'd do long distance walks with him dragging a 25# chain from his colar. Think about a chain set up, and just dont hook it to the AXEL.

I'd also do FLIRT POLE work with the chain on, as this way the dog is working with incremental weights. When he starts moving, or when you have him moving around in short bursts, he's only pulling a portion of the 25# chain. Then you can swing the flirt around in large circles and he's pulling all 25#.


I NEVER based any exercise on time. I work the dog based on what I see. I don't like "cook book" style generic keeps based on time, I.E. 25 minutes of Mill work, 25 minutes of Pull. That's for retards who cant read a dog.

I work my dog untill, I SEE he's completely worked. and if we went too far today, I'll see it tomorrow as he wont be as sharp. I also always rested my dogs more then anyone else, 5 days of work a week was always enough.

If you can't tell when a dog is "done" working, get your OWN butt in the gym and learn your own fatigue limits... It'll give you a better idea of what "DONE" is.

Thanks for the compliments on the dogs too. Unfortunetly I was never into taking pic's, so I don't have tons to post.

 

Also,

I POSITIVELY use a pull harness to work my dogs! I do HEAVY pulls with the harness. I mix up the types of pulls through out conditioning.

I.E.
One day I may have the 50 # dog pull 75#'s of chain from the HARNESS, and we'll do short BURST pulls, maybe 20 feet, as fast as he can go. I usually would take a ball and just toss it, dog books to it, and I walk over and repeat. My walk to the dog is his rest time. This is mimmics the driving dog BURSTING into his opponent.

Another day, maybe a long distance light pull from the collar.

Another day flirt pole work with chains on the collar.

Long distance medium weight pulls fromt he harness.

Etc... My idea is to attack the muscles from different "angles" just like human training. You cant just do bench presses to develop overall strength, a dog cant just do ONE type of pull to develop dynamic strength overall.

BUT there are MANY "good" ways to condition a dog, that's just what I do!

 

i like your method of thinking if you are paying attention to your dog and can see you don't need a specific amount of time to get what you are looking for,but keeping time can help you gauge the next time he is in keep.jmo

 

Oh, I keep mental track of times. I just don't base HOW MUCH I work the dog on them. I work the dog to his limit THAT DAY and look for continued improvement.

And THANKS! I appreciate it.

 

I had gotten into an arguement about this the other day. To truely KNOW is the key and if you TRUELY know how much work is to much for today then you don't need to write it down, nor keep a written in stone schedule.
I play everything by ear. Some dogs can work extremely hard for short intervals, others drag ass but can work all night. My end result is to try to get the extreme worker to be able to work longer intervals and the ass-dragger to work extremely more often.
:dogtongue: