Freestyle with a BIG dog!
What size does a good canine disc athlete have to be to do freestyle? Well, the answer is pretty obvious, right? The dog would need to be athletic and a good range would be 35-50 lbs and a good height range for dogs in the sport is around 20 inches at the shoulders, give or take a few inches. That is the size range for most dog breeds that excel at the sport- Border Collies, Aussie's, Australian Cattle dogs amongst others. They have a low center of gravity, good muscle tone and are bred to have high levels of endurance. Barring a few exceptions (notably Ashley Whippet!) the best canine disc freestyle teams have dogs of these breeds or mixes with these breeds in them. Well, what then, do you do if your 80 lbs doberman really seems to love the disc and toss and fetch is getting a little repetitive for you?
This is exactly the situation that Aryan and I were in last year. Aryan is a big dog. He weighs a solid 90 lbs- all muscle. He is 29 inches at his shoulders,
approximating
the size of a smallish Great
Dane. We never knew what Aryan was a mix of.
All we knew was that he loved to play disc and was pretty darn good at chasing
them down and bringing them back! In 2005, when we first competed, I was not
too crazy about Freestyle. Toss and Fetch was good enough for team Aryan right
then. However, practicing with Angelo and Stanley, the following winter, we
started to enjoy watching them play with multiple discs and do some really
cool routines. The biggest reason holding me back was the fear that a big
dog like Aryan could hurt himself seriously doing a vault or a high 'over
the body' take. So, I toyed around with very safe freestyle moves, where Aryan
did not have to take the aerial route too much. I never considered us to be
a serious freestyle team ever. As spring approached, we were truly hookedon to the sport! Our routine lacked the razzle-dazzle of a small fast dog, but we had a routine nonetheless! Given that canine freestyle is a team sport, I worked on starting to strengthen the human element side of things. I taught myself several releases and learnt to time my tosses so that Aryan would make most of his catches. We also started running regularly to increase Aryan's stamina. The side effect of the running was that it increased Aryan's drive significantly. He had become faster at getting to the disc and was faster on the retrieve. He also started getting airborne on regular toss and fetch practice. Well, the 'airborne' part is important as that allowed me to introduce a couple of elements in our freestyle routine. We have in the past 6-8 months, developed a decent routine, all biased towards the big guy being able to pull off his tricks.
I am not a veterinarian and my suggestions for a big dog freestyle routine should be weighed by individual handlers for themselves before jumping right in! Before starting your big puppy out on freestyle, keep in mind the following suggestions:
1. That your dog is in decent shape and has reasonable muscle tone for their size.
2. You start with simpler elements such as multiple discs released in a circular pattern or zig-zags.
3. You try over the body catches or takes,but keep the jumps to a level that your dog is comfortable with.
4. If your dog needs to lose a few lbs, better to work on that first before getting into a high impact freestyle routine.
5. Given that freestyle can be high impactfor a big dog, limit the practice sessions to 2 or three per week. We find that this is most productive for team Aryan and gives him plenty of recovery time.
6. Cross training is a good way to minimize injury. I usually cross train Aryan running with him or having him swim in the summers. Weight pulls, walks and hikes serve to strengthen different muscle groups that are not involved in canine disc. All of them will help prevent injuries during disc training.
7. Minimize vaults or eliminate them completely. Vaults are a spectacular stunt. However, with a bigger dog, the dog will probably hit upwards of 8-9 feet with even a simple leg vault. The landing might not be as much fun...... I have constantly debated the use of vaults in our freestyle and have arrived to the conclusion that we do not need them to have a strong routine. Some of the best freestyle teams in the business (Jeff Stanaway and Cory for example) do not have a single vault.
8. Flips appear great, especially when a big dog does them. However, keep in mind that this involves a two paw landing with a greater impact on one of the front paws. Proceed with caution and limit the number of flips during practice runs.
Have Fun and play safe!
~Krishnan