luring for condition

Hi again! In my last post I mentioned that Mom and some of her friends are using some lured positions to work on strength and conditioning exercises for their dogs. Mom doesn't do it with me yet, because my positions aren't perfect (or so she says -- I actually think I do it all just fine!). She says that since my 'baby dog' limbs don't necessarily do what they're supposed to do all the time, she'll wait until I'm more mature before she does these with me. Hmpf!

But in the meantime, Auntie Christine and my very good friend Tessie (she's a blond but I love her anyway -- well, that goes both for Tessie AND Auntie Christine!) agreed to show you how it's done:

For the first exercise, Auntie Christine has Tessie sit back (her front legs move, but her back legs don't) and stand forward (again, her front legs move, not her back legs):

When she does this a bunch of times in a row, it works out those muscles in her pelvic area and her back.

After some of those, she switches to sitting forward (tucking her butt in on her sit, so her front feet stay still but her back feet move) and standing back (kicking her back feet out behind her, so again, her front feet stay still). This works on a whole bunch of different muscles in her pelvis and back and buttocks:

Then she has her do some hip rolls: she starts out lying like a sphinx, then rolls over on one hip, back up straight again, and then over on the other. Again, working yet another set of muscles in the pelvis and back!

Phew, looks like quite the workout. I'll leave them to that, and next time I'll show you how a young whipper-snapper like me takes on strength and conditioning! I'll give you a hint, it has a lot less to do with standing still and a whole lot more to do with moving my entire body throughout the woods!

See ya!