Do you need separate exercises for doing body awareness work with your dog? Or can you build balance, precision and good coordination into everything you do, just by tweaking the way you train? Find out in this episode of The Moving Canine.Be

#23 How training WITH your dog may be stopping you from progressing

Apr 2nd, 2021 6m 39s

Most dog sport enthusiasts believe that dog training happens only with the dog. That we, the trainers, cannot improve our skills without having our dogs in the training session. But believing that dog training is a skill only learnt with the do

#22 Essential training elements that help you get out of the lots-of-repetitions mode

Mar 19th, 2021 7m 39s

I bet every single one of us has, at some stage of the dog training journey, heard the saying that “You should be ready to do lots and lots of repetitions to nail this exercise”. I recall having heard this several times, especially linked to pr

#21 Being smart about balance training

Mar 5th, 2021 7m 26s

Last 2 weekends I had a chance to participate in a Science Camp with Alexandra Kurland. While there were many interesting and eye-opening topics, I most enjoyed the small pieces of information on balance. It looks like we've both discovered t

#20 How to make training sessions more efficient?

Feb 19th, 2021 7m 4s

Being aware of the training concepts is crucial for everything we do with our animal learners. And, in fact, knowing how to use different concepts deliberately can help us not only improve the training experience in general, but also help to de

#19 Have you accidentally taught your dog that balance is... bad?

Feb 12th, 2021 8m 58s

Over the years I've seen very many dogs who look extremely uncomfortable while doing even the most basic exercises. And it wasn't because they had health problems. It was because they had learnt that them looking for balance was bad and not des

#17 The secret to getting speed AND precision

Feb 6th, 2021 16m 16s

In this episode you will learn:- how is your dog's mindset linked to his movement, speed and precision during sports- how to get your dog to perform with confidence and focus on the obstacles- how do your training choices affect your dog's

#18 Smarter training for a longer sports career

Feb 6th, 2021 14m 52s

Want your dog to have a long and healthy sports career?You need to do some fitness training for that, right? Not only! There are other elements to your training that actually affect your dog's ability to navigate between those nasty potential

#16 Replacing frustration with focus and engagement

Jan 29th, 2021 14m 20s

Ready to get perfect, frustration free training sessions with your dog? Want focus, speed and precision in dog sports while also prolonging your dog's career?In this episode I'll be sharing the first part of my free 3-part video workshop "Per

#15 Reducing the risk of injuries through smarter training

Jan 22nd, 2021 6m 56s

One of the key goals of any fitness trainer is to help reduce the risk of injuries in our canine companions. I don’t know a more torturing feeling for me as a pet parent than making my dog hurt through activities and sports that I’ve chosen for

#14 Don't miss out on these bonuses coordination training has!

Jan 15th, 2021 10m

Your dog needs coordination skills in every activity he's engaged in. Yet it's one of the most overlooked areas of dog sports training. We often see the word "coordination" in a fitness program or puppy school program. But the reality is often

#13 Balance. Surprisingly way less static than you thought!

Jan 8th, 2021 8m 57s

Balance really is a very complex topic, encompassing so many different elements and areas of physical training. In dog physical skill/fitness training we often see the term "balance" being used mostly in the context of working on unstable surfa

#12 A must-listen podcast episode for all dog trainers

Dec 25th, 2020 4m 11s

While I do think that information I'm sharing is quite essential for growing as a dog trainer, this episode is actually about another podcast. It talks about balance in animal training and relates to philosophies of my own training and The Movi

#11 Linking physical skills to poisoned cues

Dec 18th, 2020 11m 15s

Imagine giving your dog a cue during training, a cue that should indicate a well known behavior to your dog. Instead of happily following that cue with lightning speed and wagging tail, your dog delays responding to the cue. He may turn his hea

#10 The secret to better body awareness

Dec 11th, 2020 8m 3s

In order to move well, the nervous system needs to have very high quality information about the body. Knowing where different body parts are and how they move depends on body maps - areas of the brain representing different body parts. In ord

#9 Why does your dog need slow movement exercises

Dec 4th, 2020 8m 52s

Have you ever wondered why fitness trainers encourage slow over fast movements during exercises?One of the reason is described with the Weber-Fechner law: the brain's ability to register subtle differences in the muscle engagement decreases w

#8 3 ways handler mechanics helps to boost your training

Nov 27th, 2020 11m

If you’d like your dog to become better and faster learner who is motivated and engaged during training sessions, then improving handler mechanics is one of the key things to work on. You don’t have to spend more time training your dog in order

#7 The #1 tip for keeping your dog in The Flow

Nov 20th, 2020 16m 59s

There are many, many different factors affecting the arousal level. There are factors beyond our control. But the most important one is something we can actually change…That is being clear in our training where and how the reinforcement will

#6 Linking mindset and arousal to movement skills

Nov 13th, 2020 11m 11s

When we look at the arousal states from coordination and movement point of view, which arousal state looks like the good place to be? It’s actually written in the descriptions of the arousal states, where The Flow is linked to controlled and de

#5 The story of Movement Puzzles. Spoiler alert: poisoned cues!

Nov 6th, 2020 11m 35s

The story of why I started working on movement exercises with my dog Mr Bo. The story includes some poisoned cues created by the lack of physical skills. It also talks about how being in control of the movement can be reinforcing to our learner

#4 What is coordination and where does it fit in the training plan?

Oct 30th, 2020 8m 54s

In the future episodes we'll talk a lot about coordination. And movement skills (that happen to be pretty much same thing!). How does coordination training differ from common canine fitness programs? Why do our dogs need separate coordination t

#3 Is variation in the movement a bad thing?

Oct 26th, 2020 9m 36s

It may happen that when teaching new behaviors to our dogs, we would like all the repetitions to become as similar as possible. Especially when training something for competitive sports.Let's look at this from the movement perspective. What d

#2 Fitness training as a way of... splitting?

Oct 24th, 2020 7m 36s

In this episode we are going to discuss if fitness training is only for the sports dogs. Or if maybe it's crucial in every training program as without it... we would be lumping?!

#1 Introduction

Oct 24th, 2020 4m 17s

Welcome to The Moving Canine podcast! It all starts here, the journey of exploring movement and coordination. And discovering how arousal state or handler mechanics affects our dog's fitness skills.I am Mari Valgma, CPCFT. I have been teachin

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