when dog training is a pain in the neck

Don't worry - I love dog training!

But, about 10 days ago I had a sudden attack of vertigo which laid me up for about 36 hours. The following days I was improving quickly, and so long as I didn't whip my head around too fast or slouch down to pet the dogs, I was fine.

I went to the physiotherapist as soon as I could get an appointment. This is a specially trained physio who deals with vestibular disorders in addition to the regular stuff. He did a full check & by then all vestibular issues were done but I learned a lot from him about bppv and I now know that if it recurs, I'm to speed-dial his office and get in there as they can often fix it in one visit.

The other reason that I went was that I'd also been having some tingling in my baby & ring finger on the right side & I suspected a nerve impingement in my neck. Ding ding ding! Correct diagnosis, he confirmed.

And then there followed a long polite but firm lecture which in a nutshell consisted of "STOP DRAGGING YOUR KNUCKLES ON THE GROUND WOMAN!"

I get a giggle from this image:

Dude on the far left is 'slouching'. THAT? That's not slouching. That's me when I stand up straight.

My kind of slouching is more like this:

Especially when I'm training the dogs. I'm always looking down at them, I'm reaching down to pet or to play tug (yes! Darwin is tugging! It's so exciting!).

I'm also doing some work on Daisy's rear end awareness as well as playing box games with Darwin, so I'm crouching over, trying to see legs clearly. I mostly do this

Small wonder I end up with weird pains in my neck.

I've been assigned a bunch of stretching homework and given strict instructions to work on my posture.

And that reminded me of Sophia Yin & her funny little knee bend method she does when delivering treats.



Look from about 49s on & you'll see her and her students doing a little dip with the knees, keeping the upper body straight.

I'm trying this method for training while standing & for moving exercises. One thing that occurs to me is that it is a more calm posture for dogs which feel threatened by people looming or reaching over them.

I'm still working out good positions for on the ground training when I need to see small movement of paws. The other big problem is good positions for grooming. I can't get the dogs on a table so I tend to squat or sit on the ground but that too kinks my neck in many uncomfortable ways. One idea I had was using the portion of the deck which leads to the dog run. There are only a few stairs down in that part of the yard & I think that if I stand on the ground (or on some crates) and have the dogs on the deck, I might be able to work out the heights so that they're essentially at my chest level for grooming.

Dd offered that she could TAG teach me & click me for good posture throughout the day but the moment the dogs hear a click they come tearing from all over the house so she might need to use a verbal marker :-)

Coming up later in the week: I'll talk more about recall training, motivating your dog, and what's special about pointers & setters.