Hill Reps
The amount of exercise our dogs has increased every year we’ve had them, so far. I think we’ve finally found the human saturation point, because there aren’t enough hours in the day, but it’s definitely not the dog saturation point. Dylan still throws his toys about like a lunatic at 9pm.
During the week …
AM: 1x30minute walk, almost entirely free running. They have their leads on to cross the road there and back, and that’s it.
AM/PM: 1×30 minute walk, again almost entirely free running, OR 15mins agility or flyball training (not always over equipment).
PM: 1×45-60minute walk, free running again.
On weekends, they’re at flyball training from 9am ’til 12pm Saturday, although they’re only actually running for 2×15-20min sessions, and that depends on exactly what we’re working on. On Sunday they either get a 60-90 minute walk in the afternoon which replaces the 30minute walk in the normal routine, or Kim and Dylan go agility training for an hour or so. Mollie gets a day of rest, but she’s an older lady!
Tuesdays and Wednesdays during the summer they skip the evening walk, as it’s agility (Tues) and flyball (Wed) training. Mollie doesn’t do agility, but she more than makes up for it at flyball the day after! Evening walk is usually a bit shorter on Fridays, probably about 30mins, especially if we’re competing the next day.
In addition to all that, all three now do a handful of hill reps. This is, apparently, the most fun in the world. Not quite as much fun as flyball, which is the most fun ever imagined anywhere in the universe, but pretty good. Hill reps, for those of you who don’t do athletics (or have family members that do!), is a fairly simple concept. You work on the uphill for 30 seconds, jog back down, power up hill for 30 seconds, jog back down, and so on. Builds up stamina, strength and speed. You increase the number of repetitions depending on your fitness.
We started doing this earlier this week for two reasons. A) Give Mollie an extra workout, and B) encourage Dylan’s chase/race instincts. Me at the bottom of the hill, mother at the top with the precious toy. I hold all three dogs (which isn’t as difficult as it sounds!) and then release them, individually or in pairs, about 0.5-1 second apart. Dylan goes second or last, never first at the moment.
Our hill is about 75m from bottom to top, it’s reasonably steep but not ridiculous. It’s about 10 mins into our walk so the dogs have warmed up properly, and we currently do 3-4 reps, and then carry on. Hill reps are only part of the evening walk, but now the favourite part. As soon as we get to the hill the dogs all shoot off to the bottom and wait for everyone to get into position. Clever dogs!
This is a pretty boring post, but I’ll let you know if the hill reps seem to have made a difference when we get to Middlesbrough in May, and hopefully get back under 20seconds.