A-frame Woes

 Hi Diane,
I am not sure what joints are directly involved with the A-frame, but I know a lot of my agility friends periodically get their dogs adjusted by a doggie chiropractor.  They swear by this one particular vet in our area.  I personally have never used her, but I have had acupuncture on my previous dog and he seemed better after treatment (he also had neurological problems as well, but that's a different story..).  Dasher is pretty new to agility but I may be inclined to use a chiropractor as he gets older.  We actually have a animal communicator in our agility class and she just happen to tell another student last night that her dog was a bit sore on her right hip and shoulder and she may lay off the contacts for one night and think about getting an adjustment.  I'm still on the fence about the communicator, but I will say she has been right on in the past...One night one of the dogs wasn't acting quite right, owner didn't know what was up with the dog.  This animal communicator was in her class and said the dog had a jammed toe...well the owner massaged the toe and wa-la! dog was back to normal!![] Who knows...she doesn't charge for these insights by the way, so she isn't doing it for profit. 

Sorry to digress, but you may think about massage, or chiropractor for your dog, especially if you have been practicing for a while or maybe training something new, she may just have general soreness.  Good Luck!

The stress on their bodies on the a-frame is on their front end usually - especially if you're asking them to stop at the end.  Also their spine.
 
The ideal thing to do is to teach them to rock back onto their hind ends as they come down.
 
Also, check her toe nails.  Dogs can jam them coming down, especially if they're not kept short.
 
Hope she checks out ok!

Thanks for your input![]

Last night's class was pretty intense.  We only had a few of us there and had time to work on new things.   I definately am going to ask around re.  a chiropractor.  I have to confess that I accidently stepped on her toe between a jump and the shute (she didn't limp and seemed happy- I thought that she was OK).

The fact that most of the pressure goes on the front end, does have me a bit worried because that is where the HOD manifested itself (she's a just bit bandylegged as a result).  I keep her nails pretty short. 

I'll see more when we see her doctor.    Meanwhile, I think we will pay attention to keeping her front end happy. [8|] 

Has this always been a problem or is this something new? 
 
 
Do you subscribe to Clean run?  There was an article a few months ago about training the dog to shift his weight to his hind quarters on the a-frame.  I believe this was done, at least in part, by luring and clicker training.  This may help.  (I just sort of skimmed the article.)  (which I see is what agilebc suggested - something about great minds I guess [])
 
Also you can do some exercises to strengthen the hind quarter muscles.  Some of them were playing tug and standing on his hind legs.
 
Either way, I think I'd lower the Aframe and retrain.  Let the dog build confidence and make sure nothing hurts.  (I know, easier said than done in a class setting.)

It may be something as simple as lack of strength. Do you some hills around you could sprint the dog up and down a few times every other day?
 
asking for any kind of abrupt stop-at-the-bottom seems to be very difficult for many dogs. You may want to try teaching a running contact using hoops to prevent bailing off instead of a stop.

assuming you get a clean bill of health, consider training a "sit" or "down" on the contact, rather than the classic "two on two off" method. The "sit" will force a weight shift to the rear end.

Last night in class, Trudy was much better.  She handled the A-frame with more enthusiasm and made it clear to me that she thought that she had a handle on the teeter.  []

Now all we have to do is get the handler "me" in shape.  Arrgghh [:@] - I couldn't remember the course and was concentrating too hard on where to go instead of using stradegies. 

We'll get it together eventually.[]