Competition calendars and class schedules were suddenly emptied out completely. Everyone is spending more time at home than ever. The ILOMME-team wants to encourage you and your dog to work on fitness, now that there’s plenty of time to develop and strengthen your dog’s physical skills.

On this course you get 5 exercise videos to support your workouts at home, doable even in your very own living room! These workouts are the base skills of many of the dog sports we do. The first exercise is completely free for you to study! You’ll find it at the top of this page, where the intro video usually resides.

This train at home course is done on collaboration with Laura Sutinen from Toimivat tassut.

Welcome aboard!

WORKOUT ONE: TIGHT SIT

For a good, tight sit, the dog needs good core support, good mobility, body control and balance. The tighter the dog sits and the smaller the surface it sits on, the more it needs to use balance and to activate small position-maintaining muscles, i.e. core stability muscles. A tight sit strengthens the dog’s core similarly to a high plank familiar from human fitness class.

In a small tight sit all the power and kinetic energy is channeled directly towards the dog’s direction of motion. For example in jumping, all the dog’s kinetic energy and power is aimed straight at the jump. If the center of gravity isn’t where it should be, during the take off phase of the jump limbs are uncoordinated and inefficient. From a tight, collected position the kinetic energy is channeled forwards. This brings a significant advantage for example in sports that require speed and power.

Workout benefits in different dog sports: 

• Obedience and SAR-dogs: Straightness, if the dog tends to anticipate and tilt towards the trainer
• Agility dogs: For many dogs, a tight sit is the first transfer of weight before the run and a prerequisite for a successful jump technique grid

Sitting is the first pose of jump technique. In the workout, the dog learns to transfer the majority of it’s weight on the hind legs. A sit is a good first exercise to transferring weight from the forequarters to the hind legs. The tighter and more collected the dog sits, the lighter it’s fore and the more of the dog’s entire weight resting on the hind. Contrarily, the further away the front legs are left when the dog sits, the more it’s hanging and leaning on it’s fore.

We can noticeably boost take-off power by engaging the dog’s hindquarters.

A collected sit is a basic position that should be tight, symmetrical and balanced.