Speaking Dog

Saturday 4^th March 2017, summary of parts of Prof. Martin Fischer's Lecture “Dogs In Motion”

written by Bono f. Beeler © 2017

As his presentation included a lot of slides from studies yet to be released we were unable to make pictures or film.

“Dogs In Motion”

Professor Fischer and his team study different aspects of dogs in motion not just their locomotion. Understanding the dogs functional anatomy, their joints and most recently of fascia leads to us being able to provide better health for the dog and hopefully leading to more natural breed standards in relation to evolution rather than our human view of how a dog breed should look.

It is interesting to look at the dogs locomotion in relation to energy consumption. Many of us take note of the size of a dog breed to decide on its exercise and dietary needs rather than the actual energy input and output.

But what do dogs spend most of their energy on?

As dogs owners, talking about our own dogs, most of us would assert that our dogs spend most energy on physical exercise, thus the routine walks, dog park visits, ball retrieve games etc.

However, it turns out – what some of us have suspected already – that dogs are very economical in using their energy. Heat exchange but especially heat loss will use much more energy than a leash walk or free running and a dog using their brain through sniffing and taking in and enriched environment from the dogs prospective, having to problem solve etc will use much more energy output than when the dog walks for an hour.

This gives partial insight why we can go out for a long physical orientated walk with less brain stimulation with the dog and come home to him being much less tired than us; and “Fido” may even be ready for another outing just a couple of hours later.

But the type of exercise is just part of the explanation of why healthy dogs are energy efficient.

Their study in 2005 - 2006 included High Frequency X-Ray Videography at 500 X-Rays per second which lead to the interesting discovery of the geometrical locomotion in the dog.

Most of us learned or visualize that just like the dogs hip moves the legs in forwards and backward motion, it is the shoulder joint that moves the front limbs in forwards and backwards motion.

They X-Ray videos revealed clearly that it is the shoulder plates and the attached muscles that move horizontally to the hip joint, this means that all dogs & mammals - but canines bred specifically to have a lower hind – move in an energy efficient parallel locomotion when trotting and galloping, where movement of the forelimb is created not by a joint but by a “force-driven joint” ( → only the muscles are moving the shoulder blade, there is no actual joint). There is no breed specific locomotion.

This revelation has great impact on how we look at dogs joint and muscle health, what form of physical exercise is best for the dogs and how we deal with occurring injuries.

We can look specifically at the joints and the cartilage within the joint. Cartilage is nourished not by blood flow but by loading and unloading of the joint cartilage in which a liquid called Synovial Fluid is pressed outward and on unloading sucked back within the cartilage.

Picture squeezing out a sponge and re-hydrating it. If we don't equally rehydrate the sponge, part of it will eventually dry out.

We can say the same of the cartilage, if it is not re-nourished fully over time some of the cartilage calcifies.

Therefore, lets look at the dog that only walks everyday, the motion is very much the same leading to the cartilage being loaded and unloaded only in parts of the cartilage, meaning the rest of the cartilage is poorly or not at all nourished and thus will calcify over time, leading to osteoarthritis.

To lower the possibility of such issues, by understanding the impact of movement and physical functions we can take preventative measures in providing the dog with free moving exercise.

This means the dogs is not just moving in locomotion (parallel geometric movements of the limbs) but also in Idiomotion. For example when we let him dig, or the dog is scratching, moving over different / uneven surfaces or when we let them free run, to fly and turn around corners and curves etc.

That doesn't mean we have to offer this kind of physical exercise for hours but to be clever and mix and match physical exercise and mental stimulation to provide towards the dogs needs.

Professor Martin Fischer & Dr. Karin E. Lilje are the Author of “Dogs In Motion”

The book is published in German and English and includes a DVD with over 3 hrs of footage and can be purchased from the German Kennel Klub (VDH)

www.vdh.de/en/shop/dogs-in-motion/

or on Amazon.

Saturday 4^th March 2017, summary of parts of the Lecture "Being a Dog" by Alexandra Horowitz our second speaker for the day.

written by Bono f. Beeler © March 2017

To understand a dog better, we really have to try to answer the question:

"What is it like to ba a dog?"