Clean Run Magazine - November 2007 - 42

Walking up and down stairs, tying your shoes, typing: all these activities required extensive practice until you were able to do them without thinking. You have repeated the movements required so many times that there is no conscious thought necessary to perform them. This is muscle memory in action. Muscle memory is generally defined as a movement that is learned and becomes automatic with practice. Little is known about how muscle memory actually works. It may occur at the cellular level, where neural networks retain the memory and become fast. Whatever the mechanism, muscle memory is a complex physiological process. To understand how it can benefit us in agility, I spoke with two experts in the subject. Dr. Laura Hady, D.V.M., is a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner, and specializes in canine physical therapy and rehabilitation. While some of the clients at her Albuquerque, New Mexico, clinic are training and conditioning their dogs for the Muscle Memory: Myth Steps to Building Muscle Memory Step 1: Correctness There are a number of things that must happen to build muscle memory. “The first thing that you must do is establish trust, stresses Hady. ” One sure way to do that is to set clear criteria and make sure that the dog knows what you are asking for. It is incredibly important for the handler to understand the criteria, says Peardot-Goudy: “If you don’t understand it, you can’t teach it—if you aren’t clear on what the criteria are, you won’t be able to teach your dog what they are. If you don’t understand, then you run the risk of marking and rewarding the wrong behaviors. Dr. Hady agrees: ” “It is very important that if a dog doesn’t understand what we want, we stop and try another approach. ” Once the dog understands what you are asking, there should be an emphasis on doing the movement correctly the first time, and throughout the repetitions. Just as you can build correct muscle memory, you can build incorrect muscle memory. “Perhaps the best example of this is humans at the gym, said Hady. “You see ” people without good technique lifting weights.They may build muscle, but their poor form may hurt their joints later on. 42 If the repetitions are too quick, it doesn’t allow the muscle to stretch properly. ” She sees parallels between the work that she does with injured dogs and healthy agility dogs. Correct form gives dogs more power and less stress, whether the dog is attempting an agility obstacle or learning to stand from a sit. She says that for her own dog, the best method is to approach the obstacle squarely, but is quick to point out that this can vary by breed. “Border Collies and Australian Shepherds are made for those sharp angles—the best way to know what is right for your breed is a watchful eye and trial and error, she said. ” Step 2: Start Small Both Dr. Hady and Peardot-Goudy stress the need to start small. Once you have established what you want the dog to learn, break the movement into smaller component parts. “You want the movement to become automatic, but that is a long process, says Hady. ” “Start with little movements. Knowing ” how small to make a movement can be tough to gauge. Peardot-Goudy says, “I never want to physically maneuver my dog to get what I want. I want the movement small enough that the dog is willing and able to offer the behavior in hopes of a reward. ” Hady uses a similar technique in working with dogs that are physically incapable of offering big movements. After building trust with massage and brushing, she will use a dog’s food motivation or toy drive to lure the dog to move in the fashion she wants, and reward that behavior with food or play. Even a small movement such as putting weight on a limb that was previously non-weightbearing is marked and rewarded. Agility handlers can learn from Hady’s patient approach. Luring the dog into an unfamiliar, potentially scary situation such as a contact obstacle and rewarding when the dog places even a foot on it is a building block to confidence and correct muscle memory. Mark and reward each gradual step toward the entire behavior that you want to see. Step 3: Repetition The goal of repetition is to practice the movement until it requires no thought. It is a necessary component to build an automatic response, but it can be, well, boring. You don’t want to bore your dog, and you also don’t want to bore yourself, which can lead to sloppy and incorrect repetitions. Hady stresses that an essential part of each repetition must be good form: “Go for quality, not quantity. I would rather see two repetitions done correctly than 10 done Clean Run | November 07

Clean Run Magazine - November 2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - November 2007