Front Matter

Chapter 10 Conditioning and Retraining the Canine Athlete 235

Sit‐to‐stand with front feet elevated. The
client has the dog stand square with front
feet slightly elevated, for example on a
2 × 4 ′′ piece of wood ( Figure 10.5). The dog
then sits without moving its front feet from
their position. This requires the dog to
bring its pelvic limbs forward, ventroflex­
ing the spine and tucking its ischium down
on top of the flexed pelvic limbs, rather
than rocking backward into a sit. The dog is
then asked to stand, again without moving
the front feet. The dog can be encouraged
to stand up by tickling the caudal abdo­
men. Once the dog can perform this easily

10 times, the front feet can be gradually ele­

vated to greater heights until the front feet

are approximately at elbow height off the

ground.

Stand/down/stand. The dog is placed in a

square stand with the front and rear feet

beside each other, then is asked to lie down

and stand back up without moving the feet

(Figure  10.6). This exercise is hardest for

dogs with abundant pelvic limb angula­

tion and/or straight thoracic limb angula­

tion because of their instability in the rear

and often reduced strength of the thoracic

limbs.

(A)(B)

Figure 10.5 The client has the dog stand square with front feet slightly elevated as shown (A), and later using more
elevated blocks. The dog should then move from a stand to a sit and back again without moving the front feet from their
position (B).

(A)(B)

Figure 10.6 (A) Dog demonstrating the down‐stand‐down. (B) The dog transitions between the stand and down
without moving its feet.