I have noticed that many say that the Jenny is the best piece of equipment for conditioning a dog. To those have used a Jenny I ask, personally why do you consider the jenny the best equipment for conditioning?
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I have noticed that many say that the Jenny is the best piece of equipment for conditioning a dog. To those have used a Jenny I ask, personally why do you consider the jenny the best equipment for conditioning?
I don't know that the jenny is my "best" or favorite piece of training equipment, but I have had a few jennys over the years that I conditioned dogs. The dog runs a much more natural gait on a jenny than on a treadmill. I could also blend resistance work simultaneously with my sprint and pacing work on my jenny by dropping a drag chain.
My best piece of training equipment was always a pickup truck and a nice smooth dirt road. The best roads of all were the packed sand in the vineyards, but any dirt road will do. I have had cops roll up on me a few times while conditioning bulldogs in this manner and other than wondering what I was doing late at night in a field, I never got hassled about working the dog. My pat excuse was that I had a blown out knee and this was the only way to work my dog as hard as I did when I ran with him before, but I never had to use it.
I even had a jenny setup out in the back of my work once upon a time at the end of a railhead, where I also kept a couple of dogs to condition.:mrgreen:
Haha. Nice excuse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TFX
hey TFX have you ever been up to sand creek rd. up in arbuckle??? i found it on google earth, looks like a great place to work dogs in that manner.......i wouldnt mind the hour 1/2 trip to try it out! lol
I can tell you why the jenny is my favorite piece of equipment. My dogs simply work harder on the jenny than a mill. They get more of a workout running the jenny how they want than they ever could with me trying to coax them into working the mill how I like. It's safer for me to work them on the jenny than roadwork.
I've never had a dog that could work the mill with the same intensity and pace as they can the jenny.
Ok, do ya put any type of resistance other than a chain. I've seen some where the wooked up a house door side ways and another that had a tarp I guess for wind resistance once the dog runs.
FrostyPaws, how do you get your dogs to run the jenny better than a mill, curious because I've heard some say the contrary of what you just said, that it's hard to get a dog to run all out in a jenny compared to a mill. I have no experience with either a mill or a jenny.
John, I don't use any resistance with the dog on the jenny. Just getting that out of the way.
All of my dogs, from the time they're pups, get to play with Kong toys. I have a flirtpole with a kong as the bait, and I simply start flirtpoling the pups as soon as they're old enough to run around and chase things. So, from that time on, all activity involves the kong. So, on my jenny, the kong is attached to a rope. The rope is long enough that as the dog runs, the Kong bounces all willy nilly in front of the dog, and they lose their minds chasing it.
The dogs give a lot more effort on the jenny than they ever have on the mill. They're on the ground for starters, so that eliminates them being elevated at all. The jenny makes no noise, so you can eliminate that aspect also. The faster they run the jenny, the more out of control the kong bounces. which in turn, makes them run it at a faster pace.
Aside from a more natural, full run being achieved on the jenny, the fact is (running a mill) a dog is "moving a belt" ... but on the ground a dog (running a jenny) is propelling himself forward ... which is a major difference.
Anyone who's ever run a treadmill in a gym "moving a belt" will tell you it's a joke compared to actually running cross-country outside ...
Jack
Anyone who's ever run a treadmill in a gym "moving a belt" will tell you it's a joke compared to actually running cross-country outside ...
Jack[/QUOTE]
Very true, I can say that personally, when I trained for MMA I did my running outside only used my treadmill when it was raning and it never felt the same. Speaking of which, how much of human strength and conditioning could be used for a dog? Just wondering, which I could make a jenny nut the flirt pole will do for now.