Canicross Conversations, chatting all things canicross and running. Join Canicross instructors, me, Michelle.
And me, Louise, as we chat to guest experts about dogs and running, sometimes while at Canicrossing.
Welcome to our very first Canicross Conversations. We thought we'd introduce ourselves before we went out for a Canicross run. I'm Michelle, I'm a running coach at Miles with Michelle, and more recently a Canicross instructor as well, since I adopted my rescued dog, Poppy, and we began Canicrossing together.
Hi, I'm Louise. I'm a Pilates instructor at Studio 44 Pilates, focusing on Pilates for runners, getting you stronger for running. I'm also a Canicross instructor with my Labrador Pickle. Our plan for this podcast is to record as many as we can while we're out running, because we don't like sitting indoors, and we hope to get some of our guests out on a virtual run with us too. So, for our first episode, come and join us on our run together.
Good morning, Michelle. How are you?
Hi Louise, I'm good, thank you. I am running from Horwich, up the hill. And bizarrely, there's a Royal Mail van just coming down, so let me just stand and wait for that to pass. It's a little old cobbled track up the hill, so Poppy's not sure about that van, there you go, it's gone. So we thought, as the weather's quite mild, it's not that humid now, we're gonna head up the hill a little bit and try and get some views today. I'm a little bit out of breath. What about you, where are you?
Well, I'm gonna go along the canal. Just because it's easy to go from home, and I'm still rehabbing a bit from my injury. So my knee injury that I've had on and off for bloody ages. So yeah, so I want a nice, slow run. I haven't got people with me today because we're recording these in the summer. And for me, it's a bit warm for her today, so just me on my own, which is probably better.
It's good, I think, as you're getting back from injury, I think you don't want to do too much with the dog. It really changes your stride, doesn't it? So probably best to be on the safe side, as much as Pickle would enjoy it as well.
Yeah. It's the joy or not of Canicross, isn't it, because you overstride. So it obviously puts more load through your body, through your legs. And I don't want that at the moment with my knees.
No, definitely not. Look after yourself. Yeah, so should we chat a bit about what we're trying to achieve with the podcast? This is the first one, so we're trying to, the aim is that we go out with our dogs, Canicrossing, and we have a chat. And that might be interesting to people. It might not be.
Ride. We've got one guest that's very up for it, so that should be fun. I know, I am as well. So what we thought we'd do today, apart from having a chat, is talk about Canicross a bit, just the basics. So if you're out running with us now, which would be fantastic, and do let us know on social media if you are, and if we're helping you along. And yeah, I think we're going to talk about the dogs a bit, won't we, Michelle?
Yeah, I think we should. I've seen particularly a lot more people out running with their dogs. I saw a lady yesterday crossing the road as we were walking back from the farm, and she had a dog on a halter lead running with it.
I couldn't stop her because we were kind of a busy road, but I think we just, we wanted to do a little bit of education about, you know, the safe ways to run with your dog, because obviously if you've got your dog in a harness that goes over its mouth and nose, it can't pant freely. So it's just thinking about things like that and making sure you've got the right kit. So what kit do you use, Louise?
So I use, well I use two things. If we're just going for a sort of canny trek and a bit of a run, I'll use the DogFit Basic Harness, because then if I come to a place where I can let her off, it's not as bulky as the, I normally use the non-stop free motion I think it is, which is quiet, bulky down the side of her.
It is, it's a long harness that one, isn't it?
But what I love about it is it keeps her straight. Yeah. So because I think it's got, there's me trying to standing on style here, showing you what it looks like.
Imagine, we can all imagine.
But it's got these sort of two bits that go down her side, so it keeps her in a better position, and the joining point is further down her back. So yeah, we quite like that one. But it's a bit bulky, so if I know I'm going to let her off, I tend not to use it. But racing, and we do a little bit of that, we use it, and it's brilliant.
Yes, oh, we'll have to have a chat about racing later in the series. Yeah, I've never raced with Poppy, so I'll be excited to quiz you, actually, about how it all works.
Yeah, I know, it's brilliant. I love it. But I didn't realize I still had a competitive side, but I do. That's brilliant. So that's good. But yeah, no, so that's what I use. What do you use, Michelle?
Well, I am normally wearing the nonstop waist belt with the nonstop stretchy lead. Poppy is generally in a 0 DC short harness. I love this harness. It's brilliant. It's just so, it's a nice, I mean, she is quite a long dog, and she has wore a long harness before. She does have a drag raton harness at home. It's longer, but attaches at her tail. But where we live, we're lots of sheep, lots of cows, and we're always having to cross fields full of animals.
So I just feel a lot safer with her in the shorter harness. I feel like I can control her more. And we get on really well with it.
And what lead do you use? So for those of you who are just starting out at Canicross, there's two lengths of lead as well, aren't there?
There are. I'm just letting a group of dogs go past. You wait there, Poppy. Wait there. Good girl. Go on, carry on.
Good girl. You should say a little bit about Poppy. We'll come back to the lead. But Poppy's quite reactive, isn't she?
Yeah, she is and she isn't. I've been training it out of her. I've realized a lot of it is me and my reaction. So I will tend to tend to lead when I see another dog because we've had a few incidents, not of aggression, just of playfulness, really. We've heard, just wanting to say hello to a dog and the other dog not particularly wants to say hello. So I tend to kind of pull her towards me.
She's always on the lead anyway, because she has a prey drive that's off the scale, which is why we ended with Canicrossing, because I just don't want to lose her. I hear about so many lost dogs. You see so many posters up on Lamp Post and on our local Facebook groups. It's just, I don't want to have to deal with that ever. So, you know, that's why we Canicross. And I find if a dog approaches her who's off the lead, sometimes she's okay, and sometimes she'll have a go.
So it's quite unpredictable, really. But I am training it out of it. She was really good though. You didn't hear any barking, did you?
No, not from her. I did hear some barking, but it was from her. So there's always a bit of that fear factor, isn't it, that her dog coming towards you? I mean, for a dog. Does she react better when they're off the lead or are there on the lead as well?
She is better when they're under control. So she doesn't mind if they're off the lead, but if they're confounding over to her, she might get a bit scared. But sometimes, again, she doesn't. Those were two off the lead dogs then who came up nice and calmly and said hello. She was fine.
I think Canicrossers can really probably sympathise and empathise with that. Because I think... I mean, my dog's not reactive. The reason I Canicross is because her prey instinct is off the scale. I bet it's more than poppies. But, like you, I do let her off occasionally, if I know it's fairly safe. But I assess that. I do a little risk assessment. But mainly she's on the lead.
And I do find it interesting that a lot of people see a dog on the lead, and when it's Canicrossing, it always winds me up, and let the dog come towards you. I don't know about you, Michelle, but when I'm running, we can go quite fast. And if you have to stop, well, there's a dog that comes in between you and your dog, which has happened loads of times. I find that irritating. And I'm also concerned my dog will fall over.
Yeah, it's a difficult one. We've been caught in a few situations, some like that where a dog just comes over to say hello, but will come to the back of her, so she will end up wrapping the lead around my legs to get to this dog. And then you kind of panic, because you think, I can't get out of this easily if something should happen, if the teeth come out. And I am always watching for raised hackles, especially. But we have had a couple of incidents, usually on fields when dogs are off.
You know, I wish I could chase balls and stuff. But I have had, remember one particular incident with a dog running towards me at full pelt. And I just yelled to the owner, will you get your dog? But she wouldn't call it. And instead she said to me, well, he has never done that before. And I thought, well, that doesn't help me. Your dog is still coming towards me. So it's things like that I would like to see less of. Yeah.
And also the automatically assumption that dogs always want to say hello to each other. They don't.
Yeah, they don't really need to, do they? Especially when they're working. You know, when they're canicrossing, they're at work, so they don't want distracting, do they?
No, you wouldn't go into a sheep field where a sheep dog's working and let your dog off, would you? Well, you hopefully wouldn't, anyway. It's that sort of thing. Weather, people don't realize that.
Hi. I know she is. I've got to get past all these people first.
You're in a busy place, Michelle. Fortunately, I haven't got the dogs.
No, she's in part of, Louise. There's loads of people on the path we're heading up, but the path is just about to pull me up the hill, so. Lucky you.
I'm getting along with you now. So, back to equipment. There's two leads, aren't there?
Yes.
There's 1.2 meters, and there's a 2-meter one, excuse me, which is, 2-meter one is usually the racing one, isn't it?
Yes, it is, yeah. And the 1.2-meter one is the one we'd usually recommend for part runs, because, you know, keep your dog under control on a shorter lead. And when I do taster sessions, I do normally start people off on the shorter lead, because it could be quite a... I know from experience letting go of the lead, can't it? When you've always just watched your dog holding the lead, it feels quite different.
And also, because I wear Tom at Pickles, rather, it's got the longer harness on. The 1.2 meter, again, I've got more control, because it's quite long anyway.
Yeah.
So yeah, like you, I prefer the shorter one. Yeah, so it's preference in the end, what you prefer and what you don't. Just running past the canal bit. Yes, it is. Come on, this way. So you said you wear the nonstop harness for you. I wear the dog fit one, which I really like. The only thing I know that yours does is if your dog gets fight to fight, you've got more movement, haven't you?
For me, I used the non-stop Canicx belt, which I really like. It's got a movable loop on it, so probably can sometimes start off to the side, and it just stops my hips being contorted.
Yeah, no, I get that, I get that totally. I used the dog fit one, which is so comfortable.
Yeah.
I've got a second-hand non-stop one. I'm not sure which one it is, but it's really uncomfortable. So, I think it is. You've just got to find what suits you, haven't you?
Absolutely. I do like the dog stop one. And I don't know, I think, would that be better to have in a race when your dog is just pulling you forward? I've never done the racing thing, so.
Well. Well, yes, well, I find it, because in a race, Picklesbury, very motivated. There's usually a dog in front. So, yeah, so she's fairly, goes fairly straight. So, yeah, it's good. But, yeah, so, right, let's go. So, Michelle, we talked about the Canicross Kit, but why is it so important, especially the dog's harness? Because there's lots of harnesses out there. What's special about Canicross ones?
Well, the obvious answer to that is that Canicross harnesses are designed for running, aren't they? So, normally, when a dog wears a harness for walking, a lot of them are designed to stop the dog pulling. So the way they do that is they'll often have a bar across the front of the chest restricting their shoulder movement to discourage them from pulling. And it discourages them from pulling because it's uncomfortable and they obviously don't want to pull ahead of you.
So, if you had an elastic band around your shoulders, your arms wouldn't move very well and it would be really uncomfortable. And that's how the dog must feel in one of these harnesses. So it's really important to get a harness that's designed for running. So it should keep the shoulders free. They should be able to move their legs freely because when we want them to pull in Canicross, that's what the Canicross sport is about.
We encourage the dog to pull out front and it will not do that if it's uncomfortable. And it's really important that the harness is properly fitted as well. So get a well-fitted harness that doesn't rub the fur of your dog, that fits around the right part of its rib cage, that's the right length for it.
And honestly, if you take an hour to contact a local club or a local trainer who knows what they're doing, who's got some harnesses you can try on, who can recommend which one fits properly, then you'll honestly have a brilliant time running together. You're not at risk of any injury for your dog, because we want our dogs to live long, happy, healthy, injury-free lives, the same as we do. I think that covers everything.
I think you've done a superb job there, Michelle. Like you knew it. But the other thing I was just thinking, I was out walking slowly with Tickle, and saw this person running towards me. Honestly, a really good runner. A dog in front of a pulley on a normal lead. So she was holding the lead, and it was a catcher in the collar. So the other good thing about Canicross is that you run her.
Okay, so what's the issue with having it on a collar?
Well, it's pulling against the neck. It's going to hurt the neck, the windpipes, all that sort of stuff. And you're not going to get the pull that you could do in harness the pull that you want. So it's really uncomfortable for the dog. And also holding the lead... Yeah, and holding the lead affects your running technique. You become very one less, you know, lopsided. So that's another advantage of the sort of harness around you and running hands free.
Yeah, so while we mention leads, let's talk about the ones that just sit around your middle, because I started off with one of those, you know, before I knew what I was doing. So I know how people feel. I said I've been to a well-known pet shop and said, could you find me a dog running lead? And he came back with one that ties around my middle, which I still use for walking sometimes, but I wear it around my hips now, never around my back.
But once I pressed on to a proper canicross belt, it was so much easier.
Yeah, and actually, I've done loads of taster sessions lately where people have come with their little waist belt around their lower back, you know, around their stomachs. And they're like, oh, you know, I'm quite happy with this. It's like, well, we're not doing it with that. All right, you're going to try this. And just say hello to the horses as I run past them. And what people have usually said, hello, guys.
What people have usually said when they've tried it is like, oh, my God, that feels so much better.
Such a difference, isn't it?
Yeah, it feels safer and more in control because, obviously, my other guys are the pilates teacher. It's so much safer, so if you've got a lead around your waist and a strong pulling dog, that's going to come through your back. Even if you've got a strong core, it's still going to come through your back, which obviously we don't want to do. We don't want the dog to inflict them. So coming for the pelvis is one of the strongest parts of your body, and it's something that we should be working on.
We should have strong cores. We should keep our pelvis in line in front as we run, directly with the dog pulling out front of us. It's really easy to do. And you do have to build confidence up on it.
Drop a Canicross belt.
You have to build confidence on it, but as soon as you get going, you can run your normal run, and just enjoy it. And usually, everyone, I'm sure it's the same with you, Michelle, everyone that does the taste test is buzzing by the end of it. Absolutely buzzing.
Yeah, do you know, it's brilliant, it's brilliant seeing the smiles on people's faces. I just love it.
Especially when they're really nervous when they come to you for the first time, and you just go to them, Brandon, go on, let the dog pull you, and they're like, really? So don't be afraid.
Yeah, I agree. How do you structure your taster sessions on the weeds? Because I tend to just take my people on a route, so I'll do a harness fitting, and then we'll go on like a little one and a half, two mile run with them. And you know, there'll be plenty of kind of stop starting while we make sure everything's working all right, and we'll practice a few commands. So are your sessions kind of structured the same as that, or do you do anything different?
Well, I've done them a bit differently. In that, I haven't been able to run.
Oh, of course, yeah.
So we walk down to... So we sort of warm them up, get them used to it as we walk, get them used to having the kit on, the dog and them. And if they've got a strong pulling dog, they'll feel it when they're walking. So we start to talk about what's happening, what you need to do when you're running. We get to our area, which is just a little low country park with loads of paths.
And I just set them off for a run, and then we do lots of commands to go around the paths, to the left and right, to just go through the basic commands. And then if I was running with them, I'd probably do more running. But you know, the dogs also get tired as well, don't they?
Oh, they do, especially if they're not used to it, yeah.
Yeah, they've got to get used to it, and yeah, so that's why I do it. It's similar, just I have to adapt, because I couldn't run.
Yeah, but it's amazing that you can still do that, even though you've been injured and not able to run.
Yeah, one of my favourite ones is, Picklin and I are sitting, well, not sure I'm standing, she's sitting obviously, and I get the dog to run towards me. Last minute, I give a command to go right or left. Seeing if that dog will actually run past. And when I explain this to the owner, they'll be like, oh no, she'll be all over Pickle. Like we said earlier, if they're working, they go, they keep going, and if they're given enough command, they keep going.
Yeah, they just want the job to do, don't they? They enjoy it. So I think we've kind of covered the basics there today, Louise. Maybe we can have a bit more of a chat about the different commands in another podcast, in another episode. But we'll... Yeah, I think we'll...
I'm coming to the end of my run, so I think that was a really good idea to wrap it up. Don't forget, if you want to find out more, head over to canicrossconversations.co.uk to find out more about Michelle and I and what we do. But we've got, I think, loads of topics we can do from that. Even just our chat today, Michelle.
The next time we're chatting to Anne and Emily, who've been conducting some research into heatstroke with dogs, we've had a really interesting chat with them about how to recognize all the early signs of heatstroke. So do listen in next time and learn a bit more about how to keep your dog safe in the hot weather.
We learned so much from that interview, didn't we, Michelle? So make sure you subscribe and you won't miss it. But we'll see you on our next Canicross adventure.
Yeah, I'm going to sign off now, Louise, and say goodbye. Well, I hope you've enjoyed joining us on our run today.
If you have any questions regarding Canicross, let us know. Thank you for listening to Canicross Conversations.
If there's something you'd like to know about Canicross and Renée, then please get in touch with us at canicrossconversations.co.uk, and don't forget to subscribe so that you don't miss our next episode.