How Do You Prepare Your Dog(s)

[Esky the husky]

I'm not asking about the training here, lets take that as a given that a dog that you have entered in a trial will be trained well enough to compete.

What I'm curious to know is on the day of your obedience trial/ coursing event/showing/ agility trial/ flyball comp/ race etc etc do you have a routine to ensure your dog performs to his best?

Esky and I are fairly new to our sport, which is dryland sled racing. Our routine is being changed constantly, but here is an outline of what we do leading up to a race. Feed and try to keep her quiet the night before. Toilet before we head off. Toilet again on arrival making sure that she has emptied her bowels (because otherwise it happens mid race ) Then she goes onto her tie out, about 1-1.5 hours before the race I'll make sure she is well watered. Most racers I know swear by adding some mushed up sardines to the water, to make them drink more so that they are hydrated. 10 minutes before the race we put her harness on, and her handler and I get down to the start line.

After the race we do a light walk just to cool down after a work out and then water. I don't feed her until we get home, or about 2 hours have passed since the race.

I hope that you guys have some pearls of wisdom you wouldn't mind sharing as I feel like I'm missing something important

To those who do high impact sports, do you do stretches with your dog before they perform?

[Keira&Phoenix]

I have just started lure coursing with Phoenix.

Advice from the old hands at the event were -

Warm up before your dogs turn on the course so just a brisk walk around for 5 - 10 minutes

After the dogs turn on the track walk to your area, give the dog a small drink of water, then another brisk walk as a warm down another 5 - 10 minutes.

Then the dog can be put back in its crate, or tie down and given more water.

Lure coursing is a lot shorter distance and without the burden so warm ups/downs would be quite different.