22/12/2024
Following an article I wrote for the WDA Gazette (Club ADBA Germany)
𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡?
The ADBA Standard American Pit Bull Terrier is or should typically be a ➡️WORKING/PERFORMANCE DOG⬅️.
We know well the kind of selection made by men on these dogs, a selection that aims to achieve a deadly triathlete capable of imposing himself on all other breeds for qualities such as speed/agility, endurance and strength.
And in fact, the working subjects that contained these characteristics were, on par in weight with other races, extremely fast and agile, extremely resilient and possessed a definite dominant force.
With the gradual abandonment of work practices for anachronistic and legislative reasons, the American Pit Bull Terrier has been diverted towards more modern and above all legal activities that would allow to safeguard the athletic heritage of this breed.
Today we see modern Bulldogs cementing themselves in a plethora of different disciplines that encompass the essence of these dogs' physicality, activities like A-Frame, Long Jump,
High Jump, Sprint Pull, Drag Pull, Wall Climb, Trackmill, Weight Pull etc. Going to exaggerate the features of
agility, speed, endurance, power and strength that the fathers creators of the race have gathered in their subjects.
But do conformation shows have an objective value in safeguarding the athletic abilities of bulldogs?
They certainly do, if used well.
The effectiveness of the movement of a sporting/working dog has a multifactory origin, in this article we will see the relationship between skeletal and muscular structure and the influence of each other.
The relationship between bone structure and muscle tissue can be compared to the relationship that exists between a racing car's chassis and its engine: both contribute to enhance the other's talents. An efficient frame will allow the engine to extract all of its power, a powerful engine will push the frame at exceptional speeds, the same goes for dogs.
Archimedes of Syracuse was the author of the famous saying "give me a point of support and I'll lift the world" that is, regardless of the strength exercised with the correct lever arm, it's possible to express a lot of strength
more times.
Here's the point right here, the skeletal construction of the dog has to be a lever arm that if built properly is able to multiply the power leveraged from the muscle.
On the contrary, an incorrect construction of the lever will necessarily lead to greater muscle engagement in par with work intensity.
This point is very important in all the activities the dog approaches, both force/explosiveness, and, as we will soon see, resistance.
In the beginning it’s easy to understand why, just as I’ve been asserted up to now it’s normal for strength activities to build properly as this is going to multiply muscle work, but how does all this have an impact on resistance activities?
Resistance activities are divided into 2 large areas:
➡️ Those with anaerobic resistance
➡️ Those of aerobic resistance
The first ones are supported mainly by the metabolism of carbohydrates in the absence of oxygen (i
lipids cannot be metabolized in anaerobiosis) the second ones are fed, in the dog, to
the most from lipids oxidation in the presence of oxygen.
Limiting the 2 performances are, in the first case:
1. muscle and liver glycogen depletion.
2. The production of lactic acid, which if in excess, hinders muscle contraction.
In the second case:
1. insufficient oxygen supply to muscle tissue
In the first case, a correct joint angle, similar to work, will drain the muscle part of the effort, so the glycogen consumption will be less and increase the working autonomy.
Automatically also the production of lactic acid, a metabolite of glycogen, will be smaller and will accumulate
in less quantity giving less problems to performance. In addition, equality of performance will be necessary.
less muscle mass then favoring a lower body weight, which as we know is a factor
important for performance purposes.
In the case of aerobic work the principles are the same, the muscle in aerobic regime consumes a lot of oxygen and the more the intensity of the work increases the more the oxygen consumption increases, a correct lever in this case disengages the muscle mass allowing the body to consume less oxygen and therefore
prolonging aerobic performance, as in the previous case the need for less muscle mass (a
Equality of work commitment) will promote a body weight that will have even more positive impacts on oxygen consumption.
Furthermore, if the muscular commitment, in equal intensity, is less, the energy production required for movement will be less and the energy dispersal will be less (in trained dogs approximately 27% of the energy produced actually goes to moving the muscle, the remaining 73% is scattered in the form of heat that goes to overheating
The dog) helping to avoid the run-hot effect.
The relationship can be more or less summed up like this:
less muscle mass → less oxygen intake
less body weight → less oxygen consumption (less energy required to move a weight
inferior)
Better leverage → less muscle engagement at work equality → less oxygen consumption
Similarly, a deep and well-built chest will allow for effective lung expansion and
cardiac disease that will increase the exchange of oxygen between air and blood at the bronchiol level by further oxygenating the blood.
The square construction therefore aimed at having a “shorter” dog allows to have a subject tendency higher than the garrese in equal weight but at the same time enhances the dog’s agility skills
in a narrow distance with equal weight but “longer”, a bit like a car with a short drive axle takes advantage of mountain bikers compared to cars with larger and therefore longer drive axle.
On a dog level, in performance/working dogs, we can see how the Greyhound and the Argentinian Dogo, for example, prefer a rectangle formation as the former is an animal of extreme speed and greater length rewards stability over the fast and length of the falcon, idem for the according to that he was selected to chase prey in the open plains of the Pampa and therefore he also needs long falcons and stability on the fast.
The ADBA standard Pit Bull on the other hand was built and designed to work relatively tight spaces at the time when it was allowed so the requirements certainly included the ability to move tightly with agility rather than a high top speed during a ride.
A careful judge in the course of a conformation show will evaluate on the basis of the standard by rewarding the subject that best reflects, among other things, morphological requirements and muscle quality, which in turn follow the principles we have quoted earlier.
So we saw the reasons for the geometries of the front, back angles, the insertion of the tail,
chest construction and square construction are very important factors that can
Improve performances a lot and it’s right to value and promote them in conformation shows, but, above all, the fact remains that:
"as important as skeletal data is, it should only be used as help and certainly
"they should not have precedence over performance in evaluating a working dog".
And so, as claimed by the famous Swiss-German cynologist and ethologist, Prof. Albert Heim (1849-1937)
