Musical canine freestyle

Musical canine freestyle, also known as musical freestyle, freestyle dance, and canine freestyle, is a modern dog sport that is a mixture of obedience training, tricks, and dance that allows for creative interaction between dogs and their owners. The sport has developed into competition forms in several countries around the world.

Musical freestyle started in many places almost simultaneously around 1989, with demonstrations of the talent of heeling to music being shown in Canada, England, the United States, and the Netherlands within three years of each other. The main unifying element among the groups was an interest in more creative obedience demonstrations and dog training, a love of music, and, in many cases, inspiration from an equine sport called musical kur, which was a more creative and dynamic form of dressage.

The first official musical freestyle group, Musical Canine Sports International, was founded in British Columbia, Canada, in 1991. Soon, other groups followed in the United States and England. Each region began developing its own style, with many American groups promoting more trick-based routines and costumes. English groups focused more on heel work and on the dog, and less on costumes and design. Musical freestyle has become more common in animal talent shows and speciality acts.

Teaching a dog to be able to work on both sides of the handler's body, not just the left side as in standard obedience heeling, is the first step to doing freestyle. The trainer first breaks the routine into pieces with only two or three moves linked together, and as they progress these pieces are linked together.

There are two types of musical canine freestyle, freestyle heeling (also known as heelwork to music) and musical freestyle.

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