Load & recovery tracks how each dog is doing: how much effort it has absorbed lately, how rested it is, and whether you should ease off. The module turns your session history into a daily form score (readiness, from 0 to 100) and warns you when load climbs too fast or a fatigue signal shows up. Included in the Pack and Sport Pro plans.
The idea, borrowed from human athlete tracking (Whoop, Garmin), is to avoid two traps: doing too much at once (injury risk) or letting a dog lose condition for lack of regular training. The score is a directional indicator, not a medical diagnosis: it helps you decide “let's go” or “let's recover”, without replacing your own eye or the vet.
Key concepts
It all starts with two load measures: acute load (the effort of the last few days, what the dog has “in its legs” right now) and chronic load (its base fitness, built over several weeks). Comparing the two gives you the day's freshness and the load ratio (ACWR), the best signal of overload risk.
How the score is built
- The more regularly the dog trains, the higher its chronic load (its base fitness) climbs — that is a good thing.
- If acute load overshoots chronic load by too much, the ratio spikes: that is the classic overtraining signal, and the module raises an alert.
- Your manual notes (fatigue, soreness, lameness, rest day, great shape) adjust the score: what you feel on the ground counts as much as the numbers.
- Recent heat is taken into account: stacking sessions in high temperatures weighs on recovery.
Step by step
Day to day
- Open Load & recovery to see, dog by dog, the readiness score and its band (fresh, optimal, tired…).
- Log your sessions as usual in the training log: that is what feeds the load, you have nothing to copy over here.
- When you notice something (stiff dog, lameness, great shape, rest day), add a recovery note — it refines the score straight away.
- Follow the alerts: if the load ratio climbs too much, the module suggests a rest day or a lighter session.
- After a bout of lameness or soreness, close the note to get a gradual return-to-work protocol.
Reading the data
The readiness score runs from 0 to 100 and falls into a band: above ~60 the dog is ready, below 50 the module suggests taking it easy, below 25 it is a firm “no” for today. Next to the score you see freshness (TSB) and, if there is a problem, named alerts (load spike, recent heat). The return-to-work panel only shows up for clinical signals (lameness, soreness, stiffness, loss of appetite).
Readiness score (today's form) — The big gauge: a number from 0 to 100 summing up whether the dog is ready to train today. The higher it is, the fresher the dog. A colored band puts it in plain words — EXHAUSTED (0-24), TIRED (25-44), NEUTRAL (45-59), READY (60-74), FRESH (75-100). Here 72 → “Ready”.
Acute load (ATL) — The effort absorbed over the last ~7 days — what the dog has “in its legs” right now, its recent fatigue. Climbs fast after big runs, comes back down within a few days of rest.
Chronic load (CTL) — Base fitness, built over several weeks (~6 weeks) — the “engine”. It rises slowly with regular training; this is the one you want to build up without jolts.
Load ratio (ACWR) — Acute load ÷ chronic load. The sweet spot is ~0.8 to 1.3 (green): you are progressing without overloading. Below 0.8 you may be doing too little; beyond ~1.5 the injury risk climbs and the module raises a “load spike” alert.
Recommendation / rest day — The day's actionable verdict, derived from the score and the signals: “Ready” (go for it), “Light” (an easier session), “Rest” (a rest day, a day with no session) or “Vet”. When load climbs too much or a fatigue note is open, this is where the module suggests a rest day.
Load trend — The mini chart of the last 14 days: the solid curve (chronic load, your base fitness) and the dashed one (acute load). When the acute line takes off well above the chronic one, that is the visual signal of a build-up that is too fast.
Tips
- Pair it with the training log: the more sessions you log, the more accurate the load.
- Note the good news too (“great shape”): it calibrates the score in both directions, not just the alerts.
If something goes wrong
- Score unreliable or missing? It needs enough session history to calibrate itself — count on a few weeks of logged runs.
- The score does not move after a note? Reload the page or force a recalculation; the dashboard caches the score for a few seconds.
- A retired dog does not show up: that is on purpose, load tracking only covers active dogs.
Good to know / abbreviations
- Readiness (today's form)
- The 0 to 100 score summing up whether the dog is ready to train today. The higher it is, the fresher and more available the dog.
- Acute load (ATL)
- Acute Training Load: the effort absorbed over the last few days. It is what the dog has “in its legs” right now — its recent fatigue.
- Chronic load (CTL)
- Chronic Training Load: base fitness, an average effort built over several weeks. It is the “engine”, the conditioning that is banked.
- TSB (freshness)
- Training Stress Balance = chronic load − acute load. Positive = the dog is fresh (rested); negative = still tired from a big block of work.
- ACWR (load ratio)
- Acute:Chronic Workload Ratio = acute load ÷ chronic load. The sweet spot is around 0.8 to 1.3; beyond ~1.5, injury risk rises sharply.
- Training load
- A measure of “how much effort” a session represents, calculated from its duration, distance, intensity and discipline.
- Band
- The tier the score falls into: fresh, optimal, tired, and so on. It is the quick color read of the numeric score.
- Overtraining
- Effort piling up faster than the dog recovers. You spot it when the load ratio (ACWR) spikes — hence the “load spike” alert.
- Load spike (acute spike)
- An alert raised when recent load jumps too far above the usual: a signal to ease off or put in a rest day.
- Recent heat
- An alert flagging that the dog has run in high temperatures recently, which slows recovery and calls for caution.
- Rest day
- A day off with no session. The module suggests one when the load or the fatigue signals justify it.
- Recovery note
- An observation you enter by hand (fatigue, soreness, stiffness, lameness, rest, great shape, loss of appetite). It adjusts the score based on what you see on the ground.
- Return-to-work protocol
- A gradual back-to-sport plan offered after a clinical signal (lameness, soreness, stiffness, loss of appetite), so you do not restart too hard.
- Severity
- The intensity you give a note (from 1 to 5). The higher it is, the more the score drops and the more cautious the return-to-work protocol.