How Do You Exercise Your Dog?

[Starkehre]

We have 4 dogs, but one of these is my husbands dog, so I exercise my 3.

Two of them are 5 month old puppies, so exercise in itself is still fairly minimal (in our breed). I do light exercise with them, but the vast majority of our outings are about training and socialization.

Legend and Dance do short walks, made up of some off leash meandering at park or beach incorporating random recalls. We go to novel places and let them meet novel people. They go swimming once a week, again very small amounts. They wander and play at the beach and do a lot of dog/dog socialization also. They also attend dog school. I try to take them out every day, but occasionally they miss a day. If they don't go out we do lifestyle behaviours, formal obedience, show training or very minimal treadmill work. they are also doing herding intros.

Their mother Seven, also goes out almost every day. We mix it up with her also. She will do bike work once a week, pool swimming once a week, beach swimming 2-3 times a week, treadmill, free running at off leash park and/or beach.

Taking 3 dogs out separately is extremely time consuming, hence why occasionally one will miss a day here or there, but I don't have an issue with that at all. I work from home so I spend time with them off and on all day and it is good for them not to expect to go out. They are calm at home and can be left alone.

[Podengo]

We try to do a short walk in the morning on lead, they have half an hour, if they wanna go fast we go fast and if they wanna dawdle we do that! Our other walk during the day is usually 1 or 2 hours of off lead running, and they do RUN for 90% of it (other 10% is pissing and sniffing!). On the second walk we hunt stuff. We have done walks in the height of summer when it's over 30 degrees, but we tend to do a shorter loop then and spend ages playing at the ponds that are scattered around the walk.

[denali]

My dogs are generally walked ever evening (though i have been a bit slack lately). And weekends often twice per day.

They are not required to heel, but i don't like pulling, or peeing on every second pole. So they get the length of their lead to sniff around and pee.

Their daily route is about a 15 minute on lead walk there and back, and an off leash run of however long i stay there.

I also bushwalk once or twice per week, and in summer they swim in the creek and/ or pool every day.

Some days if i do not have time for a walk, they get a quick run on the bike. And i also try and do conditioning exercises with them.

They would love it if i were able to walk them 3 times per day. But i just can't do that!

[LisaCC]

I generally take Nova for a walk and a run each most days. Walks are relaxed and sniffs allowed as long as the leash is kept loose, I don't allow him to pull me over to get to smells. Runs are probably a bit more like canicross, He's out in front, he doesn't have much of an interest to stop and if he did I'd probably fall over him :laugh:

If we don't go for a run he gets an off leash exploring time.

Walks are much stricter if it's down the main street or in a busy area, then I want him to heel nicely next to me.

Edited August 19, 2016 by LisaCC

[Tor]

Sebastian (9 month Boxer) goes to the dog park two or three times a week in the mornings when it's quiet and I know the other dogs. Sometimes we're there alone and we do training, ball chasing and tug as well as zooming around sniffing.

We do leash walks the other days, once or twice a day, 30-45 minutes. He can do what ever he wants as long as the leash stays loose. He sniffs whatever he likes but I move him on after 5 seconds if necessary. Right now we are working hard on being calm around new people or dogs, so we do lots of LAT. on the weekends we walk to the beach and sit and practice ignoring people. Or we go to the nearby outdoor sculpture park for the same thing. One day I'd like to take him to markets and things, but we are not there yet.

At home we do fetch and tug in the backyard and we do nosework inside once or twice a week. Plus training for commands and tricks.

He's happy and healthy and I love our routines but I think there are lots of ways to be a good dog owner. I wouldnt do what is described in the op, but if it works for them, great.

[corvus]

I think how much time you have is a big factor. I don't know where people find the time to do more than a couple of hours of stuff with their dog every day. When Kestrel first arrived, I was taking her out separately from the other two in the afternoon because Erik wasn't ready to share his outings with her and with just one of me, I couldn't take her and keep her out of his way as well. I was so relieved when a few weeks later they were getting along well enough for me to start taking all of them. Taking the hunds out and then the pup in the afternoon took a minimum of 2 hours no matter how I did it. Other things were suffering, like my own exercise activities.

I'm not sure a dog can technically be over-exercised. Humans can injure themselves if they over train, so I guess same for dogs. My hunds get tired at the end of a long walk and start to slow down and drift. I know when my dogs need more exercise, though. They are restless at home, Erik barks and pokes. They get into things and tear or chew things up. The new pup has a fine off switch and can sleep and sleep if we're not doing anything, but I can tell if she's not getting enough exercise because she's a maniac when she gets off leash time. She barks and runs and that's about it until she gets it out of her system. If she's been getting enough, though, she runs less and is more even-keeled. When it's hot, we just go straight to the river to cool off rather than walking around much. You would not catch me out walking in the middle of the day, with or without dogs.

[silentchild]

I walk mine most days usually in the evenings. We do a lot of sniff walks, she is free to sniff and smell as she pleases - I look at it this way, dogs smelling stuff on their walks is similar to us checking Facebook - getting information about who has peed there, when, how long for, male or female - just as I read Facebook to find out who so-and-so is now dating or what they ate for lunch.???? Sometimes when she sniffes for a particularly long time I ask her, "oh my what drama is going on in dog Facebook today?!" ???? ???? Figuring after being cooped at home all day waiting for me to get back from work she'd like a good Facebook binge! Some days I let her choose the route, some days I choose, some days we stick to the familiar, some days we go power walking or running without stopping to sniff (if I feel my pants are getting too tight!!). I'm lucky she pretty much is game for whatever I want to do on walks.

We also have a treadmill which she goes on if the weather is crap or I'm just too tired, usually once or twice a week she goes on it anyway for cardio work, she also goes swimming at the dog pool or in the underwater treadmill every fortnight, and every other week if we are not doing water conditioning we go for long hikes and bush walks. She also gets free running at the park and she gets to sprint around like a crazy doggy getting her jollies. ????

Almost every day or every second day she does conditioning body work, stuff on peanuts, wobble boards, balance boards etc etc.

I'm not sure why I've not lost more weight!!!! ???? Throw in the massive amounts of training we do also I'm not sure where I get the time?! ???? Maybe I'm a time traveler?!

Edit: oh and in summer we hit the beach loads too so lots of running and swimming there too. Bring on summer!

Edited August 19, 2016 by silentchild

[Tor]

My house has someone home in it a lot of the time too, so my dog has pretty constant interaction for most of the day. I think that helps keep him stimulated and his mind engaged because he gets a lot of people talking to him, having to wait at the door if someone comes by, leaving the cat alone, my 6 year old doting on him, playing in the front yard while the kids have a tea party etc.

If we were more of a full time working household I think he'd need more dedicated exercise time and maybe a buddy, as he's very social.

[rubiton]

I cannot see any problem with what your neighbour is doing. The time and distance we walk depends on fitness but we usually walk about 35 minutes (would go further but my fitness is the issue not his at this time and back when it was warmr we had two dogs so I'd walk the older one a km round trip up the grass and back then take him out). ANd yes we power along and there is no stopping and sniffing except a specified points and then its on the lead and its not for long before we are off again. Dogs can and dog sniff as they walk along and do pay attention to their surroundings etc. In fact ours in their prime have always wanted to charge along on walks (Lab and Lab x) they know where the sniffing areas are and that we will be walking along at pace for the rest of it. And yes most of it is on paths and road edges

Walking is about keeping fit and exercising not sniffing everything in sight - and seeing what is out there too on the lap of the area. When OH takes him out he will head off or try to head off on our longer walks given the chance and at pace. And if given a chance (not freezing - moreso me than him as we have coats and anything out the front door is just fine unless it starts pouring and not when its very hot - walk early when its hot).

Our old dog she was allowed to do what she wanted but at 17 and some days she wanted to run and others notsomuch but off the lead as a mid jog was enough to run her down - though sometimes you had to herd her like ponies but in her younger days it was the same power walk with set areas at parks where she could sniff before we kept going.

We get home dog is happy and will go and sit down but is always up to go to whatever else is on - it took 5 hours of overexcitement at a horse event with the first one he went to to actually see a very tired dog - they are generally a lot better at coping with exercise than we are but if we have a break from walking its always back to a shorter walk and build up again.

Noticed you mentioned bags - have you spoken to this neighbour as if not how do you know they dont have any bags on them?

We now have a young lab puppy and it will be good to be able to walk her once the vaccinations are all done as she has so much energy and would be nice to be able to burn some of that off out walking instead of short bursts in the house & yard but she will start off on short walks as Im sure finally going outside in teh world will be very tiring both mentally and physically.

Edited August 19, 2016 by rubiton

[Little Gifts]

Noticed you mentioned bags - have you spoken to this neighbour as if not how do you know they dont have any bags on them?

My neighbour walks in the morning and I walk in the afternoon. We don't live on the same street but he passes both our houses every walk and if either of us are out in our cars we often come across him too (as well as on our own walks when we cross paths). We have both seen his dog try to stop to poo and been made to walk on. We have both seen the dog drop poo and the owner make no effort to stop or pick it up. He wears summer/minimal clothing all year round and I've never seen a poo bag dispenser on him or the leash or dog so even if he does keep a couple in his pocket both of us have seen pooing and no stopping and picking up. Never said anything to him about it as the poo is usually on the bitumen rather than people's front yards or pathways. My neighbour and I saw them recently go by her house on a midday walk, in the rain and the poor dog looked desperate to poop. The look on its face made us both burst out laughing. That's what got us talking about what we see of his dog walking regime compared to ours (ours aren't the same either but we have different breeds who have different stimulation outside of walks as well).