help me exercise with my new puppy! [pics, of course]

amateurhour

You may remember the adorable puppy Harvey from my previous thread

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?p=17783779#post17783779

Well the good news is that he adjusted to the crate. The bad news is that I caved because he's adorable and he's only in the crate when we're not there (rarely) so he sleeps firmly tucked under my armpit pretty much every night.

The worse news is that now he's about 7-8 months old, over 60 pounds, and has the attitude of a pissed off teenager.

Here's the loveable bastard now, looking all smug and shit.



So anyway, he's started barking for attention, running circles around the apartment, and generally being kind of a little shit. It's all good, we discipline him, he's getting better, but it's obvious he wants to run and play and he needs more exercise than I'm giving him. I want to start taking him for a LONG walk (30 minutes, 1-2 miles) every day but I was wondering how that would affect him? I've got a harness for him so the leash isn't around his neck the entire time and he's pretty good on the leash overall, but he's a huge furball and was born in the winter. This is his first summer and I don't want him getting heat stroke or anything.

I've started running in the mornings (which he is not invited to join, yet) but in the afternoon I want another good workout so I thought this would be nice.

What do I need to look out for? Do I need to carry water and a little bowl or will be be alright for half an hour without it, even in the oh so horrible southern heat?

Help me H/A, help me and my puppy get into shape.

Finally, at what point could I look at taking him jogging with me in the mornings? Is that even do-able?

Thanks!

L Ron Howard

With my dog, we often take him for long walks, like the 2-5+ mile kind, time and weather depending. We have since he's a puppy. Dog love that stuff.

What you'll need is a couple of plastic bags to pick up after them, since you're an honorable person and all.
I don't take water with us, but that is something you'll pretty much have to figure out on your own. My dog won't drink from anything when we did bring stuff with us, so we just stopped bothering.

The main thing I'd say you'd need to be aware of are socialization issues. I don't know how your dog reacts to other people and things, but you'll need to keep a very close eye on him. Dogs want to chase, and run, and play, and will take advantage of you if you don't keep them on a short leash, so to speak (no pun intended).
It also depends on how you want to walk your dog. With us, we don't care too much, so we let him run in the grass and weeds (along the path here, not like off by himself) and sniff around. But we've seen people that have trained their dogs to walk right along side them and stare straight forward. You can train him however you want, but you just don't want him jumping and chasing and snarling/barking at everything. I'd say that is something pretty important.

It took us a while, but we got our dog socialized pretty well. He no longer runs after everything that passes by, or barks at every dog, or anything.

How's that for starters?

amateurhour

Glad to hear that it's not unhealthy or anything...

We live in an apartment complex so he absolutely LOVES every single person, kid, and animal he meets, but he does tend to try to jump and play with everyone. Definitely going to make sure we keep the leash tight.

Also yeah, I always bag, no worries there.

I'll probably start by trying to bring some water and a little cup or something (I have to do that when I take him on road trips) and go from there, until he gets a little older and I can take him jogging, if I can.

Thanks so far!

Kistra

I would switch your workouts around and take the pup in the morning and exercise without him in the afternoon. Work up to it slowly, but at 8 months of age you don't have to worry about overexercising him like you would with a little puppy. How fast do you walk? A half hour walk isn't really that much and your dog should be able do 30 minutes of gentle walking tomorrow. Slowly build up speed and you can probably jog with your pup in a week or two.

How hot is it when you are jogging? If it is in the 90's you probably want to take a break halfway through and offer water no matter what. At cooler temps it will depend on your dog. Some dogs will do fine with half an hour of running in the upper 80s, other dogs (unfortunately) experience heat related seizures with 10 minutes of uninterrupted exercise in the lower 70s. Any chance you can jog along a river or to a pond or anything like that so you can let your dog jump in for a few seconds to cool off periodically?

mts

i would just get him used to drinking out of a quirt bottle. carryiing a bowl is a pain in the ass. it would really depend on the humidity and access to water after but more than likely he isn't going to need anything on the jog and can probably go way further and faster than you with less effort

corky842

For the bowl: http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/pets/c92c/ or http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/a8ab/ should work.

MrMonroe

he will love running with you

let him drink up beforehand and then pour him a bowl or two of water when you get back

honestly these little pups are like nuclear furnaces when it comes to calories

unless you know he has heart problems I would not worry at all about overexerting him

L Ron Howard

I have a collapsible bowl that folds down into like three different parts. That's what we bought and used, or tried to use. It was like $1.50 at Target or something. It is rubber, and can fold up and fit pretty easily and comfortably in your pocket.


My main point of concern that I was trying to get across was not so much that he loves everyone, it's that he might not be very socialized. What I mean is, he might want to run and jump and say 'hi' to everyone and every dog ever. Or bark as dogs walk away. Or try to chase after bikes and runners and roller bladers. I'm mostly concerned with him knowing how to behave around others, especially if there are lots of others or others that move really fast.

That's not an attack on your abilities or your dog or how he's trained, it's just something I've noticed with all my dogs.

mts

you can easily train him to treat running as a job to do and if he is working then its not time to play and greet other people. just be consistent

Kistra

I think part of the confusion is in the words people are using. Socialization is something that happens between 8 and 16 weeks of age and basically anything a puppy had a good experience with during that time is normal and not scary.

Learning to not go say hi to all the dogs and people is about learning self-control and is sort of related to socialization in that only well socialized puppies have to be taught this as poorly socialized puppies are more likely to be scared of people and dogs and wont want to go say hi. How easy it is to teach is very variable. Some dogs are 100% focused on what they want to do and nothing is going to distract them (including you). Think of a typical basset hound, they can be very hard to motivate to do what you want (because even you can't distract them from what they want to do when they are untrained), but once you get through that training, nothing is going to distract them from what they are doing. Other dogs are big on jobs and once you convince them running is a job, you are home free. Other dogs have never heard of focus or concentration and you will have to teach them to ignore robins separately from pigeons and little dogs will be a separate lesson from big dogs and tall men will be a different lesson than short men ect.

If you think your dog is going to fall into this last category, it is worthwhile to put in some background work to help you succeed at the running. Start teaching your dog self-control behaviors at home like sitting and waiting while you put his food on the floor until you release him to eat, or waiting in his crate with the door open until you release him or sitting at a doorway until you release him. You can do all this while you are doing the walking to build up to running. Do you have anywhere you can let him be off-leash? Running with him is great, but if you could let him off-leash and play fetch for 30-60 minutes a day that would burn off a lot more energy.

Disco11

Do you have any off leash areas close to you? we bring our pup there 2-3 times a week weather depending and in an hour she get's more then enough exercise and it socializes her. She's 1/2 pit 1/2 border collie so she needs to run!

amateurhour

We've got a dog park a couple miles down the road that's amazing. It's got a water fountain and there's usually about 10 dogs there on a slow day, but it's not something we do daily. Usually just once or twice a week.

This was more just to help exercise the dog during the day so he's not spazzing in the house constantly (which he's gonna do a lot, I get that)

I'm going to try taking him for a walk today a mile or two up the road and see what happens.

mts

dog parks can be good and bad. if he is a fetcher the off leash time is great since he can stretch ihs legs.
if he likes to wrestle etc he is likley to find a partner, plus its good socialization. however, a lot of idiots bring their out of control there and don't watch over them and you run the risk of your dog getting hurt or learning to be an asshole.

Kistra

What a lot of people are hinting at, but haven't outright said, is that a 30min long run just isn't that much exercise for most adolescent dogs. It will be a great start and is a wonderful way to build your relationship with your dog, but it just wont tire out most teenage dogs. Frankly most people just don't have the time or physical stamina to tire teenage dogs out by running with them. Off-leash time is good because dogs can run faster that people. But dog parks are hit or miss for exercise unless your dog plays fetch because it really depends on the group of dogs there on any given day.

To be clear, I definitely think you should run with your dog for 30 minutes it will be good for your dog. However, I doubt that will use up all of his energy. You really need to tire him out to get rid of the spazzing around the house. Luckily, there is another way to tire him out. Make him think. Go buy a trick book or start teaching him some obedience just for fun and don't give him any more kibble in a bowl ever. Make him think for every single piece of kibble that he eats. If you don't have time to train, put a meal in a puzzle toy so that he still has to think without you being involved.

Oh, and for drinking, I found it a lot easier to teach my dogs to drink out of a nalgene bottle (Not the same one I drink out of). The opening is wide enough that they can stick their muzzle into the bottle and lap up water.