Length of Exercise

[JaderBug]

I was just curious as to what board members constituted as exercise for their dogs. How long of walks do you go on? Runs/jogs? Length of a game of Frisbee or ball? Certain requirements for how worn out the dog gets? Something like that?

 

Thanks!

[Ninso]

We don't do walks. My dogs' main exercise is playing fetch. The length of time we play depends on the weather. In the winter, they can go all day long and never get tired. When the weather warms up, even to 45 degree like we've been having lately, they get tired a lot sooner. Both of them are pretty sensible and will stop when they get hot/tired. Lok will bring me a toy, fetch a couple time, go lay in the shade for a minute, repeat. Jun would not stop herself last year, so I had to be more careful with her. This year, I know she's tired when she drops her ball several feet away from me and just stands there panting. We also go to the dog park once in awhile for running and swimming. Other than that, mental exercise is what wears them out the most. Coming along to different places, even if they are crated most of the time, can be mentally wearing for them so we try to do lots of that type of things and of course short training sessions every day.

[WildFlower]

Daisy and I walk a half hour in the morning and a half hour at night everday that she does not go to day care during the week. She goes to day care one or two times a week. On the weekends we usually do longer walks along the lake or somewhere different. I am fortunate and live directly across the street from a park that has a large field in it and while it is not "officially" a dog park that is what it looks like. So we play in the park a few times a week with the neighborhood dogs. We also are taking an agility class once a week and make a monthly trek for "herding" lessons. Whether we are walking or playing in the park I work on odeidience with her. And as Ninso mentioned, I take her just about anywhere I can - even if its just a car ride to the grocery store.

 

As for tiring her out, she now has a "take a break" command when playing in the park. But she is pretty good and will lie down in the grass and take a few minutes to relax on her own most times. Right now we are able to play in the park for about 30 - 45 minutes before I think we are done. But as it gets warmer, I think that time will decrease.

[JBlaylock]

I think every dog is different. Layla, my 11 month old wolf dog, is young and lazy, so she will only typically jog one to two miles with me every day and she's satisfied. Tinkerbell, the 2+ year old Borador (labrador bordercollie mix) is a Spartan, as far as I'm concerned. She will put in the effort and go until she drops, but I won't take her beyond 4 miles. Bindy the Border Collie is a monster, a machine. I haven't taken her with me on any of my really long training runs, but once I took her on a medium training run, 6 miles, and when we got home she was not even panting slightly, she imidiatly started running around playing with the other two. I don't think there are limits to her energy - or at least I have not found them.

[JohnLloydJones]

Our week day routine is morning walk (about 45 mins of brisk walk + sniffing/potty stops = about 1 hour) and in the evening a 1 hr dog park trip (a random mixture of training, running free, running after a ball, wrestling with play mates, socializing with both the two and the four legged). Weekends add some bonus activities and trips.

[Ooky]

I've slowly built Odin up since his surgery. We do 2 walks of about 1-3 miles per day with hills. There is some jogging, but in spurts with lots of walking and sniffing in between b/c I am a cardio-hater. Also, always there is a training break in these walks which involves stays and recalls (which are sprints for him!) If he comes to work, 4-5 much shorter walks but more training, and/or a possible walk to the park for a bit of frisbee. On the weekends, we either take our normal walks or more likely, go do something off-leash, whether a hike, the dog park, the beach, go stay at the in-laws farmlet, etc. The farthest I've hiked with him was about 4 hours, maybe 7 miles?

 

I actually limit his fetch pretty severely, although I suspect DH is not as limiting as I am. With me, he gets 1 or 2 chuck-it or frisbee sessions a week, tricks/stays required in between throws. These sessions are typically no more than 20 throws total, as few jumps as possible. We also play lots of tug games, which seem like pretty good exercise to me!

[desertranger]

A couple of half hour daily walks and whatever time they want to spend chasing stuff. I know Jin can do a couple of miles but he's so high energy I have to be careful with him especially when the temp is over 90. \Mookie doesn't run, just walks and has a max range of about a mile before she wants to go home.

[Lizmo]

When Blaze was a pup, we did short, 10 minute walks to a field by my house where he stretched his legs -running- for about 15-30 minutes. Usually once a day. Since he's older now those walks usually last an hour and in that hour we play ball, go to the lake sometimes, and work on recall, and lie downs. We also play ball a few times a day in the backyard.

 

Most of our ball throwing sessions don't last more than 10-30 minutes.

[Dan28]

Mornings on weekdays I take Gus (now about 6 1/2 months old) for a brisk walk of about 1 mile to a mile and a half. When it was colder and the sun went down earlier we would do a 2 mile run/walk in the evening. Now that the sun is setting later, I can take him to the local dog park in the evening for about an hour and a half. If it has recently rained and the dog park is muddy, we revert back to the 2 mile run/walk.

 

Weekends we do much more. Either hiking for longer periods or spending a few hours at the dog park playing fetch or running with other dogs.

 

A couple Sundays ago, I decided to try and see if he would run beside my bike. We went to a close trail that is 5 miles long. At first I tried it with Gus on the leash, but that almost caused a few accidents as he would want to herd me. I took him off leash and he ran just beside and slightly behind me. I tried to keep at a moderate pace for him and we stopped a few times on the trail to give him a short brake. Still after the 5 miles, he didn't even looked fazed too much, so we stopped by the dog park for an hour. I think he may have been too young for the run, as the next day I noticed he had a small "cherry" on one of his front pads. So he had a couple lighter days while it healed up.

[Root Beer]

I really don't have a set standard for "enough" exercise. I base the amount of exercise that my dogs get a lot around what I can reasonably provide, and the weather, etc.

 

Usually every day when I get home from work, we go out in the yard. I throw balls for the Border Collies and they fetch for a while. The mutts tend to roam around and sniff, although Maddie will run with the Border Collies sometimes.

 

I find that they get a pretty good workout in a short game of fetch. I rarely take them for walks, so this is their main exercise. When I have time and weather permits, we go out for two or three play sessions in an evening. That time is coming up again and I'm looking forward to it.

 

Beyond that, I focus more on mental stimulation - training sessions, etc. We do play fetch in the house, time permitting.

[JohnLloydJones]

We do play fetch in the house, time permitting.

 

Your house must be more suited to indoor fetch than ours. We have tile over the most of the downstairs area and any activity that might involve high speed dogs slithering around would likely end in some sort of disaster or another.

[Root Beer]

Your house must be more suited to indoor fetch than ours. We have tile over the most of the downstairs area and any activity that might involve high speed dogs slithering around would likely end in some sort of disaster or another.

 

Yeah, I have a couple of nice options for indoor fetch. The room where we spend the most time is carpeted. We throw balls into the corner or at the walls. Sometimes we bounce them off the TV screen, but honestly that is more to amuse ourselves than for the dog's sake. That's fun during NASCAR races - we try to hit the cars of drivers we don't like on the screen.

 

OK, back to the dogs. There is a nice looong space from that same room, through the kitchen, and into the dining room. That's a nice straight shot that they can run. The kitchen floor is not carpeted, but they must get OK traction on it because they rarely slide.

 

Finally, in our front living room, I will launch balls back over the back of the sofa sometimes. This is Dean and Speedy's FAVORITE game. I only do this a few times a month, though. I don't spend much time in that room. But when they really get cabin feever in the winter, I will treat them to that particular game. It can really take the edge off when it is simply too icy for them to run outside.

[JohnLloydJones]

The kitchen floor is not carpeted, but they must get OK traction on it because they rarely slide.

 

Getting good traction on a slippery floor is something that a dog has to learn. Senneca came from the shelter with that skill, so I must assume her earlier home had wood/linoleum/tile flooring. The issue is that once she gets up to speed, she needs a long braking time and given the excitement of the chase, there's going to be collisions. This is not a theory, I have seen her slither around when she runs to the front door to bark at someone going by.

 

Another consideration is that my foster, Rhys, has a gimpy leg and although he is a ball monster, I wouldn't dare do anything to encourage him running indoors as I am sure he would hurt himself. He gets careful, short throws in the park along the edge of the lake, so that he can build up muscle mass in his hind leg (his left hind leg was just fur and bone when he came).

[Root Beer]

Getting good traction on a slippery floor is something that a dog has to learn. Senneca came from the shelter with that skill, so I must assume her earlier home had wood/linoleum/tile flooring. The issue is that once she gets up to speed, she needs a long braking time and given the excitement of the chase, there's going to be collisions. This is not a theory, I have seen her slither around when she runs to the front door to bark at someone going by.

 

The thing in my house is that once the kitchen ends, the dining room is once again carpeted. So they don't brake on the hard floor.

 

Also, Speedy tends to trot around with a ball in his mouth while Dean goes after the ball being thrown. Since Speedy pitters around, not at full speed, he is usually nowhere near Dean when Dean brakes (on the carpet) to get the ball.

 

If they had to stop on the hard floor, I doubt I would throw the ball that way. The carpet in the dining room makes a big difference.

[JBlaylock]

I also rollerblade with my girls. They absolutly love it. Anyone else rollerblade with theirs?

[sluj]

I prefer hiking; we try to get out for a 5-10 miler every weekend (15 miles last weekend, woot!). Once or twice during the week we'll do an additional 1.5-2.5 hour walk up the hills. If I have to go into the office on weekends or evenings, I'll bring her along (that's about 1.5 miles each way, with a ball game in the middle). The rest of the time she has to make do with short walks + ball + short training sessions. It seems to work ok; she doesn't get terribly antsy on her low impact days.

[Lizmo]

I really don't have a set standard for "enough" exercise. I base the amount of exercise that my dogs get a lot around what I can reasonably provide, and the weather, etc.

 

This applies to us, too. I don't go for walks every day, nor do we play ball a set amount each day.

[martySQ]

Well, I don't do it for the dog necessarily, I am making the dog do it for me... but we walk a mile or 2 everyday unless it's below freezing and the wind is really strong, or it is raining enough it's not safew to venture out due to thunder. On days when we ran out of time, for her sake, I will do frisbee, chuickits or toss tennisballs. She likes it when I kick her Jolly Ball for her when I'm hanging out the laundry.

[monicah]

Zimba was FAT when I got him. I decided to give him 1 hour of off-leash running in the woods and about 1 hour walk around our neighborhood every day. He has now lost that extra weight and is slim. Now I just let Kira and Zimba run in the woods for 1 hour every day and I play some fetch with them. They love to chase each other and play together, so they are very tired when we come home. I don't have to clip their claws. I also have short training sessions but they don't get tired from doing them. If it were up to them they'd want to be trained for hours.

[BorderCollieSam]

Well, i'm probably going to leave myself wide open here, but this is what my main day of excercise consists of:-

 

1hr walk through fields at 6am before work.

 

30 minutes walk at lunchtime

 

30 minutes walk/training in field including down, stay, and fetch in evening.

 

However, you may be surprised to hear that on Sunday i took my 8 year old daughter and Sam (my daughter was on her bike but i was walking) and we walked to a village 5 miles away and back through fields, we left at 2pm and didn't return until 6:40.

 

Prior to arriving back at our house, Sam was off the lead in a field and enjoyed a run around with another dog and still had loads more energy left.

[Laurelin]

This is really interesting for me. It's one thing I've wondered about a lot- if my current exercise schedule is enough for a bc. When I first got interested in owning the breed the first person I talked to, talked about doing 5+ hours at the dog park daily, plus walking, and training, etc. It was a bit intimidating.

 

Anyways, for our non bcs, my routine varies a lot. Right now I'm at home with my dog and my dad's 4 dogs. I wake up and we do 30 minutes of fetch with the boys. This turns into an indoor free for all with the 4 younger dogs wrestling and fetching the toy. Then I feed them and in a couple hours we go outside for a 15 minute run out behind our house. In the winter and fall we go in the woods but now there's snakes and ticks so we stay in the field. We don't actually do walks at all. I do a training session individually with each dog which takes an hour and a half by the time I've worked with all five. We work on agility commands, tricks, shaping, games, etc. With the pup I'm just trying to build an attention span because he doesn't have one at all. (He's a mess) Later in the day I go out and paint or read outside and they run themselves around the yard or sniff around. Sometimes I take pictures or bring a ball outside. This time varies- could be 40 minutes, could be a couple hours. Just depends. Typically they get a couple other 10-15 minute fetch games in a day from the rest of the household and some more hang out outside time when my dad is home. Every day I take two of them in the car to pick up kids, which they love, and almost every weekend we do 4 or so hours at the ranch just letting them off leash. There's also one agility class for Summer a week. They're really good though if the weather doesn't permit outdoor playing or I'm sick. They're fine with just playing indoors every now and then. It's important they have an off switch.

 

When I'm at school with just Summer, it's tricky. She does not play with toys or do well at dog parks, so I get very creative. It's be a lot easier if she'd fetch or play with other dogs. I wake up and take her outside every morning. We go check the mail and walk about 15 minutes down the road and back. We have a few trick/training sessions a day for 15-20 minutes each. My apartment has a nice field behind it where I (illegally) take her off leash. The bad part is she only runs if I do, so we chase each other around the field for 15-30 minutes a couple times a day. I even set up agility jumps behind the apartment sometimes (and make a fool of myself) but she enjoys it. Our big exercise is we do 1 1/2-2 1/2 hours at least of walking daily on campus where there's a ton going on. That really seems to satisfy her because there's hundreds of people, usually other dogs (we've even run into elephants and tightrope walkers on our daily walk before). Sometimes we power walk the whole thing, but she likes to sniff everything out and chase squirrels, so I take it leisurely. She loves the car rides there too, I think they might be her favorite part. On the weekends we're outside quite a few hours a day walking and I bring some books for me and some chews for her and I study and she people watches. I also jog 3-4 times a week but Summer doesn't go on that, hopefully my next dog will. And hopefully they'll play fetch or frisbee or something of that sort. My dog actually gets a lot more exercise when I'm in an apartment just out of necessity.

[Shetlander]

When I first got interested in owning the breed the first person I talked to, talked about doing 5+ hours at the dog park daily, plus walking, and training, etc. It was a bit intimidating.

 

Yeah, that's what I refer to as the Border Collie Hype. I stayed away from the breed for years because I thought they were freakishly intense dogs who needed hours of exercise a day. That certainly isn't my lifestyle or interest. While Border Collies do need a good outlet for their mental and physical energy, more than many dogs, they still adapt nicely to individual circumstances.

 

So while Quinn would be quite happy to exercise for 5 hours a day and beyond thrilled to work sheep daily, he seems fine with 30 - 60 minutes of active exercise (running to play with other dogs or more likely fetch) each day. I'm not even doing much in the way of training these days, which I feel bad about because I know he enjoys it and would do well in obedience and agility competition. That said, Quinn is very integrated into my life. He goes to work with me three days a week, rides shotgun when I run errands, is always by my side when I'm home whether inside or out in the yard. This seems to work fine for him.

[Ooky]

Yeah, that's what I refer to as the Border Collie Hype.

 

I went to the dog park once and a guy with a lab and a bc mix came up to talk to me about Odin. He just kept saying, "20 miles a day, dude, 20 miles a day. That's what it takes." Odin most certainly does not require 20 miles a day.

 

I still think it's more mental stimulation and companionship than anything that keeps him happy and calm during off time. I don't wish to exercise him physically to his limit even beside the joint/health issue, because that would be an insane amount of exercise.

 

When I went to the farm for training last weekend there were lots of farm dogs there (mostly kelpies, but still). All but one (the 13 yr-old former best trial dog and sire of many of the younger dogs) were tied or kenneled when not being used to work livestock. Any given dog might sit for hours relaxedly watching the trainer if she was in their line of sight. Then, when needed, the dog was released and worked very hard until a given job was done, or when done practicing. They all were in great shape. The 13-yr old was older, but still chose a similar life of relaxing followed by spurts of activity.

[Anda]

I think spending 5 hrs DAILY at the dog park or exercising them 20 miles/day is totally nuts. You can do it once in a blue moon, for fun, or if you just have THAT much time on your hands. I, for one, don't.

 

My dog gets daily walks, regardless of the weather - btw, right now, in the middle of spring, it's snowing here in Dever but luckily Chris had the honor of taking the dog out with the Jolly Ball in the snow, not me We live in an apartment - no cozy back yard to just let the dog out to do his business. We walk for 10-15 minutes morning, afternoon and evening. In the afternoon he gets anywhere between 20-40 minutes of off leash play (ball/frisbee) on a nearby field which is part of the complex. Weekends - longer morning walks - usually an hour, and if the weather's nice, I'm taking him to one of the big state parks that have dog training areas, so he can swim and run for 1.5-2 hrs.

 

On the days when we don't have time to let him run off leash, he lets us know we forgot, and insists on playing with us and his toys - he brings toy after toy after toy and we're supposed to name the toy and play tug with him - regardless what toy he brings After a while an "Enough" lets him know it's time to cool down.

[Shetlander]

Ooky, too funny about the "20 miles a day, dude" story.

 

Anda, it's great having a fenced in backyard where Quinn can safely play (though my lawn becomes more and more torn up each year) but I wish we had places to go for long walks and swims like you describe. Sounds just wonderful.