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Puppy exercise


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Hi everyone,

 

Indie is now almost 4 months old. He's a very drivey and high energy young boy who is ready for anything. I have a couple questions related to exercise (amount, duration, intensity, etc)

For the most part, I have heard very vague responses to how much exercise your puppy should get. I know that forced exercise is never a good idea, and we limit jumping off things and walking/running on hard surfaces as much as we can, but he loves going out to wide open spaces like parks or the now deserted beach (thank you winter), or on trails, for romps and exploring time but we want to ensure we're not "over exercising" or doing anything that could affect his joints negatively for the future.

In the morning, we wake up and head out for a 45 minute-hour long "walk" along the beach. I put walk in quotations because my partner and I stroll along slowly while Indie zooms around or stops to sniff - it's up to him - all we ask is that he respects he stays within a decent range and respects his recall. If he looks like he's slowing down or seems like he's mentally checking out, we take him home. These are off-leash or with a long line.

We take him for another outing when we get home from work, these are usually longer and can sometimes be up to 2 hours. But as mentioned, he's off-leash or on a long line and can set his own pace and it is on grass or sand, sometimes dirt. He wanders around, runs when he likes, or stops to sniff or whatever he feels. We walk very slowly and sort of just meander around wherever we are. We also stop often and work on commands around distractions, or just take photos of him, etc.


With that said, he can be outside with us for up to 3 hours a day - some days we cut the evening walk shorter and do a longer clicker training session in our home. Is this too much for a 4 month pup? He seems to do best when he gets two outings a day, and settles nicely in our home when he's on this schedule but should we be shortening the duration of these outings?

Look forward to your responses!

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Your afternoon walks seem a bit long, the thing is even if he seems to be keeping up, it still isn't healthy to get to much exercise as his muscles can develop to fast leading to poor connection between bone and muscle. I would consider cutting your afternoon walk down a bit, and if you havn't already talk to your veternarian about how much exercise he is getting. Depending on his activity level 3hours might be necessary for him

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