Exercising your Dogs

Waiting for the tire to be thrown

Exercises for dogs. Exercising your dog. Exercise with dogs.

In my previous article “Diet for Dogs – Dog Food and Home Made Dog Food“, I have shared with you the process and little techniques I use to prepare meals for dogs. When you will read my previous article you will find that I invest a little bit more time and effort in feeding dogs than most common dog owners. But this practice is common amongst professional breeders. We tend to provide more to our dogs. That’s because of my personal belief to provide them the best that I can afford. Also, home prepared meals are more appealing to dogs because of different varieties of flavor and smell accommodated in these meals. This provides you a wide variety of options to test what is best suited for your pet pooch. But, I admit that this requires a great deal of pre planning, time and efforts to prepare these types of meals. As you can easily imagine that with my method of preparations good amount of proteins are supplied along with hefty amounts of fats and carbohydrates. To digest all this it is essential that I provide necessary exercise to them. Also according to breed, I vary the amount of feed provided and exercise given. As stated in my previous article I take them for morning running and then in evening for playtime.

Specifically speaking this is not playtime for every dog. I provide breed specific training for a little physical stimulation but much more focused on providing mental stimulation to check any tendency for aggression and destructive behavior.

In this article, I will provide a general overview of what it is like to get 7 dogs, of 4 different breeds to get proper exercise, without over pressurizing and over stressing their muscles and mind.

Okay, so let’s start.

First golden rule: Running is always the best form of exercise that owners can provide to their dogs. (Same is true for us humans also; easily available and cheapest form of exercise is running).

Waiting for walk

Though the duration and intensity of running are dependent upon various factors. These are.

1. Breed of dog.
2. Age of dog.
3. Sex of dog.
4. The personal capacity of the dog.
5. The physical condition of the dog.

I will explain these points one at a time.

Dog breed:

To begin with, let us take the breed factor first, how does it influence the duration and intensity of the exercise. For some reasons it is obvious that we have to vary exercise according to the physical limits of the breed, we are dealing with. You just cannot expect a Chihuahua to run like a Grey Hound. Isn’t it? Well, I started this just for fun, don’t mean it or expect it literally. Now, this is a very debatable question that even if we provide selective exercise according to breed, does it apply to every individual of the same breed?

The answer is “ No”.

No, you cannot give the same amount of exercise to every individual of the same breed. This depends on many things. Let me elaborate. The stamina of every individual depends on his history of sports, physical endurance and longevity of practice, proper diet, nutrition supplied also plays an important role in determining the amount of stress and work one’s muscles can handle. This fact is equally true in case of dogs, also.

• How much do you exercise them regularly?
• How much stamina do they have?
• How much do you feed them?
• Are you providing them adequate feed?

Commonly seen problems are either obesity in dogs or under nourishment. Mostly obesity, under nourished dogs, is usually the victim of abuse rather than just a result of lack of proper information on the part of the owner. Because who keep dogs out of their love will never leave them empty bellied or ignored. I will talk about abusive owners sometime later. Maybe never, because there are so many horrible people and their neglected pets out there, that we would need a separate blog to address and highlight this topic. Moreover, it is extremely painful to write about not just canine victims of abuse but almost every animal who is going through such hell. It always leaves me in unexplainable pain. It’s a different story when you see it happening and rush to help, but it is really difficult to give an elaborated account of what’s happening actually. Maybe just for me! I have great respect for those who are involved in animal rescue and bring this to notice of the general public.

Okay, this happened again.

I am so much easily distracted. That is a problem when you are writing unprepared. Filters down the mind.

So let us get back to our discussion. We are talking about exercising your dog. As you can easily follow through our discussion that, you need to strike a balance between the diet and exercise of your dog.

But remember this should not have to be a mind munching exercise to you. Don’t invest an excess of your time in planning the diet of your dog. Just remember, dogs love routine, a well defined and recognizable routine. Even if you feed them with the same type of meal daily, they will be happy to have it. The problem arises when there is not enough exercise provided by the owner to stimulate their hunger. Secondly, some dogs, especially dogs of the small breeds tend to grow choosy. They reject what doesn’t seems interesting to them. One factor that raises this problem is definitely the lack of exercise, other being lack of proper training to provide mental stimulation to your pet. This problem I will discuss later in upcoming articles.

• The first thumb rule is to provide a good amount of fats and carbohydrates if you are exercising your dog heavily and regularly.
• The second thumb rule is to provide feed equivalent to approximately 10-12% of body weight for dogs getting intense exercise on daily basis.
• The third thumb rule is to provide feed equivalent to approximately 5-6% of body weight for dogs who don’t receive much exercise on regular basis.
• The fourth thumb rule is to follow the third thumb rule with large and heavy breeds like St. Bernard, Neapolitan mastiff etc. Even 6% will mean 3-5kgs of feed on daily basis. If you won’t provide enough exercise then this amount of feeding will leave you with an obese dog which will be a huge liability in older age.

” So, you have to provide exercise according to the capacity of your dog, and remember running is the best exercise for any dog, just take care of the personal capacity of your dog. Don’t exhaust them too much. If you maintain a regular routine for running with your dog then slowly your dog’s stamina will increase and then a small amount of time invested will give a big boost to your mood, physical fitness and positive mental attitude to you. Same is true for your dog also. By doing this you will provide them with the sort of physical and mental stimulation needed to keep them becoming aggressive and destructive. “

I will give a general account of the amount of exercise needed for each breed to live happily.

     Tug of war
Now let me give you an elaborated account of my general practices of the evening play with my dogs.

I have to exercise different breeds at once so I use multiple toys to get them interested. All of my large dogs love to play with the basketball. They are not allowed to chew the ball (they had punctured many already, in fact, I buy around 10-12 basket ball every year). But they love it. Sometime soon, in the near future, I will post a video of me playing with my dogs.

I also use the bike and car tires. My dogs, especially shepherds love to play with them. Tiers can be used in multiple ways to play with your dogs. You can just throw them, hang them with a rope, play tug of war with them. Please take care of one thing, if the tiers are steel radials, please reject the tiers at once. This will pose danger to your dog, they might get cuts and bruises and in a more serious condition, they might get some infections. For me, cheap bicycle tiers work best. They are rugged, elastic, strong, comes in many sizes to suit almost all breeds and do not possess steel radials inside them.

I have also made an obstacle course for agility training by myself with easily available household items and general hardware. My working breed dogs love it. Especially German Shepherds. Four point jumps, elongated ramp jumps and other difficult obstacles I have reserved for Doberman and German shepherd. Lower than this, three point jumps and other moderate exercises are provided to St. Bernard and Labrador. And to my German Spitz and Dachshund, anything those rascals are happy to do. They are difficult to motivate. German Spitz is showing difficulty in moving, maybe age. But, Dachshund, oh my, she just won’t listen. Her notorious behavior is even more surfaced when someone visits to see my dogs. In front of strangers, she behaves like a Boss. But she is my love, as all others are. The obstacle course is a very proficient way to get your dog good exercise and it’s great for mental stimulation. I will take up this topic in my later articles when I will give an elaborated account of exercising equipment you can make at home to enjoy play time with your dogs.

As for the question of duration and intensity of exercise depending upon breeds, there are some thumb rules.

The fifth thumb rule is;

1. You can give intense long running sessions to mostly all sight hounds.
2. You can give long easy moderate speed running sessions to most working dog breeds.
3. You can give moderately long, moderate speed, easy running sessions to heavy mastiff breeds and scent hounds.
4. You can give a light stroll to mostly all small and toy breeds on the lane just in front of your home. (Remember to check traffic at the time you will be exercising your dog).
5. It is extremely important to remember to not to over exert short nose dogs breeds like pug and bulldog.
6. One more thing please choose exercising time when temperatures are low. Early morning 5:00 am to 6:00 am is best suited for heavy exercise.

Age:
Age also plays an important role in deciding the intensity and duration of running. Short, multiple, slow bursts of runs are sufficient. For very small puppies and very old dogs, easy stroll with no exertion is enough. Don’t push them; otherwise, you will damage their muscles or internal organs. I will give account on what exercises should be preferred for juniors and seniors of dogdom.

Having pointed out aged dogs and little puppies, you can give a good amount of exercise to most breeds from age of 12 months onwards. There is some exception with slow maturing breeds like Great Dane and St. Bernard. Don’t push them to limits until they are 18 months old. Their bones are slow to mature, so no big leaps or deep jumps for them.

S@x:

Sex also plays an important role in deciding the duration and intensity of exercise for your pooch. Generally speaking, males can take more exercise than females and there is a good reason for this. Males tend to have more muscle mass, they are heavier than females and larger lung capacity results in greater stamina. Behavior also comes into play as a male dog is more outgoing than females. Female dogs, in general, are evenly attached to the whole family but male dogs share a special bond with the person who is feeding them more frequently than other family members and takes them for a walk and playing outside. Just as like in case of boys and girls.

By this it should be noted that this is true in general, sometimes individual females tend to break this pre conception. One of my German shepherd females is more outgoing, playful and energetic than my Doberman male. She is so much eager to play that I have to restrain her during her pregnancy, injury, and menstrual cycles. Same is true for individual males also. Some male dogs can be a bit difficult, lazy and lethargic.

Sleeping After 5 Km Run

Personal capacity and physical condition should also be taken care of when exercising your dog. These I have already explained in this article above. One point that I might have missed is that you should never exercise your dog under following conditions, without consulting your vet.

1. Injured dog. 
2. Sick dog. 
3. Dog on heavy medication. 
4. Senior dog. 
5. Pregnant bitches. 
6. Female dogs during menstrual cycles.

Rest said now enjoy exercise with your dog. Be it a long run, a log jogging session, a gentle stroll, just a walk, play time in the park, whatever it is, enjoy.

I hope this will help you in organizing your dog’s exercising routine. Please send me your suggestions and comments. They are extremely important for me. Your comments and suggestions will help me greatly to improve this blog and also organizing my pets better.

Thank you very much for taking out some time from your busy routine to read my work.

Rishabh Pathak.