Too much exercise

Plum's mum

Plum's mum

Location
East Sussex
This is really interesting; I was talking about this to my mum who, when out walking Plum, met a guy with an American bulldog (I think) who she said was highly exciteable and energetic, frenzied really. The owner said he had to exercise him 5 hours a day!!

I said to my mum this was crazy and that the more exercise he got the more he would need.
She thought the dog seemed agitated and she was quite frightened of it. I’m guessing it doesn’t get much ‘down’ time or mental stimulation.
 
kateincornwall

kateincornwall

Location
Cornwall , UK
I can also associate with this article , a friend of mine has a one year old Labrador who has the most massive amounts of exercise , I`m talking three or four hours every day , but is still on the ceiling because she wants more ! I took the dogs to the woods very early this morning , and they have both been pottering around in the garden with me since we came home , so a very short 20 minutes this afternoon as I tend to play out in the garden with them in the early evening . We do silly little games which make them both think , and they then zonk out at around 8 x
 
Boogie

Boogie

Moderator
Location
Manchester UK
Hmmmm - this sounds like my husband. He’s an exercise freak and gets decidedly edgy if he doesn’t get his daily dose (an hour a day high energy cycling at the gym, he likes to average 18mph). I dread him breaking a leg :eek:

My dogs have no real exercise routine and as long as they’ve been out they are fine. Tatze and Zaba seem just as settled with half an hour as with two or three hours. To Tatze her number one priority is the sniffing, with Zaba it’s the swimming.

Spencer has more of a routine but the things he does when out with me are different every day. It could be a train/tram/bus ride, a pootle round the shops, a long free run, a 45 minute walk round a busy town etc etc. He seems just as satisfied whichever we do. Once he’s trained it’s likely that he’ll walk his owner to work (plus public transport) and snooze at work - with comfort breaks - then walk his owner home. With three or four free runs evenings/ weekends. I think this will suit him fine. :)
.
 
Jennifer

Jennifer

This is very interesting as both my dogs but especially Scout fit the description in the article. Exercise may also be the reason Scout has blood in his urine !!! Back in March I took S&S for their vaccinations. I also took a urine sample for Scout as requested to see if the mystery blood had settled down. It hadn't there was still "a bit of blood". Hillary told me the next step would be MRI/CT scan as they'd done all the tests they could. Unfortunately there's no way I could put my dogs through such a traumatic experience I may as well stick pins in them it would be less torture. Just getting Scout to the veterinary hospital would be too stressful for him to cope with never mind the procedure etc. Hillary agreed and pointed out that they had done all they could to find something nasty and couldn't. She then did the usual examination when a dog has its vaccinations. Yes I said usual examination !!! Scout let her touch him, even look in his ears with that whatsit thingy !!! To be fair he was frozen with fear and completely shut down so it's not quite as good as it sounds. Anyway while examining him she asked if he was very active which is a bit like asking do horses eat grass Scout never stops. She said he has a very athletic build and wondered if the blood in his urine was myoglobin. Apparently horses, greyhounds and runners can get it. It's the breakdown of muscle tissue because they are being worked hard and shows up as blood in a urine test. She suggested I try and keep him quiet !?!? :facepalm:
 
Heidrun

Heidrun

Jennifer said:
This is very interesting as both my dogs but especially Scout fit the description in the article. Exercise may also be the reason Scout has blood in his urine !!! Back in March I took S&S for their vaccinations. I also took a urine sample for Scout as requested to see if the mystery blood had settled down. It hadn't there was still "a bit of blood". Hillary told me the next step would be MRI/CT scan as they'd done all the tests they could. Unfortunately there's no way I could put my dogs through such a traumatic experience I may as well stick pins in them it would be less torture. Just getting Scout to the veterinary hospital would be too stressful for him to cope with never mind the procedure etc. Hillary agreed and pointed out that they had done all they could to find something nasty and couldn't. She then did the usual examination when a dog has its vaccinations. Yes I said usual examination !!! Scout let her touch him, even look in his ears with that whatsit thingy !!! To be fair he was frozen with fear and completely shut down so it's not quite as good as it sounds. Anyway while examining him she asked if he was very active which is a bit like asking do horses eat grass Scout never stops. She said he has a very athletic build and wondered if the blood in his urine was myoglobin. Apparently horses, greyhounds and runners can get it. It's the breakdown of muscle tissue because they are being worked hard and shows up as blood in a urine test. She suggested I try and keep him quiet !?!? :facepalm:
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Jennifer, one of my male dogs had blood in his urine a couple of years ago. I never found out why. My vet is a real country vet and doesn’t rush into expensive and invasive scans to come up with a diagnosis. He advised to wait and see. It disappeared after a while and so far it has never happened again.
 
Jennifer

Jennifer

Heidrun said:
Jennifer, one of my male dogs had blood in his urine a couple of years ago. I never found out why. My vet is a real country vet and doesn’t rush into expensive and invasive scans to come up with a diagnosis. He advised to wait and see. It disappeared after a while and so far it has never happened again.
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Thanks Heidrun hopefully the same will happen with Scout. There's absolutely nothing wrong with him in any other way. Thankfully Hillary is very much like your vet. I could tell by her face when she asked me if I wanted to go down the route of MRI etc that she didn't think I needed to bother. :fingers:
 
Selina27

Selina27

Location
Herefordshire, UK
Yes, this is very interesting.
Many people ask me when they learn that I have a young Labrador if I have to exercise her for miles each day, and assume that I spend hours doing just that very thing. Well no, I don't.
I do a lot of training during our walks, anything from heel, sit/wait to retrieving, and all sorts of games. On the days that I work, she may just get a lead walk one end and a short off lead walk the other end of the day. I always make sure she then gets a "walk" of an hour to an hour and a half at least 2 days a week, but other days we so 20-30 minutes training, maybe twice a day. I'm finding that now she is 3 she really enjoys engaging in activity sessions, rather than just me walking and her bumbling along. Whilst sometimes she's been a real live wire out and about,and loves to hunt, at home she's really relaxed and chilled. So I think I've got the mix right, for her :)
 
Emily

Emily

Location
Melbourne, Australia
Yes, I can definitely relate to this. We used to go out for a few km walk, get home and Ella would be done for the day. OH and I really like walking though (we love picking new places on the map that we've never walked before) and we've gradually brought our walking distances up. It's common for us to do 8-10km once a week with 4-6km regular walks. And boy have we noticed the difference in Ella! Now we can do a 10km walk in the morning and she bouncing around trying to get you to play in the afternoon! Luckily Nathan is usually happy to play :)
 
Lisa

Lisa

Moderator
Location
Alberta, Canada
Really interesting, thank you. I worry that Simba doesn’t get enough exercise, and he does spend a lot of the day sleeping, but he seems happy in himself and content with his routine. I tried hard to get him interested in retrieving so that I could toss balls and whatnot for him on walks when we first got him, but he got bored with that after just a little of it. He LOVES sniffing. That is what he would rather do on walks. So, hey ho that’s what he does!
 
Selina27

Selina27

Location
Herefordshire, UK
Selina27 said:
Yes, this is very interesting.
Many people ask me when they learn that I have a young Labrador if I have to exercise her for miles each day, and assume that I spend hours doing just that very thing. Well no, I don't.
I do a lot of training during our walks, anything from heel, sit/wait to retrieving, and all sorts of games. On the days that I work, she may just get a lead walk one end and a short off lead walk the other end of the day. I always make sure she then gets a "walk" of an hour to an hour and a half at least 2 days a week, but other days we so 20-30 minutes training, maybe twice a day. I'm finding that now she is 3 she really enjoys engaging in activity sessions, rather than just me walking and her bumbling along. Whilst sometimes she's been a real live wire out and about,and loves to hunt, at home she's really relaxed and chilled. So I think I've got the mix right, for her :)
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I like doing that too, picking a new place to go every 2 or 3 weeks or so. I would like to walk more really, but I have this wretchedly dodgy knee which hampers me somewhat :devil:. Luckily for us both I seem to have found the balance to keep Cassie happy.
 
snowbunny

snowbunny

Location
Andorra and Spain
My Labs get at least two hours a day, and generally a fair bit more in the winter. Exceptions being when it’s just too hot, or the snow is so deep it’s dangerous. They are very strong, fit dogs. But, they also settle really well. I think this is largely to do with me working from home, as they know that I can be there but not interacting with them.
I was interested to see if there was any relationship between their activity levels, sleep quality and fearfulness/reactivity, but in their case this doesn’t seem to hold true.

I can totally see how people who just chuck more exercise at a dog in order to calm them down is a disaster waiting to happen, though. Most behavioural issues aren’t caused by a lack of exercise, so trying to fix them that way just doesn’t work.
 
Cupcase

Cupcase

I have to agree with this article. Being brought up to believe in the dog must get walked every day put tremendous strain on my and Cupars stress levels.

After Cupar took his 'turns', some form of EIC, I had to stop all high energy exercise until tests were done, so I took to walking on lead, I found that walking everyday through the village made Cupar unresponsive to me and I had one highly strung dog. His reactiveness got worse.

By stopping the walks and spending time indoors learning to find stuff and going back to basic training, he calmed down enough to start again and learn how to manage a dog with some type of EIC and dog/dog reactiveness. He no longer gets lots of walks or ball throwing but he's just as fit and much happier.
 
Anne123

Anne123

Location
Vlaardingen, the Netherlands
snowbunny said:
I can totally see how people who just chuck more exercise at a dog in order to calm them down is a disaster waiting to happen, though. Most behavioural issues aren’t caused by a lack of exercise, so trying to fix them that way just doesn’t work.
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Isn’t this what CM teach the crowd? He let the dogs walk on a tred machine in order to calm them down...
 
Loraseal

Loraseal

Location
The Hague, The Netherlands
I had to read this as we are at the other end of the exercise spectrum. Due to Hunter's joint issues we have restricted exercise and more leash walking.He is walked 4 times a day. When Hunter has his big free walk he does not settle as quickly and fights his sleep. Maybe his endorphins are doing somersaults after the exercise? We do more things in the house to keep his brain active and healthy. I think for me every dog is different and it is important to be tuned into your own dog and to understand what works well and what doesn't work.
 
snowbunny

snowbunny

Location
Andorra and Spain
Jacqui-S said:
Maybe all dog owners need to try the relaxation protocol.
Just need to find the link to that now.
(done)
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To be honest, I gave up on it, because it bored me to tears :cwl:

My dogs just learn that I'm boring when I'm working. When they're small, I am boring for shorter periods and build up to longer periods, of course. I wouldn't expect them to just be able to handle me working for hours at a time with no interaction from day one :)
 
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