We've been having fun exploring our yard with our 10 week old. We own nearly 4 acres, but about half of it is thickly wooded. Yesterday he got pretty daring and explored the pathway through the woods between our yard and our neighbors yard, then followed our property line in the opposite direction to the other corner of our yard. All this got me wondering, what's the appropriate age to start formal walks? Right now we are completely satisfied with taking him off leash into our yard (after he's been a good boy and pottied!) and having him chase us around and practicing our recalls between mommy and daddy (hopefully we can get him to slow down from a full out sprint before reaching us before he's 80 lbs!), and walking him around the perimeter. And he's still way too distracted by everything on the ground for us to even think about walking him up our gravel drive way without him ingesting a rock or two. But I am super excited to take him on walks down our private road in the future, which is a little over half a mile with only three houses on it, so we don't have to worry about traffic or sick dogs. I know we will have to work up to a full walk and every dog is different and all that fun stuff, just curious at about what age it would be appropriate to transition to a more formal walk.
I started with our boy when, he was 8 weeks old. Just a short walk in the front yard to get him used to walking on leash. I started with 5 min lol of course he went from croc-pup to a lovable Hooligan. He gives me a bit of hard time getting his leash on, we working on that. Hope it helps.
Someone (sorry I can't remember who!) posted this chart on another thread and I thought it was really good! Very thorough, will answer your question. https://www.puppyculture.com/exercise-chart.html
I started formal leash walks probably at 16 weeks, but I'd been training loose lead walking from 11-12 weeks. At 6 months her leash walk is just a short evening walk around the neighbourhood to get her settled for the evening, and I just use her evening dinner ration as rewards.
I guess it depends what you mean by a "formal" walk? I do sometimes use that term and for me it means behaving himself on a loose leash around our village, other people and other dogs. Or training to. We didn't do that till vaccinations were safely over at 18 weeks. Till then we played in our backyard and went to infrequently used by other dogs bush areas and one new, mostly undeveloped subdivision. The subdivision was snow ploughed in hopes of selling lots till the owners gave up on that in a winter of higher than average snowfall. It was godsend while they did plough though. Oh, and on snowmobile trails. This was also how Oban learned his recall, off leash from the get go. We did arrange to meet up with a few dogs we knew were safely vaccinated themselves and one puppy only two weeks older.
I trained 'walk by my side' in the garden from 8/9 weeks. Then at about 11/12 weeks she was doing 2 minutes walking to my car and driving for 15 minute off lead (I didn't 'walk' I took her to a private rugby field, and to a bridle path where I was very unlikely to meet any other people or dogs). I gradually upped the lead walk training to 10 to 15 minutes (which is what she does now at 6 months) and the off lead training to 30 minutes. I still don't consider I have taken her for 'a walk' and she's six months. We just go out to train things. I usually get to where I'm going, and stay more or less in the same area.
I train mine to stay within about 30 feet when we are walking in the woods. They run, potter, hooly and sniff but never go out of sight. We train this by taking a dog to a place with some boundaries at first (like a park) and hiding and changing direction often during the -short - walk, causing the dog to look for you, treat when they 'check in'. But don't call them back. Then quite soon, within a few days, they never let you out of sight. Once they are doing this they can enjoy free runs anywhere. Our pups don't get any free runs at all until they are 17 weeks old. We work on recall too - as taught in Total Recall, this begins as soon as the pup arrives ---> It's worked with four pups so far. (Tatze and 3 guide Dog pups) In the woods -
We had Holly on a led in the back garden from the start. When her jabs were done we did car journeys and very short lead walks in a whole load of places as part of her socialising. She did her first off lead in some local woods at about 4 months. We stuck more-or-less to the five minute rule while she grew. Like Boogie, we did lots of changes of direction in the early days. We also hid behind trees and rewarded her when she found us. She learned not to go too far away and to keep an eye on us. We still play that game four years on!
