Hi All, Our puppy is now 6 months old (today funnily enough!). He goes to training for an hour one day a week, 3 days a week has a lot of exercise playing with my sisters dog while I am at work, and a couple of times a week he has a bit of a run around a field off lead. For the last 4-6 weeks we have been introducing walks on the lead, just 2 or 3 times a week for up to 20 minutes. He has rather found his voice and likes to bark at both people and dogs which we are working on , but his loose lead walking has been excellent for his age, I feel. However in the last week or so he has suddenly become obsessed with sniffing absolutely everything and our loose lead walking has gone rapidly down hill. For both of the above issues (loose lead and barking) my thoughts are he needs to go out more often so it's not so exciting but I wondered how often people walk their pups at this age? I don't want to do too much too soon, but nor do I want to miss the boat before he gets too big. Any advice appreciated, thanks.
I'd say that's not enough for a 6 month old dog. The training is good, but presumably is with the same people and dogs every week. A dog will rapidly de-socialise if not exposed to new people, new dogs, new places. And if you really want a young Labrador to walk nicely on a lead, you need to train this everyday if you can - and really you are very late to be starting this at 6 months old. Although early socialisation is critical, socialisation is an ongoing process throughout the dogs's life. My puppy was walked twice a day from 12 weeks old, and she still is at 8 months old and this will continue for the rest of her life (obviously the walks started at just a few minutes and we built up the time slowly). She gets to go new places at least twice a week, and I try to make this 3 times a week if I can. This is in addition to 2 or 3 training classes a week, off lead runs or off lead training every day, and trips to the pub, markets, and so on just incorporated into her day to day life.
My pups go out twice a day for walks and I slowly increase the time for each walk to 45 mins on lead by 12 months old. I would try practicing in boring areas where there are few sniffs - like quiet car parks etc. We do the 'short but loose' lead method so their noses can't reach the ground, but not everyone likes this way. I do like it and have seen it work with countless GD pups and four of my own. ...
Thank you very much both of you. So I need to be doing more which was what my gut feeling was! We shall crack on. Edited to add: We are now half way through the 'bronze' class having also spent 8 weeks doing the 'puppy' class first - we are with a new group of dogs now in the bronze class. We carried him about a lot before he had had his jabs and thinking about it, he has probably been walking for longer than 6-8 weeks but clearly still not often enough. You feel so protective but I have been feeling lately that he just isn't seeing enough sights!
