How long a walk?

Hi our puppy is 13 weeks old / how long should we walk him per day? We've been doing 2 X 15 min walk morning and night x

 

I think (and I'm sure other wiser owners will be along shortly), that puppies should have 5 mins directed walking exercise per month of age, so for 13 weeks, 15 mins walking twice a day is fine. My boy is now almost eight months, so we have a 40 min walk in the morning, and 30-40 mins later in the day. It is easy to fall in to over-exercising as most Labs love being out and about, but puppies need rest time to allow their bodies to recover and their brains to process all the lovely new stuff they come across and learn.

Have a lovely time with Hugo, who is a beautiful puppy!

 

Are you walking your puppy on leash? There are a couple of "rules of thumb" about exercise, I followed this one loosely:

5 minutes per month of age of forced exercise allowed twice a day. Forced being and/or: on leash, straight line, constant pace, compelled to keep up, hard surface. I added in extreme heat or cold for my winter puppy, and deep snow.

Free play off leash on a soft surface like grass unlimited as puppy can change direction, speed, rest at will. Except, my puppy did not know when to stop so I had to monitor off leash play a bit too.

It's just a guideline but it seemed sensible.

 

I think what you're doing is fine. I'd use pretty much the same approach as Snowshoe

 

Thanks all this forum is great for a first time dog owner x

 

@Hugo's mum my approach was for the five minutes per month walking twice a day. Although on a lead the walk was not at a forced pace and allowed time to stop, sniff, have a look at the world. I allowed time for the sniff, stop and stare etc so in reality the 'walk' was longer than 15 minutes at 3 months.

 

Thanks all Hugo is enjoying his walks but not using them to toilet he is saving this for our garden when we get back if we are lucky or in the hallway if we are unlucky!

 

Oops Hugo!
If he does a poo or pee outside reward him really really well and tell him he is a good boy. If you can associate it with a cue word (hurry hurry, get busy, something like that) then you might get him to go "on cue" eventually - I haven't done that though, so not an expert.
If he toilets inside, do your best not to make a fuss - any reaction can be a reinforcer - and make sure you clear up with a urine neutralising product such as Simple Solution.