Hi all, I have an 18 month old lab Loki, at the moment I’m recall training so have him on a training lead when ever we are in fields, but what I’m wondering is, if certain days I can only do lead walks with him, how long a walk should he be getting? I know they say an hours exercise of off lead or playing ball etc, so I’m playing ball with him outside of his walk, and if I can I give him 15 mins of ball play on the walk to if we go through the field....yesterday I took him for an hour 20 on lead in the morning, and then 45 mins on lead in the evening and he had roughly half hour playing ball at home, is that enough for the few days a week where I have to do this?
Hi. When I do lead walks with my girl on the odd day (she’s 4 years old), we generally do 45 mins in the morning and 30-45 mins late afternoon / early evening. On these days I tend to do a bit more training at home to occupy her brain.
Most days Harley isn’t on lead at all as we are usually in woods or in fields, but occasionally we walk around the block which she loves when it’s dark or too cold to go far.
Coco seems to find lead walks with me more tiring (mentally) than his off lead walks, and more tiring than lead walks with OH who just literally walks along with Coco on the end of a lead. He has to concentrate and work on my lead walks. I try and do about halfy-half during the week.
Thanks all, just didn’t want him not getting enough, roll on when his recall is good so I can let him off again, I feel awful keeping him on his lead, even when I can have him playing ball on his training lead he doesn’t enjoy it half as much as when he’s free
Ah don’t feel awful, I think it’s fine especially if you schedule some short sniffing breaks on lead rather than just a forced march the whole time. And he is getting mad running time with his ball so it sounds like he is getting enough exercise certainly! My Pig has about half training/off lead walks with me and half boring on-lead stomps with OH (he is not proficient enough at Pig-wrangling yet to have her off lead as she is a hunter and no recall when pheasants/deer about). If she has to have two OH lead walks in a day instead of with me I will do some games and training in the house, hunting her toy etc. and some tuggy if she is in the mood. But if you want him to have some running without the training line, might there be a secure enclosed paddock or field you could borrow/hire occasionally? There is a website with a map of enclosed dog fields for the UK (not sure where you are located though) which might be an idea.
My dog's mostly walked on lead and gets about 70 mins plus a game on the back lawn. She gets a short evening walk a couple of times per week and these are usually a couple of off-lead laps around the local school. She has a massive back lawn to stretch her legs out on so I'm not concerned. Safe, off-lead tracks are few and far between here, so on-lead is my normal. She has a flexi lead for when we're on tracks and walkways so that she can still mosey about and have a good sniff, and I throw treats for her as we go so she's darting about and sniffing and getting good exercise. It works for us.
We try to mix the activities on a walk. The start and end are usually on lead, but we sometimes do a bit of lead work during the walk. About half the time Holly can do her own thing but we break up the walk with games (hiding treats in the grass, swimmy fetch, hide and seek etc) and a bit of training. This week we did a whole walk on the lead and in town just to keep Holly familiar with lead walks. I think they enjoy a bit of mental stimulation, a bit of play, and a bit of 'me' time on a walk.
I have one day a week where I do mostly lead walks. I go into town and walk around the streets and lanes just to keep his lead walking steady. I think he quite likes a nosey round the neighbourhood too. It just makes things interesting for him he likes a good sniff about. He sees different people and dogs .
