Young Dogs & Exercise

So Chaz has had a lot of excellent discussion lately and I have a question for you all...applies whether your dogs are pets, working, sporting, or some combination of the above!

For purposes of the discussion I am defining young dog as any time pre-adulthood. If you're a breeder that could in theory start on day one, but for most of us that's no earlier than 8 weeks, on up through adolescence.

When it comes to puppies and exercise there are a lot of strong opinions out there: sometimes backed up by data but largely individual.

What is your comfort zone when it comes to deciding what, your young dogs get to do? And when they get to do it? Are their particular things you go out of your way to do or not do? Why that approach? And what if anything will you do differently with future young dogs?

With Hank it's hard because 1) I don't really know for sure how old he is. My trainer thought his growth plates were closed and said she'd be fine with him starting lower jumps. But then he gained 4 lbs in a month and I don't know. and 2) He's SO dang active. He does far more to himself on his own terms than I could ever have him do. He flings himself on and off 5, 6, 7' ledges and tree branches. He runs for hours if he gets the chance.

We play by ear mostly and avoid repetitive behaviors. I am not letting him do any major jumping but we have started agility foundations- race to reward, going through jump stands, racing through tunnels. We started table work, we play tug but I don't swing him around on it or anything. I don't have a problem with walks, even longer walks at this point. We've done 3 miles many times. I would not jog him or bike with him (I plan on biking eventually) till he's a lot older.

We do swimming but he's not very good at it. He will jump in and swim out there but he tries to swim vertically and gets himself scared and comes back to shore. I'm hoping down the line he can learn better swimming form. :lol-sign:

I tried to take a middle road with Watson - not too much hard exercise, but not too much worrying about it either. I didn't jump him until 18 months (that's when we happened to start agility, I was open to it earlier), but he jumped plenty on his own. I didn't jog him on leash, but we did take long walks. For the first month home he probably walked 1-1.5 miles a day, broken into smaller walks. After that it was around 2-4. Most allowed for walking on dirt or grass, not just pavement, and I listen to him if he wants to stop. On his own he's more of an all day trotter than a sprinter anyway, so he's not likely to hurt himself while running free, so I've never worried about that.

I'm not the type of personality to do anything repetitively, whether jogging or jumping, so I don't worry about it too much. Any sport training or hard exercise we do is sporadic and limited enough that it's probably not a problem for most dogs over 5 months old. If I were more hard core about training I'd have to give it more thought.

With Priscilla I was really careful not to overdo it due to her breed's tendencies. But with Syl I am less worried, in part because I simply don't have the time I used to where overwork is a definite potential.

I don't really see 30 minutes of running and play as excessive for a 11 month old dog if they show the aptitude for it. I try to pick places wisely, on soft grass in particular.

If I was doing repetitive high impact training I would give it more consideration. But I am pretty sure the typical puppy in a multi dog household does a whole lot more running and jumping each day than Syl does in our 30 minute fetch session so I don't worry too much.

I'm pretty lax. No forced, sustained exercise until they're almost done growing/done growing (and I include walks without any variety in this as well) and I try to avoid having them injure themselves in typical play, but that's about it. I don't do agility, but if I did, i wouldn't start more than fun, basic training until growth was finished.

I limit long term high impact training, but I start them jumping early, just to get them comfortable with taking direction about jumping over and on things. I do vigorous tug sessions, but that's usually them that's doing all the shaking around. We do work towards calm holds and locking up, simply because I do play at IPO on occasion.

I limit their spring pole time no matter their age because they're idiots about it and would hurt themselves or hang there all day.

I let Indy and Ozzy play frisbee until they just about drop, but less so with Oz because he's prone to heat exhaustion and he's got terrible knees.