Realization

[Jenne]

Chase is a higher energy dog than I'd realized. Prior to moving I'd thought he was a low, or medium, energy dog as he was getting older. We'd had a very large yard and he had a doggy friend to play with and I guess that was tiring him out. Now that we have a smaller yard (much smaller) and no doggy friend to play with, he's been a little crazy like when he was a puppy, lol. So we've been doing neighborhood walks, fetch inside the house, and a some training. I'm going to try and to set up some play dates as well.Oh, and I've brought him to the beach for the very first time!

What do you do to tire your dog out?

Pics of the beach from my cell phone:

 

[BostonBanker]

Hikes. Off leash in the woods. Swimming during our very short summer. They tag along when I take my horse out hacking in the fields. Training and agility practices/classes. We 'jog' around the neighborhood (sadly, my jog is about the pace of their walk). Fetch on the green in our neighborhood. Gusto has a "flirt pole" (aka lunge whip with a toy attached) that is especially fun when there are snow banks to tear up and down.

Playing in the house is tough, because I live in a tiny condo. Tug is good for Gusto, with lots of breaks for commands and tricks to keep his brain going as well. We also play a game where one dog holds a stay while I hide a toy in the house, then release the dog to go find it. Lots of excitement and brain work is good for tiring them out.

 

[*blackrose]

Currently just lots and lots of playtime. We live in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment with a small, unfenced yard. We rearranged our living room and bedroom to provide a lot more floor space, so there is room for puppy zoomies (even for a big dog) in the house now.

Once just playtime isn't going to be enough, there is a great field down the road (four or five huge soccer fields combined) and a walking path that we'll have to start utilizing. (Sucks, because it is literally a 1/4" mile down the road, but the road is WAY to dangerous to walk on to get there, so we'll have to drive. *sigh*)

The hope is that Abrams will be as off leash reliable as Cynder, and if that's the case, then we can really give them some good playtime not only in the yard, but in the woods behind our apartment.

 

[Laurelin]

I don't utilize my yard very much. It's tiny and it's boring. We go out there and play pretty rarely.

We do off leash hikes 3-4 times most weeks. We're at training (agility and nosework 2x a week). I bring both dogs usually because we can use the big empty field before or after class.

Mia's so small that she's easy to exercise indoors. She loves playing ball inside. I bounce the ball off the walls and she goes crazy going after it. But even so she NEEDS some time out of the house because she goes stir-crazy after a couple days of just house and yard.

Mia also eats all her meals either through training or a puzzle toy. Just one extra little thing she gets. I also give them chews while I'm gone to keep them a little occupied.

This morning I felt terrible so we gave them breakfast and Mia gets hers in her ball toy. Then we played ball a little bit. I had three empty boxes so I put Mia's ball in them and put the boxes in each other a few times and she will go nuts ripping up the boxes to get her ball. She loves destroying stuff so I let her sometimes.

Then we did some nosework in the house. I sound like a broken record but nosework is an awesome thing to do indoors. It takes a lot of mental energy for the dogs and really works to take off an edge.

Now she's crashed.

 

[AdrianneIsabel]

Training, obed, tricks, agility, Bitework, impulse control.

Also we throw the ball at the park but sometimes that's just fun for us, it doesn't tire my dogs out.

When we can we explore new places and run the dogs but that's every few weekends anymore.

 

[Laurelin]

Ahhh, spoke too soon. Now she's chewing a bully stick and not crashed, but she's content acting.

Ball playing doesn't really wear her out, she'd play ball indoors forever but it's enough for a day or so to kind of keep her from being too obnoxious. I usually put in some rules though too- make her hold stays and think a little. She loves playing ball on the bed, lol.

 

[JacksonsMom]

In the summer, Jackson wouldn't get much if it wasn't for my dads house. He's not a fan of the heat so he always tires quickly on walks and such, but then gets back in the house and is wired and ready to go.

SOO... in the summer, we usually will spend 3 days a week at my dads house with the pool (he swims for probably a combined total of 1-2 hours throughout the day) and the fenced in yard and the other dogs. I don't know what I'd do without the pool and a water dog.

At my mom's house, he can get quite bored. We'll usually hit up the dog park (but he doesn't really 'play' with other dogs that much anymore...) so it's not really exercise. I also take him out front on our HUGE hill with the Chuck-It and play fetch uphill. We do mental stuff before bed sometimes (training, treat puzzles, etc). He also runs small errands with me (he loves going to the bank) and we'll often visit a pet store. We have 90 acres of farmland behind us with woods that we explore in, but in the summer it's hard to because of the ticks and also they're growing corn this year.