Ask Honey #3 – How much exercise should I give my puppy?

“Ask Honey!” is a new series of posts in which I will answer questions sent to us via the ‘Contact Honey’ page.

~ Hsin-Yi

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Hello Honey!

My name is Zeppelin and I am a 9 month old Great Dane. My mom loves your videos and has been able to teach me many new tricks, and we are grateful for all the time and effort you have put in My mom was just wondering what the recommended time should be to take me for a walk. I do have a lot of energy and get very excited, so she wants to make sure that she gets me the right amount of exercise a day so that I am burning off all this pent up excitement. Do you have any tips for her? Thank-you for taking the time to read this and for your future response. We really appreciate it!!

Zeppelin

Thanks for your lovely message and kind words – and I’m glad you’re finding the videos useful!  

I’m not sure if I’m the best person to answer this question!   – as we were awfully “relaxed” with Honey when she was a puppy and didn’t follow all the exercise restrictions that most owners of giant breed puppies are supposed to. Therefore if any large breed dog owners reading this would like to add their thoughts, please do in the comments below – we’d be grateful for your input.

First of all, before I talk about how much exercise and what’s safe – I just want to say that it’s a very common misconception that physical exercise is the only way to satisfy the needs of  energetic pups/young dogs and so people tend to only focus on how much physical exercise they need to give their dogs. If the dogs remain excitable and full of energy, they keep assuming they’re not giving them enough physical exercise.

In actual fact, dogs develop stamina far faster than you can keep up with them: this means that if all you do is use physical exercise to tire your dog out, you will have to keep doing more and more as he improves his stamina and will need more and more to tire him out! It becomes a vicious circle. You’ll be exhausted and your dog will still be bouncing off the walls.

So what’s the solution? Exercise his mind – through training and games. I know I seem to keep harping on about training all the time but it really is the cure for so many ills and has so many great advantages to boot! Mental stimulation will do far more to tire your dog out than all the walking in the world. They say that 10mins of intense training is equivalent to 20mins of running.

“Training” doesn’t have to mean doing obedience drills – you can alternate between practising the important & necessary basic obedience exercises (Down, Stay, Come, Heel, etc) and other interactive activities – like teaching your dog to fetch/retrieve a toy or ball, playing games like hide & seek with your dog (either finding you or finding an item) and teaching your dog fun tricks (shake paws, play dead, balancing a biscuit on the nose, etc) or even using clicker training to do some free-shaping… Basically, keep teaching your dog new skills, keep expanding his vocabulary, keep testing his abilities…Keep Challenging Him. (Remember, learning new things is very tiring – especially for a Dane! )

It doesn’t matter what it is as long as you’re making your dog concentrate and use his brain. Don’t consider training as a ‘once-a-week-bootcamp’ – you should do it as part of your daily walk. I may walk Honey for about 40mins a day but 10mins of that is stopping somewhere on the way and doing a bit of training. For a young, excitable dog, I would actually recommend that you start the walk with some training – this will help to calm him down a bit and remind him to focus on you. We always did 5mins with Honey in our garden or pavement in front of our house, before we set off on our walk or in the carpark before she was let loose in the park – just a bit of Heeling and then a couple of Sits & Downs and Stays – maybe even a short Recall – or even ask for some simple tricks –  just to “switch her mind on”, get her to focus on me and take the edge off her excitment. It made her much more manageable on the walk afterwards.

It also shows the dog that he “earns” the reward of his walk by focusing on you and “working” for you first. Remember the NILIF system? (Nothing In Life Is Free) – that should be applied everywhere in your dog’s life, especially when you have a “life reward” that your dog really values. There’s probably nothing as exciting to your dog as his walk so take advantage of that – show him that he can earn that “life reward” by paying you attention, practising self control and doing things you asked for. This also shows your dog that he gets things by being calm and well-behaved, rather than acting like a hooligan. That he gets his walk AFTER he has managed to focus on you and behave calmly – NOT when he is jumping and tugging and being over-excited.  

Another way to stimulate your dog’s brain is to continually expose him to new things and take him to new places. You should continue socialising your dog all the way through his first year (dogs go through a second “fear period” at around 7-8 months) and ideally throughout his life. So you should aim to try and give him at least 1 new experience a week. It doesn’t have to be a big thing – it can be something as simple as a new surface he has never walked on before or a different noise he’s never heard before. A lot of things we take for granted are pretty spooky for dogs! I remember Honey got to her 1st birthday before she ever saw a balloon and she was terrified of it!

Honey’s so busy recovering from her new experiences all the time, she’s always worn out and sleeping whenever she can!

An easy way to socialise is to take your dog somewhere completely new every so often – even just a street he’s never walked through before. People tend to fall into ruts and do the same walk every day with their dog (down to always turning right when they walk out their front door or always walking on the same side of the street, etc!) Try to have a few different walks (eg. different parks, around the block, downtown) and rotate them – so that by the time your dog goes back to the first walk, there will be new smells (new peemail!) and new changes to the environment to occupy him.

Even if you have to do the same walk, try to change it up a little if possible – if you always do the loop in one direction, do it in reverse. If you always turn right at this corner, try going left for a change. If you always walk on this side of the street, try the other side.

Also, do a mixture of leashed walks through streets and off-leash romps at the park – don’t always just take him to the park and let him tear around with other dogs. Do some walks where you expect your pup to walk calmly past other dogs and ignore them – and other walks at the dog park where he can socialise with other dogs.

Keep things unpredictable – keep your dog guessing – this will also do a lot to support your position as pack leader and remind your dog that he has to constantly pay attention to you and look to you for direction. The minute you become too predictable, you’ve lost some of your ‘mojo’!

Finally, I don’t know if you’re in training classes now but if not, I would strongly recommend them. Even if you don’t have any serious behavioural issues or are not planning to do any kind of dogsports, just attending training class once a week is a great way to stimulate and socialise your dog. Don’t see it as a chore – see it as a weekly ‘date’ with your dog, where you can spend time just enjoying being a “team” together – learning new stuff, testing your teamwork skills – and also a great chance to meet other dogs and people.

Through her first year, starting from puppy kindergarten at 12 weeks, Honey was never out of a training class – I didn’t have any specific ambitions for her – we weren’t necessarily working towards a specific goal – it was just something fun we did once a week together. Dogs are supposed to be your “best friend” and yet there is so much you CAN’T do with your dog – you can’t go to the movies together or enjoy a meal in a restaurant or go shopping together…

Walking and cuddling are great but they are all quite “mindless” activities – if you want to do something together that’s actually engaging the brain, then training & playing games is the only way you can enjoy working together as a team. I love watching Honey discover things and learning new things with her together - to me, being a team with your dog is really what dog ownership is all about.

Anyway so remember – to tire your dog out, it’s often not about how much to exercise but how differently to exercise him.

OK, now about how much physical exercise to give…You ARE supposed to be very careful with exercising any large breed of dog during their first year, as they are growing extremely rapidly (in the case of giant breeds, the growth can be frightening – your puppy can literally double in size overnight!)…

…giant breed puppy growth!

- and so they are very prone to developmental diseases and deformities. In Danes, this can be as serious as OCD & HOD , which can severely lame the dog, or as mild as “pano” (panosteitis) which is essentially “growing pains” and will usually go away of its own accord.

Thus many Dane owners and breeders will advise you never to let your Dane pup run in their first year, NEVER let them climb stairs and some even advise you not to take them on walks of any length or distance, saying that you should only exercise your pup in your own garden- so that they never get a chance of over-straining or damaging their musculoskeletal systems during the important growing phase.

I had a friend with a Dane pup who would panic every time her dog started to run or jump in its first year – she would make a fuss and instantly put it back on lead. Her dog certainly did avoid injuries but I did wonder if it missed out in other ways since it was never allowed to run and play normally with other dogs of similar age.

Personally, I feel that – aside from it being impractical (how on earth do you keep a dog the size of a pony happy and occupied in just your garden for a year, unless you’re the Duke of Edinburgh and own vast chunks of land??) – it is also dangerous to keep your puppy cooped up because he will be missing out on vital socialisation and training, which can lead to behavioural problems later that can have just as much impact on his/your quality of life.

*People tend to overlook the importance of socialisaion and training because it is something that only produces results slowly over time but it is just as important to your dog’s well-being as good health and in some cases, can be just as influential in leading to your dog’s death.

Honey at 10 weeks playing with 16 week old Dane puppies at a "puppy party" (you can see that even being smaller & 6 weeks younger, she was already playing really rough and giving as good as she got!

Therefore, I believe that it is really about trying to strike a balance between what is practical and necessary for “real life” and what is safe for your dog. I believe – like a lot of things in life – it’s about everything in moderation. For example, I certainly wouldn’t do Agility with my dog in its first year but on the other hand, I would let it run and play with doggie friends, as long as things don’t get too out of hand. I wouldn’t let my puppy jump off a great height but I wouldn’t panic if it did a little hop over a step. I would definitely take it out for walks but I wouldn’t make it pound hard pavements with me for hours on end – and I would certainly NEVER take it jogging (I would hesitate to take even an adult Dane jogging – they are not built for stamina and can overheat very easily. The constant high impact can also contribute to the risk of arthritis in later life).

With Honey, as I said, we were very ‘relaxed’ and probably let her do more than she should have (and maybe also because I’m strongly against “mollycoddling” dogs). For example, the house we were living in at the time had a flight of steps up to the front door and although she didn’t go up and down these every day (we usually took her in through the back door, which was accessed via a more gentle slope) – she did go up and down those stairs a fair bit in her first year.

Similarly, with exercise - as an inexperienced, over-enthusiastic, first-time dog owner - I was probably a bit over-ambitious!   I remember taking Honey on her first “walk” when she was about 10 weeks old - and thinking I would take her to the bottom of our street and back – a 15 minute round trip. Well, what seemed like a quick loop suddenly seemed like a HUGE  distance when I had a little puppy in tow and I quickly learnt my lesson when she stopped exhausted and I had to carry her all the way back! Let me tell you – at 1o weeks, Honey already weighed about 15kg (35lbs) and was about the size of a Staffie – no small bundle!

But yes – since I enjoy walking myself and consider 30mins a “short walk” – I probably walked Honey far longer and further than she should have at that age. I remember taking Honey for long walks around the block every afternoon - often 40mins, sometimes more – from 6 months onwards.  Overall, we also pretty much let her run and play and jump as much as she wanted.

If you haven’t seen it before, here is a video of Honey at 3 months (12 weeks) amusing herself running & jumping in the garden… (we had a very steeply sloping lawn – nothing we could do about that – although I did put up some wire netting to prevent her jumping off the retaining walls at the higher end – but I didn’t prevent her doing little jumps)

I’m not saying this was the right thing to do – it probably wasn’t – but Honey seems to have turned out OK, with good balance of muscle & movement and good structural development (level back, legs the same length, even gait, etc) . This might be down to good breeding or this might be down to luck – or even down to letting her have some freedom. There are some who believe that puppies DO need to be allowed some “rough exercise” in order to develop the muscles needed, otherwise they are actually more fragile & prone to injury. Who knows?

We may just have been lucky but Honey never had any developmental issues, other than a very short bout of “pano” and she is now nearly 7yrs old with – according to the last vet check – no sign of arthritis yet. Certainly she still moves with great speed & agility (when she’s motivated enough! ) and I don’t notice any stiffness or reluctance to do anything (other than when she is displaying the typical Dane wimpiness about things). 

Remember, though, that everything is a result of both Nature & Nurture combined. That’s why I keep going on about only getting puppies from reputable breeders – because if you get a pup with a genetic predisposition to poor hips or other structural deformities, then even if you never let them climb a single step, they might still develop problems.

Anyway, so I’m afraid I can’t really give you any specific times for how long or how much to exercise a Dane pup. (At 9 months, Zeppelin will have passed the most dangerous phase of rapid growth anyway). I would think that after 6 months, you should be safe to walk for at least 30mins a time – although I don’t know if others would recommend walking up to an hour. It will also depend on the pace you’re walking (is it continuous or do you keep stopping and starting?) and the type of surface you’re walking on (pavement is more unforgiving than soft grass). Some may recommend you split it into 2 smaller walks (eg. 2 walks of 20mins each, morning & evening) if this suits your schedule, so that your pup isn’t subjected to prolonged exercise in one go.  One thing I think you should absolutely avoid is jogging or any kind of forced, prolonged running and jumping until at least 18 months.

I think if Zeppelin has done well up to now then you’re probably fine with what you’re doing so far and if you can just add more  different training, socialisation and interactive activities to stimulate his mind, it should tire him out more and keep him content.

Hope this has been helpful and good luck!

~ Hsin-Yi

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(back to Honey…)

My blog friend, El’bow the Mastiff in Belgium, is celebrating his birthday next week and he’s hosting a great contest for the most creative birthday card from his friends. So here is my card for El’bow:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-ADo62LRH8