How much exercise does your dog get ( working breed ), how much is enough?

[marne2]

Ok, so I often post about my crazy dog. He never settles, always whines and every time I move he jumps up.

People keep saying 'he needs more exercise' but I'm spending most of the day exercising him ( I feel it's taking over my life ). Our average daily routine is as follows:

6am we get up and he is fed ( I feed him by chucking his food across the garden to keep him bust for 10 minutes ).

8am he is either walked or we play ball for half an hour on the field in front of our house ( I play ball until he slows down and is worn out ).

9.15am I get back from the school run, he is full of energy, pacing around and whining, I try to ignore or I give him a bone ( or stuffed kong ).

12pm, he is still whining , he whines whilst I eat my lunch so after lunch I take him for a long walk ( around a hour ) which also involves half an hour chasing the ball across a field, constant running.

2pm and he is full of beans again, pacing around, jumping up as soon as I look at him. I ignore.

3.30pm I get back from school run, by now he is hyper, jumping around,playing with my other dog and the kids.

4.30pm he starts whining for his dinner ( which isn't until 5.30pm ) I ignore even though the whining is doing everyone's head in.

5.30pm, I feed the dogs, again I feed him by scattering his food over the garden for him to sniff out.

6pm and he is whining again, wanting a walk, I hold out as long as I can in hope to tire him out enough for him to sleep during the evening. Eventually I give in and he is walked again for another 45 minutes to an hour and plays bull for most of this ( so is running for over half an hour ).

7.30pm, I'm trying to put the kids to bed and dog is pacing around winding the other dog up ( who is trying to sleep ), I end up having to shout at him to lie down.

8.30pm he eventually sleeps.

I feel I have tried everything to teach him to settle, I try and reward him when he lies down but as soon as I do this he jumps up and gets hyper again and takes a hour to settle back down. If I keep any for of treat on me he goes crazy. I'm tired from all the walking and playing ball, I rarely get time to spend with my family ( the dd's can't walk with me due to a medical condition ). I want to be able to miss a walk if I am feeling tired or ill but I can't as he goes crazy.

For those who can't remember my other posts, he is a almost 2 year old lab x collie, we got him as a pup from a rescue, they have offered advice ( told me to stop walking him as much as I'm giving him too much attention ), have tried doing this but it was hell.

WOW - you really are working hard with your ddog. I thought I had a high energy collie but I may reconsider this (looks over at dog sleeping).

We have a strict regime of exercise / brain work that you might like to try. Exercise alone wouldn't knacker my ddog, he is from working stock and designed to run in the hills all day.

During his morning game playing - like you we take a ball out to a field - we use a combination of just running and skills work to knacker him. Sits / stays / impulse control. We are getting good at distance direction, where we direct the dog to different points in the field before throwing the ball. The trick is to engage his brain, not just his brawn. Have you tried this?

There is a great book 'brain training for dogs' which runs through different tricks to teach your dog. Some for in the house (perhaps your kids might like to try them? )

Do you think he might be over stimulated? ie the more he gets the more he wants? have you tried sticking to 2/3 good walks/ exercise sessions a day?

Making the food into another exercise session sounds like it could be winding him up a bit too?

springers, labs and collies, about 6 hours a day, off the lead in a field, labs and springers when on a shoot get an hour or so in the field to burn off energy (and bring their behaviour into line) before going to work. collies depend on season, when moving sheep or during say lambing season fr instance their workload and exercise differs greatly.

My initial thoughts are that it sounds as though you are giving him buckets of physical work to do, but not nearly enough mental stimulation. I'd swap at least one of these sessions and possibly more for training rather than just straightforward zooming about. Collies and labs both usually really enjoy training (colllies are particularly bright) - have you thought about agility, obedience, or Rally with him?

I had this issue with my lab for awhile. What helped for me:

• taking him for a long walk early in the morning - it seems to settle him for the day. If I wait til midday he is bonkers all day.
• structuring his exercise - he's not very good at games too stupid but when we walk we practise recall a lot and always take a different route so it's new for him.
• when he whined, I deliberately broke eye contact with him. If he didn't shut up after 2 minutes I would take him out of the room and shut him in the kitchen but leave the door ajar so he could come back (ie didn't lock him away). After a few times he started to understand that he wouldn't get any attention if he whined and would come back into the room and lie down.

Ultimately you are letting him dictate to you. He knows if he whines for long enough he'll get what he wants. You need to teach him that's not true.

We had a collie cross that was a bit like this - in the evenings after a similar amount of exercise she would decide we might like to play with a specific toy and search that one out - and if we didn't play with that one she'd think of a different one and where she last saw it. If we ignored all the toys being thrust at us she chased her tail (she could do this for 30 mins very noisily, most of the time with her tail in her mouth). What worked with her was getting another dog (who turned out also to be a collie cross although she didn't look much like it as a puppy) and they would play for hours on end in the garden and race each other when out on walks.

Thank you for your posts, I do think he may be over stimulated. He is sat by my legs crying now, I feel like crying with him as I'm so exhausted, I can't do anything around the house as he just circles around my legs often knocking me over. I'm trying to ignore him and I'm not going to take him out until tonight ( stick to twice a day instead of 3 times ). He has various toy puzzles and kongs, I have spent a fortune on various things to try and get his brain working, he masters the puzzles in seconds and isn't very interested in the kongs. I have taught him 'lie down' but he just lies by my feet wagging his tail and crying, it's the crying which is really getting to me, it's like he's trying to make me feel guilty for not paying him any attention.

We have a large garden and the door is left open all day but he refuses to go out there even though he has loads of toys out there to play with and my other dog.

I have never met a dog like him, I can walk him until he can barely walk, he will come home, have a drink and then he is bouncing of the walls again.

Oh, and he constantly brings me a ball, even when I'm trying to eat and if I ignore him he picks it up and chucks it at me over and over.

Do you think it would be ok if I removed him from the room? We have stair gates and he mainly lives in the living room, would it be ok to shut him outside ( he will probably bark ) for a short time? I can't take listening to the crying any longer.

Marne, I feel for you. That would drive me to despair.

My dog is really active -he can spend all day pelting around the garden, checking the chickens, plastering a kiss on the children as they play, popping in to see that we're okay.... rinse and repeat. But if we're all in the same place he's more than happy to settle down in between us and snooze -all day if necessary. His main issue is that he likes to be with his family, so he doesn't like it when we split up because he spent know who he should be with!

I put him outside, he went nuts , managed to get him to shut up by shouting 'quite' through the patio door and then let him back in, he came barging in so I grabbed his collar, directed him to his blanket and told him to 'lie down', had to return him 3 times, he has now shut up and has moved to the arm chair ( but at least he is quite ), I now need to get up and I know he will jump out of the chair . I'm going to stay strong and not give into him. My other dog is led next to me with the 'look at me mummy, I'm being good' look on her face.

The sad thing is, I know the problem is with me, I went away with the dd's a few weeks ago leaving dh here with the dogs, he was fine with him, hardly any whining, dh took him out to play ball twice a day but didn't walk him.

My only piece of advice is remove all balls from the house - my dog is ball obsessed and from about 6 months old he is only allowed balls on walks or if we are specifically in the garden to play with him ,otherwise he is asking you to play all day . He also follows me about all day , we walk 3 x usually 45-60 minutes each time ,mainly off lead but I don't have a routine so he's not expecting to go IYSWIM . Some mornings he gets walked at 7 other times its 9 , lunchtime walks are anytime from 12-3 and then he goes again between 6-8 , doing it this way if I miss one out for some reason he doesn't seem to notice .

Thank you flora, I am trying to get him out of the routine by walking him at different times but even after being walked one day at 2pm he remembers the next day so will spend hours crying ( which is what happened today ), the day before last he only went out twice and didn't have a mid day walk, his memory is so good. We seem to have got through it today, he is now eating a bone and not asking for his walk, I will take him out later before it gets dark and hopefully he will settle.

Rather than throwing his food outside get him a treat ball and feed him from that ( the only ball mine has indoors!) .

Have you thought about create training for when you need some alone time?

How much training do you do with him? Teaching him to do things should tire him out way better than just running about.

Clicker train him and train him to help you do housework...that'll tire him out and stop him getting in your way, things like emptying the washing machine and putting things away or in the bin are fairly easy to teach.

Scentwork is also good for tiring them out.

Along the same lines as other posters I'd cut down his physical exercise and get his brain working more.

Floral's suggestion of a treat ball is a great one. Although chucking his food outside gives him some more leg work it's not terribly challenging for him. There are loads of good ones on this site ranging from easy to more challenging. The Kong Wobbler and Nina Ottosson Dog Pyramid go down well in this house. This one and this one are a bit easier on your ears and the skirting boards. I also found this one on Amazon which you can change the difficulty of. Treat balls are a godsend for me in really bad weather as my whippets go on strike and refuse to actually do anything out on walks, preferring to just do wall of death round the house instead Dividing their food up and giving them lunch in a toy really helps curtail the zoomies.

Playing '101 things to do with a box' is great for really getting a dog's brain working. My lot aren't terribly interested in normal structured training but they love it when the box comes out!

Have you had any advice off a trainer of behaviourist? I really think you need someone professional to come in and see him at home and try and work out what is going on

I have always had collies, they need an hour walk a day ish or a couple of smaller, a game of ball every now and again. We do obedience, agility (and we h e done rally) but you can teach them calm (mines been asleep all day and hasn't been walked yet as I have sprained my ankle so she's waiting for her old man )

We have various treat balls including the kong wobbler ( which he empties within a few minutes and it sends him hyper ), I have spent so much money on various things after getting advice on here and behavioural groups , I really can't afford to get a behaviourist in or I would have done it a long time ago .

We have done clicker training with him from day 1, he has a great re call, will sit, lie down, get down etc..., have tried doing more complicated things with him including agility in our garden ( we have no groups near by ) but he just gets more hyper, we taught him to put balls into buckets. I'm just struggling to find enough time to spend doing these things, I have 2 dd's with sn's and dh has just been diagnosed with arthritis in his legs, I'm spending way too much time trying to please the dog and not enough pleasing everyone else.

My working dog ( collie) get one good walk a day ( hour isn) runs twice a week and has garden access.

She's very good. We use a frisbee on walks and it only gets used then. She like to play hide and seek with it.

Sounds like your feeding the attention seeking, hve you tried time out, in another room?l

It sounds like he's got you well trained!

I have a 12month old collie and she is really active. I take her out for an hour in the morning and do odd bits of training and games throughout the day while the kettles boiling, then a shorter walk at night.

Tbh I have to shut her in the kitchen with access to the garden several times a day otherwise she would be pestering us all the the time.

I think you need to shut him away when you're busy so he can learn to amuse himself.

Balls in buckets can be adapted easily to putting toys or dirty washing away though - that's what I meant by being able to do it while getting on with other things.

What is he fed on?

A crate or secluded room for set rest times might be an idea.

If you're struggling with him a behaviourist might be worth trying as well.