What does your dog do all day?

[Coriander71]

As a relatively new dog owner, I’m genuinely interested to know - it’s not something I thought about before. I - naively, I now realise - thought that if we gave our dog a couple of good walks a day, always had someone around the house to keep him company and provided a variety of squeaky, chewy toys, then that would make him pretty happy. Although this obviously fills some of the time, I still feel guilty when I’m trying to get some work done (I work from home) and Dastardly is whimpering and looking reproachful. But even when I do give in and try and play I’m not even sure what he wants me to do - I throw a ball and he looks at me like I’m an idiot.

You may have detected a certain lack of experience so please be gentle with me! Surely you ninja dog owners don’t play with them all day, do you?

How old is your dog? Mine alternates snoozing and pottering about by himself, and has done since he was an adult. If yours is an adult but fairly new to your home, he is probably still settling in and will need less attention once he is used to his surroundings. If he's a pup, he should grow out of it naturally.

My one year old mostly follows me around. It’s a bit disconcerting as I thought my days of not being able to pee in peace we’re over.
If it’s dh at home then apparently she is quite happy to potter about on her own. Until I return and then she’s at my heels until bedtime. She’s our first dog and the ‘loyalty’ been quite a shock!

My seven year old dog occasionally follows me around but if we’re on our own (no children) he generally parks himself in front of the tv on the sofa or bed and doesn’t move for the duration they do say it’s a dogs life!
If our little boys around he’s much more playful though does make a nuisance of himself
Too!!!

We work full time so some days he goes to day care which is brilliant, he comes home so tired. If we work from home he gets an hour or so walk (off lead) in the morning and then generally he sleeps till lunchtime. He goes for another 3 or 4 shorter walks for the rest of the day. When he was tiny we played and trained with him a lot. He's coming up to 18 months now so not as needy!

Sounds like you have a puppy! My dog 9 year old jack Russell does the following-
Comes on school run walk every morning, once home has a small meal, then follows me around most of the time, barks at birds, cats etc, begs for food, sleeps.

Afternoon comes again on school pick up, kids play annoy him for a bit, has dinner, sleeps a bit, about 8 I’ll take him over the field for a run.

Spends the rest of the evening on my lap, on my sofa, sleeping, begging for treats, rinse and repeat.

He like car ride too, as long as the window is open so he can stick his yappy little head out

My two do snoozing, playfighting and pottering with toys.

Then they have their long evening walk, have dinner, a little more playing and are zonked for the rest of the evening!

Bella's nine,she sits looking through the window,she snoozes,she follows me about and she hides the dentastix and chew in case Eric comes. Trouble is she forgets where she's hid them and Eric gets warned when she thinks he's near them even though they're somewhere else.

Thanks all - that’s quite reassuring. Jenniferturkington, you sound exactly like me - the sound of little paws tapping at the bathroom door is rather a depressing flash-back to the toddler years! Yes, Dastardly is still a pup - 8 months, and he hasn’t been with us long so it’s early days. Just harder than I thought it would be. Having said that, by evening he’s worn himself out and spends the evening slumped on the sofa with us so that’s good.

Mine comes out for a couple of hours in the morning. Sleeps solid on the sofa for 9 hours and then does a couple of hours out in the evening. He then doesn’t move a muscle until morning. (unless it’s raining then he spends 23 hours and 56 mins asleep and 4 mins eating and going to the loo!)

Sleep, eat, walk, repeat.

My 2 year old schnauzer is at daycare 3 days a week which she absolutely loves, she’s exhausted when she gets home so just about eats her dinner then flops down and sleeps till morning! A home day is an hours walk in the morning, following me around the house to snooze wherever I am, then a half hour walk in the evening.

SquirrelDog is 2. He likes to have me in sight at all times, except when he's stolen something inappropriate to chew. If I'm doing some kind of boring household task he's very happy to lie down and watch me. If I'm doing 'nothing' (on the computer, reading, watching TV), he likes to trample on me, paw at me, bark, steal things and generally be a PITA. If he's very tired, he'll take himself off upstairs to bed.

'Calm relaxation' is a work in progress...

My 2 mainly sleep, fart, irritate the arse of me play fighting and hang around hoping (in vain) to get food out of the fridge

Just adopted a greyhound and today I worked from home and he slept from 7.30am until 4pm when the kids came home. He didnt move except to get back on the sofa after falling off 😂. Then played with the kids a bit, followed me around reminding me it was dinner time, had a walk and straight back to snoozing.

My 13 yr old lab mostly sleeps apart from food and toilet breaks with a little walk in the evening

I have an extremely lazy two-year-old GSD. If he is not being directly played with or walked he is fast asleep. I used to be concerned about his energy levels but the vet has assured us that he's just bone idle.

Mine sleeps, potters about, chews on his toys/bones, plays a bit, and sleeps again! He's an eight month old beagle and is just getting into the habit of amusing himself.

I honestly never realised dogs slept so much. Why is that?
This thread is fascinating.

DDog1- snoozing, pottering, barking at the postman
DDog2- snoozing, playing with DDog3, following me around hopefully (but with no real idea what he's hopeful for) and searching relentlessly for the mouse that ran behind the Welsh dresser last year
DDog3- playing, throwing toys about, harassing her older and more sensible brothers, following me, rolling on the floor, poking her head through the cat flap, chewing DDog1's soft toys, badgering the cat, barking at everyone who walks past, watching the birds on the feeder, catching flies, warming her backside in front of the log burner, trying to sneak up the stairs to the cats food- she's relentless

Do you spend time on training OP? That will make him tired so he leaves you to get on with your work. He might not understand about balls, some dogs don't and you do have to show him how to play with different toys, so make sure he has a variety.

Do you take him to training classes. That'll help you to understand his needs and how to interact with him.

My dog, 7 years old, spends a lot of time lying around, sometimes she's asleep some times she's just staring at nothing. She wanders around the garden, we go for a walk or two, play from time to time. She's long haired and likes to be brushed so I spend some time grooming her, although not every day and I tend to do that when we're sitting quietly in the evening.

She rarely follows me around. The only time she will suddenly appear is if I'm chopping vegetables and she thinks there's a possibility of carrot. And she likes to sit with me when we get home from a walk. I sit and have a coffee and she'll jump onto the sofa beside me.

Other than that she's quite happy to be on her own and will take herself upstairs to sleep or into another room. As dog's go I think she's pretty independent though.

Dogs do spend a lot of time sleeping and lazing. Everything will calm down as he gets older. Try not to feel guilty about leaving him to get on with things, he does need to learn to be calm and settle himself.

5 year old cockapoo here. He sleeps A LOT. He’s having a nice lie in with me as we speak.
He follows me, everywhere, has to have eyes on me or be in some sort of physical contact — he jumped on my lap while I was on the loo the other day— but yea, he’s either on one of his two walks a day or he’s snoozing. Honestly I’m so jealous.

They sleep, bark at fuck knows, patrol the garden, play with toys, demand scritches, randomly go batshit and chase each other up and down the stairs and go for walks.

Mine spends a good couple of hours each day digging in the garden.

Mine are 3 and 5.

We get up at 5am, walk and toilet, home 5.30ish. Shower (me) and leave house 6 am. Arrive office 7 am and open up, they have breakfast, follow me about till 9 and then sleep.

11 am walk half hour walk, snooze till lunch time. Share my lunch, snooze till 3ish. Quick pee then and sleep till home time. Tuesday, Thursday we go to agility training after work which is a couple of hours. Other nights they have about half hour or so walk when we get home.

Weekends they get same kind of routine but longer walk at 3 and quick pee morning. Weekends they sleep a lot but follow me all around the house usually. So if I'm cooking in kitchen, they snooze. If I'm housework they follow about room to room.

Sometimes we have agility or dog show weekends. Less now it's Autumn.

I'm always in awe at how much they prefer a routine and how much they sleep. Very much people dogs though so as long as someone is about they are quite happy. During office hours I certainly don't play with them a lot.

Oh yes forgot, she spend quite a bit of her day supervising the goings on in the street outside and barking her disapproval if another dog should happen to walk in front of the house. This is done from her watching position at the top of the stairs where she can observe through the landing window.