How much exercise does my dog actually need?

The honest answer is that breed type matters more than weight, and mental work counts towards the total in a way most owners underestimate. A twenty-minute walk where the dog is allowed to sniff properly does more to settle it than forty minutes marched on a short lead. The figures below are starting points to adjust from, using what the dog is like in the evening as the feedback.

Safety

What you'll need

• A lead and harness
• A long line for sniffing walks (optional)
• Puzzle feeders or training treats (optional)

Step by step

1. Start from the breed type rather than the size.Working, herding and gundog breeds — collies, spaniels, huskies, pointers, most terriers of working lines — commonly need one to two hours or more a day, and mental work with it. Many mid-sized breeds sit around an hour. Small companion breeds such as a pug or a shih tzu are often well served by thirty to forty-five minutes, and flat-faced breeds need less and in cooler conditions.
2. Apply the puppy rule and take it seriously.A widely used guideline is roughly five minutes of formal lead walk per month of age, up to twice a day — so about ten minutes twice daily at four months and twenty minutes twice daily at eight months. Free play and pottering in the garden is separate and is generally fine; it is the repetitive, sustained and high-impact exercise that carries the risk.
3. Know when your dog stops being a puppy.Small breeds are broadly grown by about a year. Large breeds take fifteen to eighteen months, and giant breeds eighteen to twenty-four. Until then, no long runs, no cycling alongside, no repeated ball throwing, no forced stair climbing and no agility jumping.
4. Count mental work towards the total.Twenty minutes of scent work, a training session or a puzzle feeder tires a dog comparably to a considerably longer walk. For a dog you cannot exercise for physical reasons, or on a day when you cannot get out, this is the substitute that actually works.
5. Let the dog sniff for a good part of the walk.Sniffing is the mental component and it is the part most often cut. A long line in a safe open space and a dog free to choose the route delivers far more than the same time spent walking briskly to heel.
6. Split it rather than doing it all at once.Two or three shorter outings suit most dogs better than one long one, particularly puppies, elderly dogs and dogs left alone during the day. It also breaks up the day, which matters as much as the exercise.
7. Reduce it for older dogs, but do not stop.Senior dogs generally need shorter and more frequent walks on softer ground. Continued gentle daily exercise maintains muscle that supports arthritic joints — stopping walks because a dog is stiff usually makes the stiffness worse.
8. Adjust for weather rather than sticking to the schedule.In heat, walk early or late and use the pavement test with the back of your hand. In cold, thin-coated and elderly dogs need shorter outings. Missing a walk is better than a heatstroke case, which is frequently fatal.
9. Use the dog's evening as the feedback.A dog that settles in the evening and is not restless is getting enough. A dog that paces, chews, barks at nothing and cannot sit still is generally under-stimulated rather than under-walked, which is why adding sniffing and training often works better than adding distance.
10. Do not over-exercise instead of training.There is a point at which more exercise builds fitness rather than calm, and a very fit dog needs more the following week. If a dog is restless despite two hours a day, the missing element is nearly always mental work and structure rather than another walk.

Tips

• Ten minutes of scattered-food searching in the garden before you leave the house does more for a dog that will be alone than an extra ten minutes of walking.
• Off-lead running is not automatically better exercise. A dog sprinting after a ball repeatedly is doing something high-impact and repetitive, which is exactly what growing and older joints do not need.
• If you have taken on a working-line dog and cannot meet its needs, a dog walker with a group walk, or a canine activity class, is a more honest solution than trying to make it need less.

Common mistakes

• Running with a puppy or young large-breed dog — Growth plates are still open, and sustained repetitive impact before they close is associated with joint problems in later life. Wait until the dog is skeletally mature.
• Measuring exercise in distance only — Mental stimulation is a large part of what tires a dog. A short sniffy walk regularly outperforms a longer brisk one for producing a settled dog.
• Answering restlessness with more exercise every time — It builds fitness, so the dog needs more next week. Restlessness is more often a stimulation and structure problem than an exercise deficit.
• Hard exercise for a flat-faced breed — They cannot dissipate heat efficiently through panting because of their airway shape, and they overheat at levels of effort other dogs handle easily.

If it doesn't work

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