When to scale back walking?

Just a curiosity. Lexi's walk is either the three mile round trip up the road which takes me on a good day an hour (im not very fast!) and if we go to the beach or forest its however long i fancy can be 1 hour or 3.

Shes 9 now but shows no signs of being tired at the end of the walks so im not worried about her right now, but what signs would i look for / when should i start scaling back the amount of walking. Probably not for a few years yeah?

you only want cut back walks if you see signs of her struggling to get around

But what would they be? limping? just panting a lot? walking funny?

my xena is limping all the time so she only get 1 walk for 45mins these days

I think one of the first signs is when they are stiff or they limp after resting after a walk, when the muscles etc have stiffened up after the exercise.

They often don't limp or struggle with a walk for some time after that.

I also look for a limp or if they are taking along time to get up after resting. My English Bulldog let us know when she had had enough. She would just lie down and refuse to budge.

She's still bouncy I'm not worried about her now at all, just wondered for the future!

jstaff wrote:She would just lie down and refuse to budge.

reminds me of a chap I came across the other morning he has 6 or 7 dandie dinmots and one was refusing to go any further it was ever so entertaining watching him stood over it trying to persuade it to get up while the rest were pulling his other arm to get on with their walk

but I'm sure she'll let you know, Ledger will already sit down and refuse to go in certain directions if its raining/too hot or there is smoke anywhere near he also tells me if he wants to do an extra lap of the park.

My old dog used to just sit and look at me when he had enough or he used to turn around and wait for me to head back in the direction of home or where ever we came from,he was 12 when he started doing this so I think your fine yet shell let you know in her own way

I think lexi will be a lie down one. I took her for a walk once to meet my OH at the time and it was a really hot day and she just plonked down in the shade and wouldnt budge, i had to phone my dad to come and get me!

coincidence, she flopped down on me today. It's quite warm though lol

She was panting when we started so i only did a 40min walk but after about 30mins she flopped down and i had to drag her home. Bless.

My old girl Jez was 17 when i lost her abnd she still had two 40min walks daily she had arthritis but always wanted too come with me she did limp at times and i knew my dog like i know myself she would often just sniff around when my younger dog was being run off but i know she still loved her walks and would sulk if i didn,t take her, the only thing i would watch out for was if it was either v hot or cold then would cut back, i have always believed a dog will always tell us if it doesn,t want too walk xx and by the way your Lexi is gorgeous

Thank you

Yeah its just too warm today im not worried about the work load lol

Equi wrote:coincidence, she flopped down on me today. It's quite warm though lol

She was panting when we started so i only did a 40min walk but after about 30mins she flopped down and i had to drag her home. Bless.

Ha ha it's funny how they do things like that,it's as if they know sometimes,another trick is when they go the vets when theyre under the weather and the just perk right up,you've just got to laugh

Equi, you need to 'tune' in to her. These guys are very tenacious and will try with their last reserves to please us. My old boy used just keep going forward. try little walks scattered throughout the day if you can and be wary of the heat. Staffies do over heat especially as they get older. You are in the best position to judge how much she can comfortably take.