What’s Your Favorite Way to Exercise Your Dog?

We’re focusing on dog health this month, so we asked our Facebook fans, ”What’s your favorite way to exercise your dog?”

So many active pit bulls out there, physically and mentally stimulated, it just warms our hearts. Thanks for sharing everyone!

I usually take my boy for a fast paced walk in the morning but to wear him out, we have to spend about another 30-45 minutes with a mental workout which is mostly obedience training.

My girl is my running partner! She keeps me motivated to keep going when I want to quit because she never does.

Three-mile walks five days a week and doggie day care two days, She is too pooped to do anything on doggie day care days.

If I get home late and can’t walk them, they go on the treadmill, especially my rotti-pit to get out his energy.

One word- FETCH. My boy will play ball until he drops and then drag booty to the ball just to keep our boxer from having it. LOL!

Easy – two words: dog park!

Both of my girls love to pull so we let them pull us on the skateboards with their harness on. They LOVE it and a good 15 minutes will wear them completely out! The neighbors enjoy the laugh as well.

Walking and for mental stimulation we do some training while we walk, like sitting at intersections or when we see other dogs. I also believe in always asking for something when Daisy wants something, so if she wants to go outside she has to sit and wait until I give her the signal, and classes, we have our CGC now!

Absolutely love the doggie day care for exercise and supervised socialization. She has energy to spare when she comes home, though. We take a zillion long walks and have started jumping though a hula hoop (thanks to one of your videos for the idea). Keep the treats REALLY small for the hoop training so she doesn’t ruin her svelte figure!

Playing ball in the backyard along with some tug-of-war. The best is when my two German shepherd dogs will grab a towel from me and go off playing tug-of-war with each other.

Photo courtesy of Melissa Lipani

Since we aren’t big fans of dog parks, we walk our pit a couple of times a day, or one long walk, along with time running and fetching in the yard. We throw in some obedience work, too.

I have an arm attachment for my bicycle that hooks to a dog harness. I take my pup out for a bike ride so he can get a good run by the beach. He’s not too good off leash and we live in a busy city, so it’s a great way to expel a lot of energy while keeping total control!

Anything off leash really wears Skye out. Hiking, agility and fetch are at the top of our list. Now all we need is some nice weather, and I’ll have as much fun as she does! I actually just wrote a blog post about exercising Skye.

Photo courtesy of Ted Raynor

I loved to pack a picnic and plan a hike in the local national park. We would hike up to a big field and set everything down and run around and chase each other. Then we would chill out and eat lunch and hike back to the car.

Cross country skiing, mountain biking and hiking. She also gets a great workout from playing with all the neighborhood dogs.

The absolute best invention for us has been the tennis ball fling thing. I can throw it much father, wearing him out faster, with the fling than I could ever do so bare handed!! Elmo chases it until he’s worn out.

The NIPBA pits do weight pulling, and they go to the playground and climb and slide.

Hiking through the woods!!

Absolutely love the doggie day care for exercise and supervised socialization. She has energy to spare when she comes home, though. We take a zillion long walks and have started jumping though a hula hoop (thanks to one of your videos for the idea). Keep the treats REALLY small for the hoop training so she doesn’t ruin her svelte figure!

I love to play with my pit mix. We jump around and wrestle. I got so into playing with her I actually tore a tendon in my ankle. Now we have to go on slow gentle walks until I’m healed. She’s a great sport through it all.

We go walking and rough house with them…gently.

We are lucky enough to live close to biking trails, so we bike our girl twice a day. She will gallop like a horse, just gorgeous to watch in motion. I’ve had people whistle and tell me how beautiful she is. On weekends we hit the fenced in baseball field (no dogs allowed!) and let her chase a ball until she falls over from happiness.

As of this week the most tiring exercise has been chasing the shadows from butterflies flying high in the tree tops. It’s hilarious to watch and exhausting for them!

Tank (pit/Rhodesian mix) loves to swim. He would swim all day if we let him. When he gets tired his butt starts to sink in the water. After a day of swimming, he sleeps like a baby (and so do I)!!

Juno and I go hiking. We love to be out in God’s beautiful creation; it’s our main way to exercise. Then we do lots of fun things like swimming, canoeing, camping and boating. We do lots of mental exercises as well like practicing commands and all her tricks.

My dog, Chief, just loves the flashlight, he’s 11 and still just can’t figure that thing out. He’s a just a lazy dog naturally so I have found the flashlight as a great exercise tool over the years.

We go hiking. By the end of the hike we have two tired and happy humans and three tired and happy dogs, and of course beautiful pictures.

It depends on what the dog likes. Jubilee loves a great game of chasing down tennis balls or discs. Her brother Frankie would rather play tag or tug. Both dogs like hiking and running. We try to keep it fun by mixing it up and playing different games each day!

Treadmill!

Echo LOVES ball, disc and biking as well as a plain old walk or romp on the beach. I love it all so long as he’s involved!