During lockdown, what are you doing differently with your dogs?

Cinnamontoast

Cinnamontoast

Fais pas chier!
Joined
6 July 2010
Messages
38,680
Visit site
Due to working from home, I'm currently walking the dogs a lot more than normal. In the interests of keeping other dogs safe and increasing my appalling level of fitness, I'm going to start lead walking puss cat tomorrow. Someone mentioned (CC?) that a brisk leadwalk is as tiring as letting the dog run round. We shall see! Puss cat's behaviour is very demanding if he's not been tired out, so it'll be easy to judge.

What, if anything, are you lot doing differently or has this aspect not changed for you?
 
Ours still get their usual walks, but are missing the hoards of weekend family visitors. They must wonder where the rest of their pack have gone.
They're probably wondering why we haven't been camping and fell walking too. Thankfully, the weather has been so nice, that they've been supervising the gardening and barbeques.
 
We have had to stop taking them to the secure field, which is about 20 mins car-ride away and in fact they are getting all their exercise at home now, because the area is so busy with dog-walkers and cyclists who have popped up from nowhere - never seen most of them before! There were even 3 cyclists riding over the neighbouring farmer's field yesterday, there is no footpath and most definitely no cyclepath/bridleway, where they were.
I think we will have to practice lead walking with the pups though, or they will have forgotten how to do it.
We have relatives who live in Scotland and bring their dogs down to visit 3 or 4 times in a normal year, needless to say April's visit has been cancelled this year but ours love having them to stay and play.
 
Apart from not travelling anywhere more exciting We're down to just one (longer) walk, middle of the day/afternoon, at least with the nice weather Ted is happy to sunbathe rather than pester for walks! We would normally go along the canal as its closest and scenic but sticking to lanes and woodland now to try and avoid people.

Main change for Ted is not getting extra attention and treats from the in laws.
 
The neighbour normally comes round but can't currently. We're sneaking them through the hole in the fence between her drive and ours. She hasn't been out in 3 weeks so she's a bit bored!
 
This time last year I drove six hours to do three days of intensive tracking training.
Today we just sat in the garden and chilled/had a water fight :p
I'm trying to walk later in the evening as there's so many new people out and about. I live on a footpath so it's good on one hand but it's very narrow so 2m is impossible at times. There were people going past the house today steady all day so decided to avoid.

I went to the club last Saturday and Sunday to run them (ten minutes, I was the only one there) but wanted to stay off the roads over Easter. The local police have since explicitly stated that driving to exercise a dog isn't essential travel.
I'm not doing normal hikes in mountains/going to the park in town. They'll survive.
 
Much shorter walks and no exciting beach/hill/camping. Also lots more time spent on the lead and doing the same 5k route. Thankfully the sunshine means she pretty happy catching some rays for the majority of the day.
 
Mine is getting a lot more walks! OH and son both use her for their exercise. She normally comes to the horses with me anyway but OH and son don’t usually walk her as well as they both work full time. Luckily it’s not too busy here and she doesn’t go off lead anyway. She’s loving this lock down and will miss them all when they are back at work.
 
I normally take mine in the car to the shore every morning but obviously not doing that at the moment so we have a good long morning walk down the dirt track and fields opposite our house. It’s a public footpath that not many people know about so is generally very quiet if not empty.
 
I have to be up early to avoid a majority of people, the downside of urban living. So far have managed to be socially distant whilst walking. I am then trying to do some garden training with them so Meera is working on her 2x2 weaves and Tiva is working on her retrieve present and heelwork turns.
 
With the amazing weather, my 2 Swissies are spending all day pottering in the garden with me, but our usual quiet walks on The Forest have changed dramatically ..... normally we dont see a soul, but now there are SO many people about with dogs obviously unused to the wild ponies etc, and the number of cyclists bombing about is incredible!
 
Mine are getting less walks as they used to go out at least twice a day, but luckily I have fields they can run in. I'm still working but different hours so they aren't left for as long which is a plus. Really missing agility training and this weekend should have been at our first agility show of the season , four days worth, so feeling a bit down about that.
 
I don’t think ours have noticed any difference! We live on a farm with very few footpaths so we just walk on the bits with no one else on. I’m trying to do training every day, or Ffee at least is a bloody nuisance.
They do miss going to see Granny the biscuit dispenser, she lives next door but I don’t let them in her house at the moment, she is isolating and I am in contact with so many people at work. Yesterday though they did sneak off on the way home and all got their shapes. ?
 
I’ve just started some tablets for my heart which so far seem to be helping as today I was able to run along with the dog. So we can cover a bit more ground on our daily ‘walk’ and explore some of the lovely local routes. We were out for 2 hours this morning and only met a couple of cyclists and a farm handyman out with his old dog.

When it’s cool enough the dog is also coming up to the yard to work on his fear reactivity to horses and play and train in the fields on his longline. But he has to wait in the car whilst I’m actually doing the horses.
 
I can go on my usual morning walk on the shore. It has never been busy but us few regulars always had a word with each other and the dogs played with their friends. Now we rarely see anyone and if we do, we catch the dogs and keep our distance.
In the afternoons I used to vary my walks but now we go daily into my Son in Laws silage fields for a run, this won’t be possible when the grass gets really high.
I do have a large garden and we are out there a lot, sometimes playing or training. Their gardening skills don’t seem to have improved.
I don’t see anyone to talk to, it’s just me and the dogs and I am sure they are missing my usual visitors and family and playing with the grandchildren.
 
Ours are getting more walks (they don't go out every day) but less sports (which is why they don't get daily walks) so overall less exercise.

They are very much missing going for runs as there is only 1 walk we can do from home where they can go off and it's getting increasingly busy and as a result less runs.
 
Peril is still having two walks each day. One long walk mid morning with OH, one short walk with me early evening as soon as I finish work. I'm still working from work, so get home at approx 5.20 and am out with her by 5.30. We march around our usual circuit which takes 1h 30 mins and which involves at least an hour off the lead, hill work, and a paddle in the river. We have yet to bump into any other dogwalkers, cyclists or joggers, unless you count the 5 mins roadside at the start and the end. We are extremely fortunate to live where we do because we are right on the edge of a small town and have very easily accessible open countryside on our doorstep. Old Jake is still having his bumbles around the Garth a few times each day. We haven't been up to the farm with the dogs, nor to the forest but I still feel that we are all getting adequate exercise and looking after our mental health. Tonight we'll be toasting marshmallows around the fire pit.
 
Around the same areas for us, but a bit of a longer walk late on in the day as OH is at home.
Extremely busy round here too, joggers, cyclists walkers, not the usual one or two
 
Mine aren't getting any formal walks, just come with me to the field night and morning when I go to do the sheep and horses. I am doing a little bit of agility work in the garden to keep them ticking over. W are all missing our agility training and shows.
 
tda said:
Around the same areas for us, but a bit of a longer walk late on in the day as OH is at home.
Extremely busy round here too, joggers, cyclists walkers, not the usual one or two
Click to expand...

Interesting your comments and Sprouts. Dartmoor is like a morgue. I have done my daily bike ride which is all on the roads and I have met 2 electricity emergency repair vehicles, 2 ponies, 1 sheep and 2 racing cyclists. I saw one local dog walking as normal 100 yards away on the common. Yesterday I did the same ride and met 5 sheep and 1 Nat park ranger vehicle. Good Friday I met no one, not even a sheep. :D

Normally the roads I used would be crawling with vehicles, walkers and cyclists. They would be so bad on Easter Sunday we wouldn't take the horses on them.
I think either you must have all our tourists or Devon and Cornwall police have kept them all at the county border.

I don't take my dog outside the property. He goes in his exercise area where he is free and I sit and read a book whilst he wanders around. There is lots of variety of terrain and a stream in there for him and, very surprisingly, he has gone from a dog that pissed off in the opposite direction when I whistled him to one with almost perfect recall in just a couple of weeks. I sit, read, whistle, give him a treat when he comes and carry on reading. For some reason this seems to be how he has learnt recall.
 
P dog is getting her 2 usual visits to the yard as she comes with me for both journeys, but I've not taken her for the usual wander in the woods, as DH is taking her for a lead walk once a day round the roads at home which is keeping her nails down and means he leaves the sofa for a while.
 
Nothing much has changed for the big dogs, they go out very early in the morning with OH so they meet as few dogs as possible, only instead of driving off to work afterwards he now commutes upstairs, LOL. They then spend the afternoon alternating snoozes between the lawn and the kitchen tiles depending on how hot it is.

Little dog gets a walk with me during the day, we are very lucky that we can get straight on to footpaths or into the woods without having to pass through gates or anywhere near houses or farms. We do end up dodging cyclists not meant to be on footpaths, rogue cockapoos with no recall and a disgusting amount of poo, poo bags and litter which I've never seen on these walks before. We also do a few minutes of agility in the garden but I've only got room for either 6 weaves or two jumps so we're starting to exhaust what we can do with those.

MurphysMinder said:
Really missing agility training and this weekend should have been at our first agility show of the season , four days worth, so feeling a bit down about that.
Click to expand...

I took this photo at that same show in 2018. The bloody weather this weekend, it would have been glorious! :( We were supposed to be doing grandad and grandson schippy pairs, it was either going to be brilliant or disastrous.

92397507_224612528778706_7036068982549381120_n.jpg
 
That year Pickle complained it was too wet, it would probably have been too hot for the prima donna this time. Shame about schip pairs, his grandad and Pickle often seem to swap places in Grade 6, same type of courses suit us both.
 
Not a lot has changed here apart from just the one walk a day, which is usually in the morning. I’m lucky as I have a huge back garden so the dogs can pootle about as they please.

Willow’s very annoying new game is rolling in the newly formed compost heap at the bottom of the garden so she smells tremendous most of the day. I’ll be glad when the council start collecting green waste again :)

I’ve been trying to be careful and not linger at the high traffic areas on walks, like poo bins etc and I’ve not walked on any of the footpaths that run through farmland at all. I’m of the opinion that farmers should be allowed to shut footpaths that run through their land, so won’t be a hypocrite and do it myself.

The weather is helping enormously of course but it’s also making me crave my caravan and the seaside but that will just have to wait.
 
Ours used to have two walks a day, very early morning before I went to work, then after work they would come to horses with me, or OH would take them out. As we are both at home, they are just coming to the horses with me now everyday, where they either wait in the car whilst I poo pick etc, and then we walk, or if OH is with me, he will walk them whilst I sort horses. We have been able to spend lots of time in the garden together though which is lovely. 649FC38B-C7F5-43B1-89C1-3D275B70E253.jpeg
 
MurphysMinder said:
That year Pickle complained it was too wet, it would probably have been too hot for the prima donna this time. Shame about schip pairs, his grandad and Pickle often seem to swap places in Grade 6, same type of courses suit us both.
Click to expand...

Can't win, what a diva. Would have been too hot for Dax too in fairness unless we were lucky to get morning runs. I should think the both of you aren't far off G7 now? I won't know who to cheer for! :p

Schippy pairs only works if they don't meet head to head, otherwise there's a big schip scrap...!

I am also missing my Greyhound Gap cake from this weekend, I always pre-ordered a whole victoria sponge to take home, they were cracking cakes.
 
Not a huge amount has changed except our walks are always from home and we aren’t going to the beach or forest as it involves a car trip. I’ll be in charge of feeding the pet lambs soon which will mean driving the Landy up to one of the big sheds on the Estate a few miles up the road so I’ll take the dogs with me for a change of scenery and a good chance to practise some control around young lambs in a safe environment.
I can’t walk off the tracks now because of the ground-nesting birds but that’s the same at this time every year.
Luckily we do have good walking directly from home so that’s a blessing at the moment for all of us.
6F0F3E7F-72FA-48C7-9305-A062AA86E38B.jpeg
 
Moobil, your photos are always amazing!

Well, turns out leadwalking is exhausting! I have him on the longline so he has lots of freedom to sniff and pee on everything. There was a minor spat with a cat through a fence yesterday and some free play retrieving balls on the green halfway up the road. It’s very quiet round here currently and recall is fortunately excellent. After yesterday’s walk, he slept most of the rest of the day. Today is looking similar.
1586775147792.jpeg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top