Katie

My daughter is a marathon runner, and would like to take Ruff (now 22 weeks) with her sometimes on training runs.

I have heard that one should not do this with a puppy as it is bad for their bones, so I said no.

However Ruff runs and plays with his best doggie friend, a puppy across the road who is 1 week younger than him. She is a border collie so has endless energy, and they run and tumble and play as long as we will let them.

So there are 2 questions really.
1. Is it Ok to let the puppies play and run....and run and play....and play and run...and....

2. At what age is it safe to take a dog jogging with you. (on a sandy beach)

Thank you

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Katie in Christchurch NZ and Ruff the Phantom Labradoodle. 3/4 standard poodle, 1/4 labrador.

Rowan

I'd double check with your vet (of course), but here's my experience. My first poodle was an oversized miniature who is 17.5" and 18 lbs (Alex, pictured in my avi). My vet cleared him to run with me when he turned one. Prior to this, he went on fast/long walks to build up his endurance. I took him to the vet more frequently during this time just to make sure all was well and to ease my mind. My vet said he was perfectly healthy and perfectly capable. He did routine exams, checked his joints and we did bloodwork, etc. Poodles are built to run!

Once cleared, he advised that I watch Alex, avoid running in hot weather, and that I slowly build up his endurance. We started with a slow mile and then a mile and a half and then two miles, etc. Alex used to run 8 miles with me and he was still bouncing off the walls at times! He loved to run, rain or shine, snow or sunshine.

He'll be ten on the 22nd so I don't run him as much anymore. He does sprints and slow miles but that's about it. (He'd love to do more but I'm cautious.)

Here's a great article: http://www.hairofthedog5k.com/sitebu...ithyourdog.pdf

Katie

That's a great article. Thank you.

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Katie in Christchurch NZ and Ruff the Phantom Labradoodle. 3/4 standard poodle, 1/4 labrador.

JE-UK

He's a bit too young now, but I'll bet when he grows up, he'll be a GREAT running dog!

Sustained exercise, like running with a person, is different from play, where he can stop if he gets tired. Plus, people usually run on hard surfaces, which is harder on joints. (Why don't people run on grass, I've always wondered?)

Give him time to grow up, and build him up slowly, and he'll be fantastic.

gr8pdls

I'm a marathoner and run with my Poodles. I wait for the dogs to mature before going on any long runs with them.

This is my program:
At about 9-10 months we'll start to build up to a mile.
Slowly increase the distance to about 5 KM when the dog's 1 1/2 years old.
After 1 1/2 to 2 years old, I limit the dogs to 10 KM (6.2 miles).

10 KM is an arbitrary distance. The dogs probably could go more but they seem pretty tired the rest of the day after running 10 KM. Also, the temperature really makes a difference. Anything over 60 F is getting stressful for the dogs. Dogs don't know when to stop and can overheat to the point of death. A work associate of my wife knows that first-hand - lost both his Labs from biking with them in the heat.

frankgrimes

I asked my vet the last time we were in, when I would be able to start running with Ralph. He is a standard, and our vet advised us we can begin when he turns one year old and start short distances and slowly increase his mileage (just like a human runner does when they first start to run). She said it was too stressful on their growing joints to have them run while they are still growing so much. The run they do in play is much different than the run they would do as a jogging companion. I can't wait to run with Ralph! 6 more months for us

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Indiana

I know, it seems weird because when they're playing on their own, they seem to run much faster and play more roughly than when we run with them. But I guess the thing is when they are tired, they stop and sniff stuff or just lay flat out on the grass. Also, I'd much rather wait and be sure that I don't contribute to arthritis or whatever, so I'm just conditioning my two for running until they're older.

Arcticfox

So how do you know how much excersize your puppie's joints can handle at any given age? Is a couple of long brisk walks ok? Sometimes if I don't have time to take her out for walks several times, I'll just do one long one, maybe 45 min or so. She's 4 months right now. Then we might do a few rounds of fetch indoors, or "chase me" in the park for a few min. I can't do chase me for very long :P I have very little stamina for running, she only gets a couple minutes of that.

ladybird

My spoo is coming up 7 months old now... I've been following the 5-minutes-per-month guide for walks, but I only applied it to hard ground, such as the streets before we get to the park or woodland (which takes 10 minutes to get there, 10 minutes to get back)... while at the park/woodland he would run around pretty much constantly for 30-60 minutes, then we would go home when he started to get tired. I'm not sure if I'm overdoing it though...

WestCoastSpoo

Both Huxley and I are itching for him to get out and run with me! He's 9 months old now and 3 more months seems like FOREVER! Last week on one of our walks he was (as usual) just DYING to go faster so I started jogging a little with him and honestly with his long legs (and my sloooow pace) he's not moving that differently than when we walk. When we walk he exaggerates his up and down movement so he's REALLY prancing and bouncing but when I start jogging he flattens out his stride and is much more efficient. On the little uphill by our house he was actually just walking and looking at me like "are you SERIOUS?! This is as fast as you can go!!" lol It was SO fun to have him on that little jog I can't wait for him to be able to go a little longer with me. He was SO happy - literally smiling and looking back at me constantly like "isn't this FUN!!!" I'm so excited to have a running partner dog since my great dane refused (like sat down in the middle of the street) if I started jogging even though his legs were almost longer than mine so he would have still been WALKING. lol

I'm planning on starting Huxley when he is one (if I can wait that long!) and just starting him off slow. I don't think I'll ever let him go with me on my longer runs (10-20 miles), but even on those I think I'd just run half and then swing by home and pick him up to run the second half with me!

I have a question about surfaces you guys run with your dogs on though. I don't know which surface is most comfortable for Huxley's feet. Here I have a choice of concrete, asphalt, or horse trails with like compacted sandy dirt stuff. The concrete is obviously the hardest, but it's the smoothest. The asphalt is what I like running on because it's noticeably softer but it can get hot on his feet I'm sure AND it's closer to cars. The horse trails are away from traffic and seem softer than the concrete but I don't know if the little pebbly stuff is bad for his feet. He doesn't seem to care when we're walking or on our little jog we went on. But I don't think he's the type to ever complain about something I ask him to do so I want to make sure I'm not asking him to do something that's going to be uncomfortable.

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