Nine Ways to Exercise a Dog

The younger dog, Moss, is another story. He’s a year old and not very big, but he’s wiry and strong. He has broken chains and snapped leather collars when he saw something he wanted to investigate. I simply cannot walk him enough to tire him out and I’m past my days of jogging.

I joined a lure-coursing club with my greyhounds. They loved chasing white trash bags.

Then I got a Border collie and trained them for herding sheep. I had my own sheep before I moved, but couldn’t bring them with me. I’ve met some wonderful people here who have let me work Moss on their sheep. He works at a dead run and comes home tired and relaxed for a few days. Now the sheepdog trial season is starting and I don’t get to borrow sheep as much as before. I am looking around for other ways to keep the boy busy.

Here's a couple of short videos, one of a super agility dog and one of a little dog having fun the the backyard. It’s an activity I would recommend.

Bikejoring Now I’m down to two dogs, one of which is too old to run much, and we’ve moved to Texas. While there is precious little snow, there are still ways to run Moss. My first idea was to get a bicycle. I’ve used a device called a Springer before and found it was an excellent way to get a dog to run with a bike without risking my life. It is a spring loaded arm that clamps to the seat post and keeps the dog beside the bike. It leaves your hands free to steer and operate brakes. Of course, I’d like to take my old dog with us, so that would involve a bicycle cart.

Once the dog is trained to running with a bike and know a few commands, such as right, left, go on and whoa, I like to try them out front. You have to pay more attention to what the dog is doing and keep him moving straight, but he can pull you along from the front. Bikejoring is a great sport and is a good way to train a dog for other pulling sports.

Pulling a scooter is another version of bikejoring. The scooters made for this sport are heavy duty to stand up to rugged terrain. I’d have to leave my old dog at home though for this sport. Naturally the scooters are more expensive too.

Carts

Another thing I will do again is carting. I’ve seen a few carts and even tried them out. I liked some better than others. I’ve seen some for sale that are certainly not cheap, but there are ways to make them if you are handy.