Frank Boettcher said:I run with my sixty pound standard poodle almost every day and have
been doing so for years. some comments:1. I don't run with her leashed, I run on trails and it would be too
dangerous leashed. She more or less stays with me, especially when
she gets tired. We do about 24 miles a week.
I had a 135 lb Rottweiler, and we typically did about 2-3 walks
(including sprints, runs), each about 1-2 miles, per day, ranging over
a 4 square mile area.
A leash ultimately proved to be out of the question for running and,
eventually, became unnecessary for walking. For one, the dog was more
civilized than most humans are and understood spoken language well
enough that during times spent in residential areas I could tell him
which streets to go on by name with him understanding and doing so.
(Also, the dog was strong-willed and even had a tendency to grab the
leash in his own mouth and run off with it, whether anyone was holding
it or not).
Trying to run in tandem with the leash connected was extremely awkward,
particularly so when going through densely wooded forests, in which
case it was basically out of the question.
Quoted message said:2. I carry a lightweight leash with a snap shackle in case I meet
someone on the trail I don't know (or she doesn't know) so I can reach
down and hook her up. Fortunately most of the runners who use the
trail know her and like her and don't mind her being off leash. Also
use this leash to cross a couple of streets on the trail.
Normally I just carried it in my hand. Wherever situations warranted,
I'd put it back on. In fact, on some occasions when getting to certain
points where it needed to be put on, he basically stopped and requested
(by body language) for it to be put on. It took a while to recognize
what he was saying the first few times he did that, because I've never
seen or heard of a dog asking to have a leash put on him. Apparently he
was thinking of it as being more of a bind than a restraint, because in
fact on those occasions where we had disagreements about which was to
go, the most effective way for me to impose my choice was to simply
drop the leash and walk off, at which point he eventually followed
(sometimes not until about 100 yards or so).
There was one case when, while on one side of the street, he insisted
on stopping, backing up, crossing over and lifting a leg to give a
certain spot a whiz, before crossing back and coming back. That was
funny as hell. I've never seen a dog behave like a Mr. Roboto style
rec.runner troll (or whatever the hell It and It's incarnations call
themselves these days), in that obvious a way, before.
It was also fortunate that my olefactory sense is as acute as his was,
or more. So I could pick up other dogs in the vicinity before he ever
caught sight or wind of them and get the leash on, in time. Proximity
to other dogs was one of the few occasions where the leash went back
on, even though he usually tended to be well-behaved around them. It
was interesting that in the presence of female dogs, he didn't bark,
but utter syllables that came to sound more and more like English words
and phrases. The "I want" part (presumably of "I want her"😉 eventually
started became recognizeable.
On one occasion when I played around and pretended to start running out
the door without him, he came running behind making a strange yelping
sound I never heard before. After a moment's reflection it suddenly
dawned on me, he was saying the word "out! out! out!" repeatedly, but
not getting the 't' in the word, pronouncing it, instead, like "oup".
So, I sat him down and tested him for his ability to recognize and
distinguish consonants, and sure enough, he was getting the "p"'s,
"t"'s and "k"'s confused (hence, "kaw" and occasionally even "craw"
evoked the same recognition and reply as "paw"😉. That made it clear why
his utterances sounded so Wookie'ish: he wasn't hearing the consonants,
so that to him, human speech sounded like a bunch of vowels and tones
interspersed with arbitrary stops. And that's precisely how he sounded
when he tried to pronounce words.
On a few occasions, the words or phrases came out clearly, like "come
on" or on one occasion when he actually addressed me by name and I had
to look around to see who was there before I realized it came from him.
(Normally, instead, he'd gesture the "come on" instead of making any
sounds, actually jumping off the ground with his front legs so that he
could make the "come on" gesture with the front paws. It also took a
while before I recognized that, too).
Quoted message said:4.I bring a jug of water (leave it in the truck for after the run)
for the dog in the summer time and I have to cut down her mileage
during the hottest part of the summer. Some days I don't take her if
the creeks have dried up and she can't get cooled down.
I didn't bring any water on our trips, but kept close watch over his
condition. Usually, if I sense he was getting run down or just wanted
to get back with him, I only needed to say the word "meat" or "food" or
(if he was thirsty) "water" for him to understand what we were going
back for.
Quoted message said:5. The only times I have taken spills on the run is when she got
behind me and I looked back and tripped over roots. Has happened three
times in about ten years, but very painful. Don't let handling the
dog distract you from watching what you are doing.
On one occasion the dog slipped on ice and landed on his chest, which
took the wind out of him. I was almost fast enough to catch and stop
him in mid-fall, but not quite. He also had a tendency to want to
insist on going out, even for 1-2 miles at a time, when the temperature
was subzero. From what I was told, he never like that weather until he
started walking with me on a regular basis. Then he actually insisted
on it. On frequent occasion, he ended up complaining that his paws were
too cold, stopping in mid course and raising it off the ground, so I
had to take it in my hands and warm it up, and we'd usually end up
returning straight back. Sometimes that even brought about an argument,
though I don't know why the hell he would even *want* to go any further
and not turn back if he was too cold. He certainly knew better and
usually would insist on cutting walks short when he wasn't feeling
good, but just as frequently, he's insist on pushing on even after it
was clear he had hit the wall. I gave him plenty of leeway, because I
do and did the same thing all the time and know by recognition that he
wasn't going through anything worse than I routinely do. He was
definitely a tough dog. In fact, the last day of his life before being
executed by the vet due to an advanced stage of cancer, he went 4 miles
with me.
Quoted message said:5. For non running exercise, she loves to go after balls and frisbees.
But the run is what she lives for.
Rottweilers insist on walking and running everywhere all the time.
Nobody can have one who isn't willing or able to go out 20, 30 or 40
miles a week. If he had had his own way, he would have been out on 4-5
walks a day, pushing upwards of 5-10 miles a day or more. I didn't know
him until he was well into his 8's and 9's, in age. So, the demand for
mileage wasn't quite as bad as it could have been.