survivor1288
New member
I adopted my My ~1.x y/o rescue about 5 months ago. I'm lucky enough to have a fenced in yard so that's how he got most of his exercise. However, I just came across this trainer Sarah Stremming's podcast, Cog Dog Radio. She has a lot of episodes about reactivity, and one of the things she talks about all the time is the importance of what she calls "decompression walks". Basically, letting your dog explore nature on their own terms, off leash (if it's safe and your dog has great recall) or at least on a long line.
She talked about how if the only exercise your dog gets is fetch/tug (my dog loves both) or other high-impact activities, that can result in adrenaline just always being present and amping your dog up even more. So she advocates taking your dog on these decompression walks where they can just sniff around and be a dog, and (very importantly) not be exposed to their triggers.
My dog gets really amped up in the woods (super high prey drive), so hiking is hard with him right now. I've been scouring google maps to find fields (e.g. behind churches or schools, soccer fields, random meadows or wide empty unpopulated parks). Well I've finally found what I think is the perfect spot! A wide open meadow, surrounded by forest, no sidewalks where dogs will walk by, lots of interesting smells in the grass. I took archie out there for an hour and he LOVED it! He mostly just trotted around and sniffed (though we did run around for a little bit just having him chase me) and now he is exhausted just napping away contentedly.
If you have a car, I would HIGHLY recommend finding a spot nearby (this was 15 min from my hosue) to take your pup out on walks like this as opposed to a neighborhood walk. Archie was so much more relaxed.
Here's him having a great time
She talked about how if the only exercise your dog gets is fetch/tug (my dog loves both) or other high-impact activities, that can result in adrenaline just always being present and amping your dog up even more. So she advocates taking your dog on these decompression walks where they can just sniff around and be a dog, and (very importantly) not be exposed to their triggers.
My dog gets really amped up in the woods (super high prey drive), so hiking is hard with him right now. I've been scouring google maps to find fields (e.g. behind churches or schools, soccer fields, random meadows or wide empty unpopulated parks). Well I've finally found what I think is the perfect spot! A wide open meadow, surrounded by forest, no sidewalks where dogs will walk by, lots of interesting smells in the grass. I took archie out there for an hour and he LOVED it! He mostly just trotted around and sniffed (though we did run around for a little bit just having him chase me) and now he is exhausted just napping away contentedly.
If you have a car, I would HIGHLY recommend finding a spot nearby (this was 15 min from my hosue) to take your pup out on walks like this as opposed to a neighborhood walk. Archie was so much more relaxed.
Here's him having a great time