Exercise?

[Zoeymil]

Hi everyone! I want to say thanks for all the great information! We have a great new 7month old girl
Named zoey. I was wondering if someone could help me...
Not sure how our girl was treated and seems she is very nervous of men, do you think that will be a problem forever? I read that's an issue if not properly socialized right away.
And secondly, I read not to over exercise...zoey seems to LOVEwalking, we go for about an hour in the
Mornings. It's about 2.8 miles but very leisure thru woods. Is this ok? If anyone could give me their
Thoughts I would greatly appreciate it.
Zoeymil

 

[BlackShadowCaneCorso]

I had a skiddish female rottie (not my corso) that wasn't ever keen on strangers no matter how often or where I took her out to. She would work because I asked her to but she was never 100% comfortable and she preferred to be home so after she turned 5 she became my stay at home barker to warn me when someone was here.

Mastiff's grow until 18 month to 2 years so continuous motion like walking isn't great on their joints. It is too repetitious. There is nothing with walking for a bit but you could walk her to a place that she can get off and play at her own rate for a while until tired I think it would be better. Like walking to a fenced ball park (where they don't care if dogs play in there when the teams aren't ) and let her chase the ball or play, so that when she is tired she can let you know by lying down. We don't usually do too much more then 15-20 minutes of uniform walk at a time but then play outside in the field for exercise for the rest of the time.

 

[Bentley]

I would suggest that one hour is too much, I would agree with the post above, try to find somewhere to let her wander at her own rate until she hits 12 months at least.

 

[sunbear]

I agree with the above and would add to make sure you are limiting stairs at least until she is over a year old.

 

[stephanieb]

We had a chow/retreiver cross for years and she was terrified of men (suspect abuse before we got her at 2). My husband spent a LOT of time with her and it did get better but I can't say she was ever 100% with men.

As for the walking how far depends on the dog. At 4 months I had to drive Stonewall to the vet (4 blocks from my house) because there and back was to far. At just under 4 months Ren can easily make it there and back, but even though she probably would and could go further we never do. What we have tried to stick to is about 1 block per month of age of straight out walking if that helps at all.