Puppy walks

I'm new on this board. Our little pup is now 16 weeks old and we take her for a 5-10 minute walk around the block once a day. She also gets plenty of exercise racing around the garden and having puppy crazies.

When can we start taking her for longer walks, and how long? The vet said "when she's full grown"--we live in a small town and cavaliers are not very common around here, so while the vet is fully aware of things like heart disease and cavaliers (he made sure to ask us if we knew about it when we first brought her in) he couldn't give us a more specific answer. All the reference books I've looked in talk about taking it easy when the pup is small, but no further advice-nothing is really cavalier-specific.

Thanks!

Our vet advised us to avoid walks on the street & in parks until Sasha had all her shots (I guess to avoid picking up diseases from the feces of dogs or wild animals like raccoons, etc). So we limited her to a patch of lawn in our yard.

Once she got the go-ahead, we started walking her for roughly 20-30 min per day. when it was freezing cold out, we did much less.

To this day, we stick to a daily walk of 20-30 min per day, sometimes longer. She seems happy with this, & I enjoy the newfound exercise! Once or twice a week, we walk w/ a neighborhood Havanese, which is especially fun for Sasha (& me). It's a nice way to socialize.

Welcome! Yes, likewise we always wait until our puppies have had all shots and until then confine them to the garden. Then we begin with short gentle walks throughout the day, building up gradually really. From six months onwards we were down on the beach letting them run as they wished and when they were fully grown adults they had many short walks in the day which generally amounted to about one and a half hours in total. In between we always have garden or indoor playtime to keep them stimulated and avoid too much lying about on couches which could induce weight gain. They tended to use up quite a bit of energy even by the constant following us round the house, so it all helps to keep to keep down weight and avoid boredom. I now have just the one little Ruby called Max. Best wishes and hope you enjoy being part of this very happy family of Cavalier owners.

Thanks--this seems like a very nice board.

We've decided to add a short walk around the block in the evenings as well--did wonders for her appetite last night! So now she has her morning walk, her evening walk, and the errands that she runs with my husband during the day (she rides in the bicycle basket, gets taken out at a customer or a shop, gets fussed over by everyone, and gets back in the basket and naps). She's already quite well known around town!

Welcome to the forums Matte!

I usually walk puppies round the block which is about 10 - 15 minutes when they are past getting their jabs, then build that up to about 20-30 minutes when they reach 4 -6 months. But I do allow them to play in the garden and house too.

The reason for not over walking any puppy too early is because the plates in their bones haven't fully formed, so too much excersise on hard ground can cause problems while the bones are growing.

I always start training them as soon as they come home to me, with little things like sit, and down, nothing too complicated just to keep them from getting bored and to start on their basic training.

Thanks for the info about hard ground--we have lots of green areas around town, so we can just pop her in the bike basket for a short ride to an open space or the beach and walk around there for a short while with no worry.

We also started training her right away, and a few weeks ago I got a clicker and started clicker training--she can sit and lie and she's learning to stand still. "Clicker treat" is one of her favorite games.

What qualifies as "hard ground" - sidewalk/pavement? Or would it include walks in the woods and on the grass? And I'm guessing frozen ground counts too - although who wants to be out that long anyway when it's so cold...