How Many Walks Per Day For Your Puppy
- 10 hours ago
- 3 min read
Many new puppy owners think walking their puppy once per day or a few times per week is enough. It’s not! How can you or your puppy learn anything by doing it a few times per week? You can’t! I suggest 3-8 walks per day for effective leash training of the loose-leash walking techniques that I teach in my puppy training program.
I got my dog, Spaulding, at 3 months old and had him for 12 years, until he passed in April 2020. I estimate we went on an average of 6 walks per day throughout his life. That’s more than 25,000 walks in his lifetime. He was the best dog I have ever seen on a leash. He walked on a loose leash, never pulled, had no reactivity, and always obeyed my guidance. He was almost perfect!
I suggest that you walk your puppy as many times per day as possible. It’s not uncommon to take the puppy outside every hour to go potty, and you can make 2-3 of those leash-training sessions. The more you practice the loose-leash walking technique, the better you and your puppy will become.
If you’ve ever played a sport or musical instrument, you understand the importance of learning the basics and practicing a lot to improve. The same is true for leash training. You learn the basics and then practice often.
What About Reactivity?
The only exception to giving your puppy multiple walks per day is if they are highly reactive. If they bark, lunge, and pull the leash every time they see another dog or person, then I would not recommend multiple walks for them initially. Instead, I suggest you work with them more in the house and your yard, with no distractions, and SLOWLY acclimate them to the stimuli over time. I will discuss this more in the chapter Working With Reactive Puppies.
What About Vaccines?
I have already written an article about Potty Training and Puppy Vaccines. Use the information and resources in this article to help you. In the meantime, use the driveway, sidewalk, and street for leash training sessions.
Puppy Walk Sample Schedule:
7 am: Upon rising - potty break & training walk
8 am: After their meal - potty break walk
11 am: after their nap - potty break & training walk
12:30 pm: after their meal - potty break walk
3 pm: after their nap - potty break & enrichment walk
5 pm: after their meal - potty break & training walk
7 pm - potty break walk
Using the above example, you can see how easy it is to get 7 walks per day, with several incorporating the training walk. This is the same schedule that I suggest in my book “Leash Training Your Puppy.”
Should You Hire a Dog Walker?
There are pros and cons to hiring a dog walker from an app such as Rover. I use a dog walker once or twice weekly for my dog, Dixie, when I have back-to-back dog training clients and don’t want to leave her in the crate for more than 3 hours at a time. My dog walker charges $15 for a 30-minute walk.
The pros of hiring a dog walker are that your puppy can have a potty break or enrichment walk if you’re gone all day. Puppies can hold their urine for about as many months as they are old. If your puppy is 4 months old, the maximum time they should stay alone in the house or in the crate is 4 hours.
A dog walker can give your puppy fresh air, socialization, and playtime. Puppies need to interact with other humans, and a dog walker is an excellent way for them to obey people other than you.
The cons to hiring a dog walker are that the puppy may develop bad habits such as pulling or biting on the leash. In addition, your dog walker is NOT a dog trainer. They're there to help you manage the puppy and take it out for a potty break and enrichment walk, not a training walk. Most dog walkers cannot correct your puppy or know what to do if they pull on the leash. That’s not their job.
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