When my dog, Roman, was alive, we would walk him for a couple blocks each day to not only give him exercise and a chance to view the neighborhood, but also to give us some time to exercise, too. I remember losing some inches throughout each month. When he passed away, the family gained most of the weight back.
Now that we have Wolfy, who is never too tired and always wants to keep playing, we run up and down the stairs with string, boxes and paper bags and often get our daily exercise that way. We all aren't extremely fit, but we're fit enough to keep our cat amused.
With your pet, how much exercise do you get daily? For those who just got a pet, do you find yourself changing in weight and stamina with the amount of walks or play that you give to your pet?
Because of my heart condition, i can't walk much any more; and since Chipper is 10 years old, and pretty much just lays around the house, we don't go for walks except out in the yard. If I am watering the flowers, Chipper is usually right out there following me around, and he seems to enjoy the meandering around in the early morning, and the evening.
When I was younger, and had my Dobie, then I would walk several miles every day with Bruno. Both of us loved to walk, and we were in great physical health and could do that. I usually walked about 4 miles with him very day. In the hot sumer weather, we walked at night when it was cooler out.
Bruno was a huge Gladiator Doberman, looked something like a cross between a Dobie and a Mastiff; so I never worried about anyone bothering me when I was out walking with Bruno.
I'm sorry that you're in that condition -- especially when you seem such an active person overall with what your say with your dog Bruno! Walking about four miles each day is pretty intense. I don't think I can ever do that! Two blocks is good enough for me and Roman -- RIP -- at the time, too. There was one day my dad and I decided to take a LONG walk around the entire town with Roman. Roman was so tired by the time we reached mile 4 that my dad carried him for a couple blocks. Roman was a Black Lab mixed with Pit. So he wasn't a tiny dog at all. He was a well rounded, medium sized hound that my dad carried like a baby. But other than that day, two blocks was always good enough for me. Haha!
I think it just depends on what you and your dog are used to doing. I think that we probably started with shorter walks at first, and as our strength was built up, we just went further each time.
When I was growing up, and had my horse, I also had a black lab named Jet. Jet loved to go horseback riding with us, and he raced up ahead of us, and then would come running back, so he actually went a lot further than we went on the horses, and often times, we would ride for hours, or even most of the day.
Jet was muscled up like a Quarter Horse, and the black lab who lived across the street from us looked wimpy compared to Jet. But he just laid around most of the year, and only went somewhere when it was hunting season, and his owner took him out duck hunting.
I guess each dog has a different need for exercise, depending on his age, size, temperament, and lifestyle.
