Expert: Delores Beck - 3/18/2011

Question
Dear Delores,
We have a soon to be five month’s show cocker spaniel.  We have had him since he was 9 weeks old.  Despite the fact that I have read many places that you should only walk a puppy very little, we have felt that he needed more stimulation than short play in the garden and in the house.  As soon as he had his last vaccinations at 10 weeks of age, we started taking him on five to ten minutes walks once or twice a day and then steadily increasing this.  
From an age of about 3˝-4 month, he has been walked about 20 minutes to max ˝ hours  twice a day.  Sometimes, we have walked him just the once and then played with him on a long lead in a field for 5 minutes with a short 5 minutes’ walk there a back.
There have been occasions where when we come back after a walk, he runs around the house like a maniac, a dog trainer has told us it is because he is exhausted!? –We asked our vet and she said she would not say that she meant it was pure excitement.
We are now attending some further obedience classes where they stress that all this could (or may already have!) cause damage to his ligaments etc.  I feel awful if this is true.  I know I have read that you should be careful but my instinct just told me that it was ok.  Although he would come home after a walk and soon settle, he does not appear to be exhausted.  He does however sleep from about 8pm in the evening until 6 am in the morning.
Please can you say what you experience is with walking from puppy age into adult cocker.  I hope you can put my mind at rest a bit.  
Anette

Answer
I think you're doing all the right things and I'm quite mystified by what the people at your Obedience school are telling you.  Nothing you're doing is excessive at all and at 5 months this amount of walking is just fine.

Sometimes people will take extremely young puppies (8-12 weeks) and hike them for hours.
This obviously isn't a good idea and your common sense has guided you very well.  He absolutely needs his half hour walks and it's helping socialize him, leash train him, and getting a lot of excess puppy energy out.

I think your trainer's comment is really quite funny - he's not at ALL exhausted and is just "up and full of fun & excitement"

Would I advise a two hour run at this age?  No.  But you're doing just fine and I'd keep him at this level for another few months.

It's nice to hear this question - mostly I'm begging people to walk their dogs. :)