When I brought home a new puppy, I was excited to go running with her.
Initially, the puppy was simply too young and little to handle it.
She got tired right away. Once she got big and strong enough to run with me, she was terrible about the leash. She’d switch between pulling and becoming tangled up in my legs. My daily workouts are important to me. I run to remain physically fit, burn calories and increase my heart rate. Devoting the entire run to trying to control the dog was frustrating. I was also concerned about the dog injuring herself because she wanted to race to the end of the leash and would then jerk against her collar. I finally did some research and bought a new type of harness that fits snuggly over her snout. If she yanks against the leash, it draws her entire head upward. This doesn’t harm her, despite the fact that she gets angry with it. She learned quickly to run at my side and not pull ahead. Once the dog got accustomed to it, I was able to put the normal collar back on and guide the leash loosely. She and I steadily increased the distance and speed of our runs. She and I have worked our way up to four mile runs. I prefer to run about double of that, but the dog gets too tired. I usually take her on a run, take her home and then go for another three or four miles on my own. Just recently, the weather suddenly heated up considerably. I made sure to shorten our distance because of the heat. The poor dog was becoming overheated and dehydrated. I also figured out that the hot pavement was harming the bottom of her paws. I now get up earlier in the morning so that we can take our run before the temperature climbs.