What Do You Do For Daily Doggy-cise When You Can't Go Outside?

Discussion in 'Dog Health' started by lizzyrd, Feb 24, 2011.

  1. Anneke Honored Member

    I always go for walks. No matter the weather. If it is really hot, i'll make a long one in the morning, or evening and do a short one during the day. The dogs don't mind.
    But the weather here isn't that extreme, at least not for long.
    If I am too sick to walk, my mother will take them for a short walk and they spend the rest of the day keeping me company, untill my boyfriend comes home and takes them on a good walk. But I hardly ever am too sick to walk.
    But then again, I am a dogwalker by profession, so I have to go for walks. Rain, storm, snow, ice.... I just dress for the occasion:D
    tigerlily46514 likes this.

  2. tigerlily46514 Honored Member

    lol, Running Dog, just so i'm not seen as a wuss, i am not sure you can picture the ice i have to live with in the winter. Winters are incredibly artic where i live, even more severe than many places far far north of us, cuz we live by Lake Michigan.
    The COLD does not bother me, nope, nor does the snow. But we get ice that is out of a bad movie, and ice advisories, etc etc.
    Even with special ice cleats onto the bottom of our boots, it is either super slick, and rarely even, usually a slope one way or another, LOL, EVEN BUDDY SLIDES AROUND A BIT!! like Bambi in that movie.. Even local horses and cows can break their legs on THIS kind of ice, every winter some have to be put down.

    and no matter how slow you waddle along, you can still fall, BAM, i broke my tailbone last year. eeeeeeeeeee, THAT takes a lonnnnnnnnnng time to heal, had a purple bum for weeks !!!:rolleyes:
    and another year, a concussion, taking brunt of fall on back of my head. <--i know, i know, that explains a lot, right? ha ha!!
    Luckily, Buddy sat beside me, and did not take off/get lost, and sat licking my face, as i lie on the street with the wind knocked out of me and seeing dots......til i could eventually stand back up before a car slid on the ice and ran over me, ha ha!!
    WHAT A KNOT i got on my head....ouch ouch ouch. Took days to go down.
    Now, if it is too icey, i say forget it. Our health is better NOT taking THAT walk outside!!
    or worse,
    the kind of ice you get when it thaws a bit....and becomes slushy, and THEN REfreezes.....eeeeeee, that is almost worse, THEN you have a very bumpy frozen landscape,
    of frozen tire tracks,
    frozen molded footprints, etc,
    all solid as stone and all made of ICE!!

    And then, even the top of the snow in one's yard is covered with crust of ice,
    and i will not let Buddy run in that kind of ice-topped snow. His legs punch in and out
    of the THICK
    ice-topped snow,
    scraping them all up,
    the DOGS here get bleedy wounds on their shins from this ice-topped snow,

    and if he runs in that type of snow--besides skin damage, he can get joint damage cuz
    he yanks his own legs going in AT ONE ANGLE....and THENout of the snow AT ANOTHER ANGLE too quickly---his foot does not come out when he expects it too, but instead, is grabbed by the solid ice.. Maybe you'd have to see it to picture how hard this is on a dog's legs when they run in ice-covered snow.

    NAH, i *CAN* do freezing weather, so can Buddy,
    it's not the COLD, it's not the snow, it's THE ICE that stops us...
    we both have to be able to safely walk! and the ice we get HERE, "lake effect" weather, is the worst! NOt like a patch of ice here....and another there.... nope nope nope, not what i'm talking about. Miles of solid, sheer ice, even on top of the snow!!

    We live in country, not where there are shovelled sidewalks, we walk by the cars sliding around out on the road, and the roads out here do not get cleared by plows very often, etc, like in the city.
  3. running_dog Honored Member

    Sorry wasn't trying to be snooty, I know our winters are milder! We do have issues in ice - Zac is far too spindly to enjoy skating :eek: even in the relatively small amounts we get here.
    tigerlily46514 likes this.
  4. charmedwolf Moderator

    Thankfully, I have rather lazy dogs except Isis. The joys of owning big lazy dogs.:LOL:

    Hot weather - On really hot days, we walk at midnight or when it is cooler. For mild- hot days I'll road work them with the bike around the nursery.
    Wet weather - Everybody goes outside to play fetch. It rains almost everyday here so they get used to it.
    Icy weather - Bundle up for a walk. I used to live in Vermont, I'll live. Some of the dogs, however, do need jackets for the cold.
    Unwell - Fetch, scent work and snuggling.
    Lack of time - I'll throw food out into the yard and send them to find it or I'll give them kongs/ bully sticks.

    Most of the time if I can't exercise them either someone will or they will exercise themselves. Seriously, 7 dogs rough housing together is the perfect exercise for them.
    tigerlily46514 likes this.
  5. mewzard Experienced Member

    i'll follow the unpromted format to re-answer the question;
    Hot days - We don't get many super hot days here. She will usually get both walks maybe a little earlier and later to avoid the heat, Sprinkler/paddling pool, hose fun in the garden - she sleeps alot.
    Wet days - normal walks if it's drizzly/rainy - we just get wet. If it's absolutely chucking it down, E.g you'll be drenched in 30secs we try wait for a break. Or we do stuff inside nose-work, tricks.....But Oka tends to sleep on days like this - she doesn't like the rain at all. - thats how we know the rain is getting heavy - she comes in and lays in my chair :rolleyes:
    Icy - Again not so much of this, It wasn't too cold last winter so we didn't have much problem. Oka is mega furry in the winter so she's not bothered - she like to lay around in snow :cautious:. If it snows alot this winter we'll just by snow-chains for shoes.
    Unwell - the other one of us will walk her - we share!
    Lack of time - we don't tend to have this problem. If Marks was late home, she just gets her walks later. Or we planned in advance and I took her out when the kids were in school. ATM with Mark home 24/7 she gets longer walks.
    tigerlily46514 likes this.
  6. sara Moderator

    We dont get much ice, except on roads after people slide around in the snow for awhile... We also dont get alot of snow, as we have a fairly dry climate, a few inches at a time is about average... What we get is COLD! It regularly, and routinely hits -30C to -40C, though not for more than a few days at a time before a Chinook blows through and we warm up for a few days, then it drops back down.... usually. Last winter was especially cold, with huge temperature swings... Going from -52C with the wind chill to +8C in 36 hours just before Christmas last year.

    We get alot of dry, hot days in the summer usually, however this summer was a completely different story... I dont think I've ever seen it still green in August, nevermind September. We got so much rain this year I thought I was going to grow webbed feet! LOL

    But We're used to it. My dogs all have booties and coats for winter, though Scout and Zoe almost never wear their coats. and we walk in the evenings or late at night (Since I adopted Oliver, I dont worry about walking in the middle of the night anymore) If it's raining, we wait 10 minutes, it usually stops. If it's absolutely too cold, and there's no way we'll be able to walk, (only happens on average of 5 or 6 days a winter, as I wont walk if the windchill is below -40C, but will at least take Ollie out for a few minutes above that) then my dogs are perfectly happy to nap the day away... or if it's like this year, and we had weeks of too cold weather, then I take the dogs into Petsmart for some training and do alot of clicker training and such at home... They were perfectly happy with that.
    tigerlily46514 likes this.

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