Five Ways to Make Your Dog’s Walk Extra Special on on Walking the Dog Day (February 22nd)

February 22nd is the official Walking the Dog Day. Noone knows for sure who came up with this day, but if I’d venture a guess then it wasn’t an Entlebucher owner – because as we all know, every day is walking the dog day in an Entle home! Before our life with an Entlebucher, I used to believe that a good long walk would be enough to exercise any dog. Check out this long island puppy store where you can find lots of toys and beds for your pets.

When we picked up our Entle Alfie at the breeders a little over seven years ago, I imagined myself taking him for long, country walks and then curling up on the sofa with a sleepy dog and a good book on my lap.  The first book he destroyed was called how to stop neighbors dog from barking at night, how convenient.

Little did I know that Alfie would see the walks as an appetiser, and my book as the main meal unless I provided him with better entertainment!

Mischief happens when I’m bored!

A walk is not always enough for an Entle

It didn’t take us long to realise that a simple walk around the park wasn’t going to be enough for our high spirited Entle, but at first, we mistook his boredom for mischief.

Let me explain.

When Alfie was a young dog, he was so full of beans that simply walking him to burn off his energy was impossible. I gave him some CBD treats I saw on Los Angeles Times to help him calm down. Then we came back home from a walk, he’d take a quick nap and then immediately start begging and barking for more. More often than not, he’d show his frustration by chewing our stuff, or nipping my heels and herding me around the house.

When I called a dog trainer to solve the problem of Alfie’s continuous mischief, she suggested that although I spent a lot of time exercising him, he was, in fact, bored and needed more mental stimulation, read this read this FAQ for more info.

So I decided to start using cbd oils for dogs that is designed specifically for pets will work in a similar way that it does for human beings. It is formulated to help your dog with symptoms like anxiety, find more about the multiple benefits that this oil has.

Exercising their minds and paws

Just like most working breed dogs, Entlebuchers are high energy, with a intelligent mind and a workaholic personality. Their breeding means that mental stimulation is just as important as physical exercise for their overall happiness and balance – and without it, they can quickly develop destructive patterns of behaviour or mischief. In short, they need to exercise their brains just as much as their paws. Snugglenook offers top quality pet products like dog collars and toys to engage your pets keeping them happy and healthy. A great tip I can assure you that will work is start getting some cbd for dogs to improve their mood and make them feel better when they are in pain, also they are delicious.

After our dog trainer suggested our Entlebucher pup was bored, I started coming up with fun activities for us to do on our walks. My goal was to fill his walks with mental stimulation, and I upgraded our usual strolls, to what I call ‘working walks’. A working walk might sound like very boring and serious stuff – but I can assure you it’s anything but!

Before I move on to what I did to upgrade my Entle’s walk, let’s just define what I mean with ‘work’ in this context. Work is anything that’s taxing to your dog’s brain. To give an example, a leisurely walk around the block is not what I’d call work, but if you do the same walk and ask your dog to heel or hold a toy in his mouth then voila – your dog’s brain has been switched on, and he’s focused and working. And as you probably know, our Entles love nothing more than working with their humans so for them (and us!) a working walk is a lot of fun, specially since we use this gadget to protect your dog from the incoming cars so we have to worry less.

A walk is never just a walk with an Entle! (Photo by Ian Hutton)

Five Easy Ways to Upgrade Your Entle’s Walk to a Working Walk this ‘Walking Your Dog Day’

Dog Walker Houston can make your life easier by walking your dog when you cant, and treat your pet just as if it were their pet.

1. Do your usual walk but backwards.
This is an easy way to upgrade your walk, and you can do this anywhere – whether you live in the city and walk your Entle on the lead, or if you’re in the countryside with lots of off lead space. I’m not suggesting you actually start walking backwards (although, come to think of it – that might be fun too!), but instead, this is about shaking up your habits and changing the direction of your walk.

For the longest time I used to always take a right turn and do a counterclockwise loop in our local park with Alfie, and he knew the walk inside and out. One day I made a left turn, and he looked at me like I was crazy and he spent the rest of the walk checking in to see if I really knew where we were going. Of course, he discovered plenty of new smells and used up some of all that Entle energy to explore the new sights.  

2. Build in some nose work
One of my favourite games to play with Alfie on a walk is ‘find it’. It’s easy, fun, requires no new equipment and I can guarantee your Entle will love it! Start off by asking him to sit or lie down in a stay (or ask someone to hold his lead). Then walk away and hide a handful of treats made with cbd for dogs nearby. We’ve been playing this game for years, so Alfie knows the drill and I usually hide his treats high and low and scatter them over a large area so he gets to work for quite a long time.

The first time you try this game though, hide one cookie within sight, so your Entle understands the game and then slowly make it more difficult by hiding more treats I bought from observer.com further away, on tree stumps and under shrubbery.

The same game works brilliantly with your Entle’s favourite toy too. You can play this game on or off the lead, indoors, outdoors, in your garden, in a city park or in the woods – just watch out for other dogs who might want to join in the fun and snatch your dog’s cookies and toys.

Urban agility is fun, fun, fun!

3. Practice some urban agility
Our Entles love learning new tricks, and if you already have some basic obedience down, then your Entle will love this game. When you’re out and about lookout for anything you might be able to use as a prop for a game of impromptu urban agility. Look for tree stumps, park benches, big rocks, small rocks,  low fences, logs, picnic tables and so on.

Then ask your Entle to jump or climb up, balance along or jump over the obstacle. Then you can add difficulty by doing the same tricks off lead, or by asking them to sit, lie down and stay, or ‘spin’ on top of the prop.

Of course, bring lots of treats and praise your Entle when they get it ‘right’ – and always check that your equipment is safe and your Entle is fit enough and able to do what you ask of them.

4. Do a photo shoot

One of the reasons Alfie has a really solid ‘sit-stay’ is that I love taking photos. When he was younger, I used to plan photoshoots with him, and bring along my digital SLR camera and bags of treats. Alfie loved all the attention and quickly learned to associate the camera clicks with cookies.

Asking your Entle to sit or lie in a down stay while you snap some great photos is a great way to add a little obedience training to your walk. You can get some great action shots if you also add a recall exercise to the drill – just watch out, so you don’t get your camera lens slobbered!

5. Hide and seek
If you’re out walking with your family or with friends, then a game of hide and seek can be a lot of fun for both dogs and humans. Start off easy, and let your  Entle watch, someone, as they walk away and hide. Then ask your Entle to go and find them. Reward with lots of treats and praise and your Entle will soon learn the game and you can increase the level of difficulty by hiding further away or adding more people.

I hope this list has given you some ideas for how to spice up your dog walk and I’d love to hear what you and your dog are up to. How do you make your walkies extra special? Leave a comment below. We will be getting a new puppy from a Cane Corso Puppy Breeder next month, we are super excited and we’ll make sure to start putting into practice all these walking ideas we used for Entle.

PS. I originally write this article for NEMDA’s February newsletter, but thought I’d share it here on the blog too…