Exercising a 5 month old JRT

[***Melissa***]

Bibi is exactly 5 months old today She is a Dachshund x Jack Russel, and def has the energy and speed as a JRT (she can jump extremely high, and is always bouncing around).

A few weeks ago I posted about other methods of exercising (physical exercise) my two, b/c of unsafe circumstances, but that has cleared up a bit, so we are going on walkies again...yay

Anyway, she gets about 1,5 hours excersice a day...about half of that is walkies, and the other half is off lead in a fenced area.

My questions are:

1. What provides more exercise: Walkies or off-lead time (off-lead time includes running around, *bouncing* , but also sniffing, etc). So is 3/4 hour okay for walkies and another 3/4 hour for off lead, or should I do more of the one and less of the other?

2. Is 1,5 hours enough physical exercise for a 5 month old JRT? I know I'll have to up the exercise when she's older, but I also know that pups shouldn't get too much exercise either, so I'm not really sure how much exercise to give her at the moment.

We do clicker training, feeding out of kongs, play games, so I'm mostly referring to physical exercise, but there is something I want to mention b/c I'm not sure whether it's important...she seem to have a very short attention span. Our clicker training is about 2 mins then she looses interest, so we do a couple of very short training sessions a day. And she also learns very slowly when compared with Striker. I don't mind, I know not all dogs are the same, plus she's still very young, but I'm just checking if this is something I should be worried about? She's very smart when it comes to figuring stuff out on her own...like licking my toes gets me to jump up & laugh, or things like that, but when it comes to tricks & commands she's much "slower".

Striker will practically fall asleep as soon as we get home from walkies / off lead time, but Bibi never really seem tired...she's not hyperactive either, but will still have the energy for tug, chase, or whatever even after exercise

[***Melissa***]

Just to clarify - I'm not really worried about the clicker training, I just isn't sure whether it's relevant to my questions or not.

My real questions are those about the physical exercise

[***Melissa***]

Hellooo...?
I think my post was missed

[Nettle]

The best exercise is mental as well as physical, so the getting out and about for sniffs and bursts of running is good for that, and the puzzle times at home too.


It sounds to me as if she has a nice balance.

Now, you should stop the training before she gets stubborn, so not very long of anything before you change to something else. And don't ask anything unreasonable, like constant sits, downs and stays. Can you tell us about the training you do? We might be able to tweak it for you. She is a cross between two stubborn breeds, so she won't do what doesn't suit without a fight, and in dog-training it's sensible to pick our fights.

[***Melissa***]

Thanx Nettle, I'll continue with the physical as I do

Clicker Training:
Yes, the first few times (that's a few weeks ago already) I saw that she start to loose interest. (She would just stop with whatever we were doing and walk away). I follow Emms clicker training post, so I think I'm doing it right When she walked away I then timed it to see more or less how long she can go without losing interest. She can focus for about 2 mins (a little over 2 mins), so I do clicker training for about 2 mins (a little less) then stop (quitting while I'm ahead ). I always always try to stop on a high note (before she looses interest).

I think that MAY be a reason why she takes longer than Stiker to learn something, b/c we can do about 1 step per session, then our session is over I do about 5 x 2mins sessions a day with her.

Here's the tipe of things we do:

Sit, stay, watch me = these are proofed everywhere in the house & I don't use the clicker for them anymore.
Other basic commands we are still working on, some are not proofed in all the rooms yet, some are in the beginner stages, etc)

I let Bibi do the 'jumping through my arms' that H's Mom and Noobs taught their doggies - I don't let Bibi jump though, b/c she's still a pup. She walks through my arms. I'll add the jumping bit when she's older.

Then I teach her little 'tricks' like high five, sit pretty (I think the actual term for how we do it is begging, but I only realised that after I started to call it 'sit pretty'. We're also trying the 'find the...' but we only started with it recently. There's a bunch of other tricks I want to teach her, but though this is about enough to work on for now

We do make progress, it's just much slower than with Striker. (Striker knows a lot more tricks already & he's is much more 'proofed' everywhere, but it's b/c he learns faster). But then again, the things we don't reaaallly want (like the toe licking), she learns very very fast

About the unreasonableness
Fortunatelly I did some reading before starting with the clicker training, so I am very mindfull of what I ask of them and for how long.

With Striker I'll never even attempt to do a 'pretty sit' (begging?) b/c he's loooong weener body won't handle it

I don't let them sit in one position very long, the longest is in a sit / stay where I'm able to leave the room, step outside, and return immediately - I haven't timed it, but it's long enough for me to see they have to use suuuuper self control not to get up but it's def less that a minute at a time. And we don't even do sit / stays everyday, b/c I don't really use it (and I forget) Anyway, I really put thought into what I ask of them, so I don't *think* I'm asking unreasonable stuff. Like I won't ask Bibi for jumps untill she's older (the arm jumping thing), and another example - I don't let Striker high 5 b/c of his body (I don't think he's able / it will be healthy for him to lift his arm up that much to high 5) We do a 'low' 5 - where I show him my hand (palm turned upwards), very close to the ground, and he puts his paw on my hand for a 'low' 5.

Fortunatelly Bibi & I have never gotten into a 'fight' over it , the only thing that happened it that she lost interest & walked away - only the first few times then I realised what was happening, and now stop before it happens. Also, the first few times she walked away, I didn't react in any way. Occasionaly she would, at the beginning of the clicker session don't show any interest at all, then I just leave it and have the session 20 mins later - and then she'll be fine.

So, I don't *think* I'm really doing something wrong (please correct me if I do).

And Nettle, so you don't think there's a problem with her never being really tired (like Striker) after walkies, off lead time, and mental exercise?