I presently only own 1 dog but am thinking of increasing that to 2 or 3 in the near future, then the practicality of exercising them properly hit me. I do not want to be called the mad woman with the pack of GSD's, those of you who have lots of dogs, how do you do it? 1 or 2 at a time, all together or just exercise them in the garden?

I Have two and manage fine (one GSD one Lab) but when I excercise my friends dogs
(she has eight!! - lives on a farm) I take them two at a time - find that easisest and they all
have their favourite pal to walk with so that's how we manage it.

Hope that helps

K

HI
I have 7 at the moment
i take out the ones im geting ready for showing together (3) roadwork and off lead running
then i take the other 3 to the enclosed field we have...
and the baby Wilma doesnt go out yet as i dont exercise till 5 months although she has a walk to the post office ect to get her socialised.
mine r all Bullys and i can be seen walking very fast arond Doncaster .............LOL

vicki
x

I have 3 and could not really manage walking all my 3 together alone. The main problem I found was trying to pick poo up with one hand whilst holding onto 3 dogs with the other. Also as my are all different breeds their requirements are all totally different. The afghan (like a greyhound) is built for more short bursts of speed and sometimes a 5 minute run round the garden wears him out, however normally a 10 minute walk round the block with him is sufficient. Especially as I am at home all day so he has access to the garden 24/7. The lab however could go for hours and frequently does :) so I a walk of the cross country course at the local riding school (obviously when no Xcountry is on) suits her. On the occasions I have taken the afghan with her he gives up after 5 mins and plods along beside me whilst the lab is still running. The westie is fine with either walk or either dog so the norm for me is 2 at a time. I am also very wary that my Afghan can be funny towards other dogs and consequently I need to focus on him and if I had 2 others with me I would find this difficult if he started playing up. I suppose it depends on the dogs themselves but another rule I tend to follow if all 3 do go out with me is not all 3 off the lead at the same time unless no others dogs about. I realise I have a pack and especially after reading earlier posts about attacking other dogs I would be worried about them acting as a pack and maybe turning on another dog. Just my thoughts but so far it has worked for me.

Well i have 4 and i manage fine as 2 of them don't need a lead. They are all labs and most of the people in our village know me as the mad lab women.

lol

snow

I am known as the Husky lady (mad or otherwise, depending on their viewpoint). Thing is I don't have Huskies, I have four Elkhound bitches who are aged from 2 to 10 years, and walked together! :D

I've got 4 and I usually take them all out together. I usually have some help though as my boyfriend or sister will be with me. I also either walk on a carpark or field where there are no other dogwalkers about and at a forestry commission forest. We very rarely meet people there but when we do, we send the dogs off the path to hunt to get them out of the way.

If we are going somewhere new, I usually only take 1 or 2 to "test" it out.

I love seeing them all out together as they enjoy each others company so much.

Helen

I never take more than two out at once unless I have other adults to help me if anything goes wrong. Two I can control but if three decide to do something there would be no way I could stop them.

Chrisitine

Same here, Chris. I normally only take two of ours out at a time unless Jon is along. The border collie has a different exercise pattern than the GSPs and Kai doesn't run as far as Mara at this point. I just find it easier to keep track of everyone and everything around us when there are only two along.

I have 2 dogs and walk them together and separately. I don't want them to get into the habit of relying on each other or looking to each other for direction when out on a walk, I always want them to look at me hence why they walk separately sometimes :-)

Claire, although we only have 1 dog at the moment and am a complete novice I think what you have said is very sensible and am just about to print it out as an aide memoire when we get our other dog one day in the future. I print out all the sensible things from this site ... although there are so many good tips on it ... but at the mo. I only keep what I consider "sensible" (sorry for the use of this word so much) so that I have a good Bible to refer to!!! If I was to print everything I like I would forget half of it LOL. Thanks for your tip Gina

That's a good thought. I've not taken our two separately as I actually rely on the fact that one will always obey me and the other will follow (who obeys switches LOL). However I DO have separate activities that I take them to as I like them to have individual time and for each to have time home alone. God forbid something should happen to one of them, but if it did I don't want the other to be 'completely' lost without the other - at least this way they are used to being home alone occasionally.

I know this was a bit off the walking subject but a thought I wanted to add.

Wendy

Hi I own 10 staffies and i take them out 2 at a time I could not possible handle any more than that

We take our 5 Border Collies out all at the same time. They all run free on our local foothpaths/bridleways and meet other people/dogs from the village, with no problems. If we come across dogs we haven't seen before, we put them all in a down until the others pass. If it's people we know they all go and have a good game. At the minute we are up to 6! but this is only for a few weeks time, and she has fitted in to our routine/walks with no problems too. We even take out our girls with our 2 entire males when they are in season and we are lucky that we can still free run them with the boys without them pestering!! :)

Marie

I am lucky in that right now I live on a farm and have access to big fields, my dogs get to run off lead, I have trained them to fetch the ball though which makes it A LOT easier, my lot are ball crazy, and stick to me like glue when I am throwing the ball for them. Obviously my new pup just goes out in the garden with me, but when she is old enough, i.e about a year old, she will join the others and hopefully will stay with me and the pack and also become ball mad!!

well i have 3 staffords and i take them all out together (puppy will go out on his own at first but not untill he is about 6 months) but i have taken up to 6 (not all staffords) and i have had no problems but they are all very well traned and they do not stop to pee, but if i am letting them have free run then i only take 2 as a lot of people dont like them and tend to go the other way, and 2 tend to stay topgether.
Bobby

remember every dog is diffrent

Well I have bullmastiffs the most biddable dogs . mind their own business and all that .SO i was very relaxed in the knowledge that nothing would ever happen . I was at a show in tralee on the Irish circuit , I put my cages to the ring first and went back for my dogs , opened the jeep and got the two leads on and out jumps Alice and babs . across the way was a woman with 3 or 4 whippets and 2 dachounds all on long leads . they went mad when my dogs jumped out and within seconds there was pandemonium I went paragliding across the wet grass not a hope in hell of stopping them and right into the middle of all the dogs.I was on the ground like a mud wrestler , and the woman with all the little dogs was screaming like the banshee , thankfully I got help and all was sorted with no casualities . except I went around like a zombie all day, i was shaking like a leaf after it and a woman from london put half a bottle of rescue remedy down my throat . so never say my dogs would not do that they will , if there is a set to how can anyone with three dogs stop it I was lucky it was a show ,and there were men used to handling dogs on hand. if it was a park who would have the braveness to catch a bullmastiff and hold it , very few I think . I will never take two dogs out alone again ..mari

will i have been lucky so far, (hope nothing like that happens to me) i bet it was very scery, when i walked the six they where all under 10 pounds and one of the was my stafford pup when she was a about 3 months old(and it was not far), i can walk 3 very well but then staffords are not as big as bullmastiff's, i can have some trouble if they all see a cat but most of the time only one see it, i do try to keep of wet grass and thing like that as a friend's dog ended up in the path of a very nasty GSD (GSD did not like other dogs)because of wet grass

I walk my 4 Pharaoh bitches on my own all together for a minimum of
hour on a weekday/schoolday. They can be vocal being sighthounds.
This time of year they wear waterproof fleece lined jackets as they
feel the cold.
+ I always take a load/pile of nappy sack bags/poo bags !!

Pam

I walk my 3, GSD, GSP and the little git, all together, the GSD can be funny with other dogs but is very obedient, the other two tend to be ok and just run away from any aggressive dogs, not had a problem so far, and with the amount of mud about at the moment I don't think I could face two or three seperate long walks. Ingrid

I walk anything up to 11 at the same time{not all mine} all the males are castrated and all are well behaved I meet up with other people in the woods and there can be anything up to 20 dogs in all the only 3 dogs which people tend to shy from are the 2 GSDs I walk and my friends dobermann and they are the quietest ones!!!!!!! If i ever see anyone with their dogs on leads or horses ect I make them all sit and not approach the dog/horse.

Hello,

I Have 3 and find 3 is easier than 2 as you can walk one and leave two behind, this makes it easier when you have to take one to the vets etc.
(p.s I have 1 mini dacshund & 2 Rhodesian Ridgebacks!!)
Good Luck.
'Chelle

Welcome to the forum 'Chelle :-) Leigh

Leigh,

Nice to know theres people out there as nutty as I am!

'Chelle ...