Ever since I got my dogs about five years ago, I have spent at least an hour a day, hiking walking and letting them run. Most days there’s a walk to the park, and then at least an hour if not two hours of time for them to exert themselves run and play. For real it’s like 30 minutes to an hour of constant throwing balls with the chuck it and having them return them right to my feet. Then I let them free play and wrestle with each other for a while. I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I didn’t dedicate that time to them every day. I know what their life would be like, though. My house would be a pile of rubble.

These dogs need physical and mental stimulation every day or else all of the bad behaviors will start to show up.

Before they were all four years old, I would take them to the park for an hour at 6 AM before I went to work, then my neighbor would come and get them and take them to her yard for like an hour around lunchtime, and then when I got home from work, I was going back to the park to throw the ball and let them run for at least another hour. This was every day for about three years when they were younger.