Hi there, I'm new here! We have a new Alaskan Husky (from a racing family) and we really don't know what is considered a safe exercise level for her!

She's 7 months old now and seems to be happy with anywhere from 3-5 walks a day with yard time in between on some days (fetch). The walks aren't really that long and range from less than a mile to maybe up to 1.5.

We're really afraid to let her go too hard and fast since she's still growing and keep reading not to push them too hard before 1 year. I plan to potentially take her out on runs in the future.

Some days it just seems like she need to be worn down a bit more, but we are hesitant to walk her too far at this point. I figured I'd ask some experienced husky owners!

I should add that she's really petite for her age... only around 26 or 27 pounds.

Thanks!

Generally the rule of thumb is 5 minutes of exercise for each month of life. So, for a 7-month-old dog, 35 minutes' of exercise at a time is ideal. From what you've described it sounds like your pup is getting plenty of exercise. As long as their body and mind is being stimulated enough each day so that they don't appear bored or start destroying things in your house, there's no cause for concern. Just remember that along with physical exercise you should also be exercising their mind with training and other forms of mental stimulation.

Great, Thanks. Keeping her mentally satiated is the challenging part. I think when she's looking for mental action (even after a good walk), she resorts to chomping on us with her razor-mouth.

She is very pretty.

You can incorporate obediance training in walks and fetch time as well. It is harder depending on how much she likes fetch, but I can get Loki to do a bunch of tricks and commands with the reward being me throwing the ball.

Another option is play dates. I know Loki gets pretty exhausted when he plays with his friends.

I kind of felt like you at times with Loki until we could do more running with him, but the obediance work seemed to help a alot and a year comes faster then you think.

techigirl78 wrote:

I kind of felt like you at times with Loki until we could do more running with him, but the obediance work seemed to help a alot and a year comes faster then you think.

I know that feeling, too! Layla's getting pretty close to a year and with the nicer weather I've been itching so bad to get her an X-back and take her out biking and do some more focused jogging with her. It's so hard to wait, but come fall we'll be starting our training.

Our Loki s 7 months and he just seems to never get enough either. Yesterday we walked him for 20 minutes in the morning, played with him for another 20 in the house and then later on took him to the dog park for over 30 minutes. He came home and had energy to play in the house with us for over another 30 minutes.... He just never seems to get enough.

I think its just important to remember that the mental stimuli (Kongs, in house training sessions, etc) will also tire him out and if you are worried about too much exercise you can incorporate those to get him tired out. We bought him an antler bone and he can play with that on his own for hours. He doesn't just chew on it, he barks at it, chases it around after kicking it and acts like its alive. He even (just now) did some Husky talk to the thing. Fun times!