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Mad Murphy

Mad Murphy

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For the past couple of weeks the weather has been so awful that we have been confined to walking at the local park and the nature reserve that is pond and grassland.

I had hoped that the wind would have died out today but when we woke up it was still howling and picked up to over 50mph in gusts. I was so disappointed, I'd been hoping that we could walk in the woods this weekend but the wind was just too strong and dangerous.
I worry about Murphy getting bored as well.

Then I got to thinking about those dogs who never go anywhere different but just plod around the local park day after day, week after week, for their entire lives.

Do they dread going out for walks? Do they drag their paws at the sheer monotony of their life? Or are they like some people who love the fixed routine of their life so that they dont have to think or worry they just tread the same streets and know exactly whats ahead?

Do your dogs enjoy change or are they fixed routine types?
 
Timber is a creature of habit and seems to like routine and familiarity. As I may have mentioned, we travel a lot in our motorhome. If we go somewhere new, he is happy as long as both of us go for a walk with him. But when we get to a place we have visited before, he is much more relaxed and so he is happy to go with just me while Mr F has a snooze or reads the newspaper. Ironically, Mr F has no sense of direction whatsoever (he honestly once got lost in a public toilet and took 20 minutes to find me waiting outside) whereas my sense of direction is pretty good.
 
I often completely lose my bearings when finding my way back from the loo in pubs and restaurants. And that's even before I've had a drink! So I can sympathise with Mr F.

Jasper loves going to new places. New smells, new sights, the possibility that it's overrun with deer and rabbits... He also gets quite excited if we go somewhere he's been before but not for a few weeks/months.

If I walk him straight from the door and let him choose his route, I can almost predict which way he will want to go based on when we last went there. If he did the golf course yesterday, he won't want to go there today. If he's not been there for a while, he's adamant that we need to go there. Sometimes he will stop and I can see him deciding where to go. (I can overrule him if needed.)

What I thought sad was when another dog walker asked, 'How can he tell you where he wants to go?' Does she not communicate with her dogs? They can tell you so much if you listen!
 
We also let T choose his walk when it's possible. Nine times out of ten he chooses the beach in the morning and the fields in the afternoon.
 
Murphy loves his adventures. If we get the thermos flask out he knows that we are off on a trip and he gets really excited. If we go to the beach he is pressing his nose against the window way before we get to the parking area and snorting because he can smell the sea and he knows whats coming, the same is true when we go to the big woods ,he loves our trips so much I just cant imagine how soul destroying it would be for him to go on the same local walk every day for the rest of his life...
 
I let Dudley choose his walks. Most mornings he likes the field followed by the pub.
Afternoons he is a bit random and depending on what direction he chooses leaving the house I guide him in the general direction.
Our long walks involve the woods, the canal with a stop at the Bistro, or the long bridle path.
If it is raining the village green, the local graveyard or just around the village.
He also likes shopping and we go to garden centres, for lunch. As an extra.
 
Mad Murphy said:
he loves our trips so much I just cant imagine how soul destroying it would be for him to go on the same local walk every day for the rest of his life
Click to expand...

And this illustrates so well that it's important to read your dog. I think T would stress about this (at his age, now - maybe if he was a lot younger he might adapt) whereas for Murphy, it's his raison d'être.
 
A walk in the woods, a visit to the pub or bistro and a trip to the garden centre. Dudley is definitely a dog after my own heart:D
We drive to our walks so until our dog learns to programme the Sat Nav he doesn’t get a choice. Mind you, as long as there is a tennis ball and plenty of muddy water, he’s in heaven!
 
I'm really lucky as I have miles of footpaths locally I can take so we can ring the changes constantly (even if we just do a walk backwards). Harri loves his familiar walks but it's me that gets bored so we do travel. I can do a walk about once a week... He's a stopper and sniffer so our usual 5 miles every morning can take 3 hours. Which is why I get bored, he stops and sniffs more on a walk he knows!
 
For Jake now if I drive him somewhere different because I think he must want a new set of smells to sniff and a change of scenery he just stands there and looks confused like he has no idea what to do:( so we stick to what he knows, a slow walk up the road, follow the grass verge a short while and home again or bimble around the front garden and back garden, this is where he feels most sure and comfortable, so that's what we do...:) some of my other dogs love the changes but also definitely favour some places over others, to me it is their walk so I pretty much let them lead the way, unless we're heading into a herd of free ranging cows or sheep or somebodies picnic!!
@Nanny71 I have to say that's lovely, your Dudley is living his life with you, garden centre, bistro etc, where you go he goes, as well as his walks, my dogs have always done that with me wherever possible...
 
Our woods are huge so i take a different path every morning ...we are so lucky to have lots of different walks in our local forestry commission ;)
I stick to the woods for our daily morning offlead walk 90 mins as i know they are safe and we take different routes on our afternoon onlead 30 min walk
 
JoanneF said:
And this illustrates so well that it's important to read your dog. I think T would stress about this (at his age, now - maybe if he was a lot younger he might adapt) whereas for Murphy, it's his raison d'être.
Click to expand...

Indeed reading your dog is so important. When Benny was young the world was his playground but as he went blind we had three walks that he knew from memory and that was enough to keep him happy and active. New places would have scared him and made him unsure.
 
Looking back, I think my boy Ari would have been happy with the same walk in the same nature park, all the time. He was in charge of picking the path, and had his favorite trails there, definitely... although he didn't always pick those.
But in order to expose him to different environments, we tried to do as wide variety as possible, including walks in the center of the city (buses, cars, traffic lights, pedestrians, deliveries, crowds on the streets, etc.) Frankly speaking, that was probably for my benefit as much as for his - I love city walks, especially early mornings, at sunrise, when the day just starting.

With our new puppy Miles - it's too early to say, he hasn't been on real walks yet, although we are slowly widening the circle we make around the neighborhood. I am sure we'll take the same approach, variety of experiences as much as possible. How much he will actually enjoy, and what kind, remains to be seen.
 
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