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Hi all, i'm really considering getting a whippet, my main concern is where I can excercise them. Been reading alot on them but not spoken to anyone. Is it realistic to let them run in a park?
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Whippet exercise
- Thread starter jimmygreen
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Hi Jimmy
I think that it's something that you need to take on an individual dog basis. Some sight hounds have good recall and are very good at resisting bolting off after any small animals that you may encounter, some are great at dashing away but are close enough to other dogs in the household that have good recall that they can use the other dog as their recall, and some have no recall, are a danger to smaller dogs and small animals and are likely to take off with no warning and be a danger to themselves as a result.
A friend has a really very large and muscular whippet who looks like he could run for miles but actually is best mates with their family's terrier and never runs faster than the terrier can (almost) keep up with, so he's got quarry to chase, a friend to chase him and recall all rolled into one. The two of them run around for 20 minutes twice a day on a large piece of local access land that's far away from roads and my friend has never had an issue with getting him back again.
However, between the number of sight hounds that do have recall problems and the number that will take off after every small animal or blown bit of litter, there are quite a lot of sighthounds that are only suitable to be exercised off lead in an enclosed space and I think that it is wise to assume that any sighthound falls into this category until you know otherwise, if only for the dog's safety.
There are all sorts of fenced in spaces which could be used for off lead exercise, or any large field which is empty could be used for a big run around with a doggy friend if you have the dog in a harness and on the end of a long line, as long as you can keep the line safely away from the legs and necks of the animals having a run around.
Most sighthounds are complete couch potatoes in the house as long as they have half an hour of walking twice a day and a few opportunities to really open up into a run. As the sprinters of the dog world they have very fast explosive speed but they have very little stamina and couldn't maintain all day of running alongside a hunt or a carriage, as beagles and dalmatians can.
I'd find a local sighthound group to where you live and ask them where they take their dogs out if I were you. For example, there is a huge dog field near where I live which is very securely walled off from the road with walls that are about 9 feet high from the inside, and this field runs for over half a mile down the hillside away from the road. On the 3 other sides of the field are arable fields with very little to attract a sighthound even if they could get over the walls, so everybody I know who needs to work on recall goes there, walks down to the bottom of the field away from most visitors and uses the space to let their dog off the lead in relative safety. I'm sure that there will be somewhere quite close to you that can be used similarly, and if there's no doggy field then there will be a set of tennis courts that you can book by the hour or a manege or something which you can either book individually or as a group with other sighthound owners.
I hope you find the information that you're seeking, and that this helps you to make your decision
I think that it's something that you need to take on an individual dog basis. Some sight hounds have good recall and are very good at resisting bolting off after any small animals that you may encounter, some are great at dashing away but are close enough to other dogs in the household that have good recall that they can use the other dog as their recall, and some have no recall, are a danger to smaller dogs and small animals and are likely to take off with no warning and be a danger to themselves as a result.
A friend has a really very large and muscular whippet who looks like he could run for miles but actually is best mates with their family's terrier and never runs faster than the terrier can (almost) keep up with, so he's got quarry to chase, a friend to chase him and recall all rolled into one. The two of them run around for 20 minutes twice a day on a large piece of local access land that's far away from roads and my friend has never had an issue with getting him back again.
However, between the number of sight hounds that do have recall problems and the number that will take off after every small animal or blown bit of litter, there are quite a lot of sighthounds that are only suitable to be exercised off lead in an enclosed space and I think that it is wise to assume that any sighthound falls into this category until you know otherwise, if only for the dog's safety.
There are all sorts of fenced in spaces which could be used for off lead exercise, or any large field which is empty could be used for a big run around with a doggy friend if you have the dog in a harness and on the end of a long line, as long as you can keep the line safely away from the legs and necks of the animals having a run around.
Most sighthounds are complete couch potatoes in the house as long as they have half an hour of walking twice a day and a few opportunities to really open up into a run. As the sprinters of the dog world they have very fast explosive speed but they have very little stamina and couldn't maintain all day of running alongside a hunt or a carriage, as beagles and dalmatians can.
I'd find a local sighthound group to where you live and ask them where they take their dogs out if I were you. For example, there is a huge dog field near where I live which is very securely walled off from the road with walls that are about 9 feet high from the inside, and this field runs for over half a mile down the hillside away from the road. On the 3 other sides of the field are arable fields with very little to attract a sighthound even if they could get over the walls, so everybody I know who needs to work on recall goes there, walks down to the bottom of the field away from most visitors and uses the space to let their dog off the lead in relative safety. I'm sure that there will be somewhere quite close to you that can be used similarly, and if there's no doggy field then there will be a set of tennis courts that you can book by the hour or a manege or something which you can either book individually or as a group with other sighthound owners.
I hope you find the information that you're seeking, and that this helps you to make your decision
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