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I have to say that walking a puppy that is only five months old for 45 minutes is far too much,
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That state could not be further than the truth. There are too many factor to be taken into consideration in making such a determination.
What it the speed of the walk, from the dog perspective.. a walk, trot,cantor. What is the surface, how hard is it, what is the fitness level of the dog. What is the weight of the dog. Walking is a low stress exercise. A dog should be able to walk a considerable distance but at the same time it endurance need to be worked up to slowly over time. Moderate exercises like walk can reduce fustrtion levels of pups from inadequite exercise which then on ther own will engage in much higher risk activities like jumping etc. One also must keep in mind that what most people call a wlak with a basset hound is hardly that a 45 minute walk could easily be a 5 minute walk and 40 minutes of sniffing without out seeing an exercise program is is imposible to legitimately comment on it, the best thing is to provide information and let the idividual chose to you or ignore that information,
Keeping Your Large Breed Puppy In Shape
The Role of Exercise in Preventing HOD
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It is our collective experience and our opinion, the majority of growth problems, poor conformation, lack of soundness and bad movement are normally due to a lack of free exercise in the early stages of development - under 8 months
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I think some uninformed people/new Basset owners, think they can walk Basset pups like they could a young Collie/Terrier/Husky etc that has what I call a springy/bouncy body, but you have to be patient and make it gradual until they are grown
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a dog is a dog is a dog, if they need some special care one has to question what the breeder is doing in creating such an exteme body type that requires special care. A basset should be able to hunt all day. If you need to not exercise the dog for the equvilent of it childhood there is something seriouly wrong with the breeding program. Their has been tendency to promote extreme types in the breed ring which contributes to being over careful about the dog development as it grows but if this need to be done it is neither good for the dog or the breed. Recently the KC has adjusted the breed standard of the Basset Hound which should hopefully have an effect in reigning in the extremism seen in a number of "eurpean Basset hounds" This extemism was more common in the US 2 years ago but more recently more moderate and fit bassets are winning in the breed ring rather than dogs that have trouble getting out of their own way.
THE INTERIM STANDARD (WITH CHANGES)