Cotton Hill

Hi! I'm brand new to Basset.net forums and I thought I'd start with a quick introduction, I recently (within the last 4 months) rescued a 2 year old Basset. I read what material I could get my hands on before getting him, and one of the things I read was that they get fat really easily and that it is very, very bad for them.

While on vacation I was taking my little Cotton on 3 mile walks every day splitting them up into 1.5 miles at a time ( we had a nice route to walk on the good days ), and after each one he would trudge up the stairs and promptly pass out for a few hours. My question is, was I exercising him too much? Too little? I know that even within the same breed, all dogs are different, but I would love feedback on your guy's experience with Bassets and exercise.

Thanks in advance!

Soundtrack

It basically depends on what kind of shape he is in. If he's been a couch potato, you should start him out slowly. If he's really fit he should be able to go at a moderate pace for hours.

It also depends on his structural soundness. For example, dogs with wide fronts, straight shoulders and short upper arms will have a harder time and tire more easily than dogs with correct front assemblies. I've seen this quite clearly in my own dogs. The same goes for dogs with leg deformities (fiddle fronts, bow legs, knuckling over, mismatched fronts etc).

I used to have a route that I took with my dogs, I'm not sure how far it was but it took us about an hour and a half each day. Given an average walking speed of about 3 MPH we probably covered over 4 miles each time.

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Cotton Hill

Actually he's not allowed on the couch

As I notice, He sleeps a lot, so is it safe to assume that when he sleeps after a good walk, that it was sufficient? Its usually, pretty immediate, we come inside, he walks into his room and saws some logs.

Scully

Weather-permitting, we now walk our two about 8 km (approx 5 miles) a day. They get a morning and evening walk, each one about 4km. They are both very fit and trim, and they don't seem to be overly tired out by the end. In fact, Ninja still comes home and runs around the house before crashing for a nap.

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Emma and Doris

A normal healthy basset will cope better than the average owner, I will say.
But be careful with puppies and old dogs, and be sure they don't have any issues.

Steinar, Emma and Doris

Annie714

I recently started walking Annie twice a day as well. It's been about 3 weeks and we are up to about 4 miles daily, 2 in the am and 2 in the pm. But it varies day to day depending on weather and me mostly LOL. She tolerates the long walks well and I enjoy the free nail trim that she gets, as well as noticing that she is losing her chub a bit. I often wonder if her legs hurt? Sometimes mine do after long walks so I imagine hers may as well but don't know. She doesn't always conk out for a snooze after our walks, she may have more sniffing and barking to do, but it has improved her ability to sleep thru the night.

Cotton Hill

Fortunately I have stairs that lead to my front door, so if his legs hurt, he takes his sweet time getting up them, otherwise he just bounds up the stairs. The long walks totally helped him get back to a healthy weight, when we got him he was a chubby bunny.

Thanks for all the replies guys!