[woodrowsmom]

Ok, I have a question about how much to walk Woodrow. He is now 11 weeks old. When he was about 7-8 weeks old we started with a couple of walks up and down the driveway per day. Now we have moved up to the corner of the street and back. Yesterday, we walked him to my parents house. They lived one street over.

I want Woodrow to be as healthy and happy as he can, and I know that starts with exercise so he doesn't have alot of pent up energy. My question is this - at 11 weeks, how far should I be walking him a day? I don't want to over-exert him since his legs are so short. How much per day should he be walked???

Also, I want to start letting Woodrow sleep with me at night. Up until now, he has been sleeping in his pen due to potty training and for his own safety. Is it too early? Also, if I do start now, what are some things I should be sure of? Will he wake me in the night when he has to use the bathroom, or should I set my alarm and wake up once during the middle of the night to take him out? I don't want him to use it in my bed!

Thanks in advance for the answers. I am looking forward to learning from those of you who have "grown up" bassets!

 

[bjsibba]

We've had several other dogs before the Bassets and I've always had my dogs sleep in bed with us and we started the Bassets out in our bed as well. It's always worked out well for us, I'm a light sleeper so if they start stirring I wait a little bit to see if their just changing positions but if they don't seem to settle back down I get them up and let them out. I love having them in bed with us and they love curling up next to us, but Bassets get pretty big, bigger then our other dogs did. We have two so as they have gotten bigger there isn’t much room for my husband & me in the bed. So we have tried to get them to sleep on the floor next to our bed. They start the night out fine on their dog pillow on the floor but once they wake up early in the morning to go out they want in the bed. We usually only have a few hours of sleep left by then and I'm too tired to fight it so I let them up. We have a queen size bed but if were going to continue to let them up we need to look into a kind size bed.