Balancing physical exercise with mental enrichment

Don’t fall into the mistake of over-exercising your dog! Find a balance between mental and physical activity and create an activity schedule that both works for your life and meets your dog’s needs.

It’s common for dog owners to put a lot of focus on physical exercise as a strategy for tiring out their dog. However, focusing solely or too much on physical exercise can leads to problems such as;

Excessive physical exercise can put excessive wear and tear on your dog’s joints, especially if you are relying on repetitive activities like fetching. Repetitive back and forth running and tight turns can lead to injuries especially if you’re not also working on conditioning your dog’s body and providing joint support.
Putting too much emphasis on physical exercise can also create a canine athlete that you can’t keep up with regularly.
Excessive physical exercise can also lead to dogs who struggle to settle and are in a constant state of arousal.

Dog parks and daycares are popular exercise choices for many people because their dogs come back from these activities completely exhausted. There’s a difference between being satiated and ready to relax vs being exhausted. Think long day of work exhausted vs long hike exhausted, there’s a difference in how you feel mentally based on which type of physical activity you engage in and your behavior reflects accordingly. The high arousal exhaustion a dog gets from dog parks and daycares can lead to them being more keyed up and anxious throughout the day instead of the intended outcome of feeling satiated and relaxed.

If your goal is to have a satiated and relaxed dog at the end of your activity, then you will want to find a balance between physical exercise and mental enrichment. Mental enrichment can be just as, if not more tiring, than physical exercise but you can still wind up with an anxious keyed up dog if your dog is spending a lot of time trying to figure out puzzles they can’t solve leaving them feeling frustrated. This can be literal puzzles like food foraging toys that are too hard for your dog or it can be training sessions where the lesson is unclear or confusing.

So how do you find balance between balls and brains? When you choose an activity for your dog, ask yourself if it leans more heavily toward physical exercise or mental enrichment and then brainstorm how you can mix in something from the other end.

Here are some examples:

Sniff walks or decompression walks - Taking your dog for a walk can be both physically and mentally enriching IF you allow your dog to sniff, explore the environment, and have enough leash length to have freedom of movement.
Structured toy play - Playing fetch, catching a frisbee, and tugging on a rope can be both physically and mentally enriching IF you ask your dog to perform all the different skills they know in order to earn the next throw or tug session. The more you teach your dog how to do, the more robust and interesting your routine can be.
Scheduled play dates - It can be both physically and mentally enriching IF you set up play dates with dogs that your dog gets along well with RATHER than putting your dog in a social mixing pot such as a dog park, where they have to work at social etiquette and avoiding conflicts with unfamiliar dogs.
Dog sports - There are many dog sports out there that you can do for fun with your dog that can be both physically and mentally enriching such as; Treibball, Scent work, Tracking, Earth dog, Dog Parkour, and Agility…

BALLS AND BRAINS