Walking puppies

Do you use the 5 mins per month of age rule?
I'm finding it hard to stick to when Hocus would easily and wants to do more.
I tend to be out for longer than 15 mins (he is 13 weeks) but find somewhere to do a bit of training: sit/down/leave the person and try to keep actual walking to around 15mins.

Also how do you start introducing them to walking closer to people without leaping all over them? Hocus just wants to fuss everyone!

I followed it very loosely as it is difficult when you have a super high energy puppy.

The key is to avoid forced exercise -- so no long walks on the pavement on lead, no jogging/biking, or anything where the pup is forced to maintain an unnatural sustained pace for longer periods.

A lot of our walks at that age consisted of going in the car to the park (or wherever) and letting the pup mooch around, sniff, meet people and other dogs, etc. So even though I might be out for half an hour, the actual physical walking time would probably be less than 10-15 minutes.

Agree with Labradork, we concentrated on going lots of new places with new experiences and not actual timings. Most of the time we stood still and let the pups play and mess about around us, maybe a wee bit of training. No leash walking.

They would often curl up at our feet and have a wee snooze if we were outside too long (this was summertime!).

Cannot help you with bouncing all over people, mine were awful for the first 6 months!!

They seem to have grew out of it i hope!

I follow it to the rule but having a large breed puppy for him and me it is important.

10 years ago when I had my Aussie shepherd mix I didn't he could go all day and needed the exercise plus I knew no different then.

i stick to it loosely too, but then my dogs are fully grown at around 6 months so they arent that limited for a while anyway.

if i had a giant breed i would stick to it, because of how important it is for their joints and bones growing properly.

i always thought it was lead walking anyway? but them mooching about, or playing is ok? i just thought it was lead walking on a path or pavement?

If it was JUST lead walking, that would basically be like saying it would be ok to do a three-hour hike with a young puppy provided it was off lead. Obviously, you shouldn't do three-hour hikes with young puppies.

Anyway, like you say, the guideline is more relevant to some breeds than others. I took more care with controlling exercise with my Labrador than I did with my Yorkshire Terrier at the same age, for example.

obviously i wouldnt walk a young puppy for that long anyway, but having read on here, am i right in thinking that say pup can walk for 20 minutes due to its age, you could walk 10 minutes there on lead, say get to field or park and let the pup have a bit of a play, then walk 10 minutes back? or am i completely wrong with that?

I think personally the 5 minute rule is a general guide but by no means will suit all puppies. I walked my golden from around 9 weeks a few mins at a time both on and off lead building up. By six months of age, two walks a day, one early morning and one in the afternoon, both for around 20 minutes. At first sign of tiredness I would immediately turn back, if he played with another dog I would not continue the walk for long.

Basically I think 10 minutes of running around playing with another dog is far more exercise than a sedate 30 minute walk. So I would tailor his walk according to how active he was.

I try to stick to it with bassets being such a heavy breed on such small legs

I agree with Labradork...

I hate seeing people forcing pups to walk ridiculous lengths of time. I once met a guy with a weim pup, and he had taken the pup (8 weeks old!) for an hour and a half pavement walk And he was wondering why the poor pups paws were bleeding!