The books say not to take your dog running until theyâre at least a year (better: 18 months) old, so theyâre running on mature bones and joints.
Early on, I instead let Ashley take me on runs, letting her drag me on the leash while she sprinted off in random directions at breakneck speed for 30 or 40 seconds, only to cut in front of me and then come to an abrupt stop. It wasnât really satisfactory. After I fell and badly split the skin on my knee, I mostly quit doing that. If I wanted to go for a run, Iâd leave the dog behind with Jackie and run by myself. But that was unhandy for all of us.
Now that itâs spring, and weâre getting some nice running weather, I thought Iâd see if Ashley could run with me.
Iâd done some preparation: In the winter I took a âloose-leashâ walking class, and sheâd gotten a lot better at walking with me. For loose-leash walking I wrap the leash around her chest and then back through that loop you can see on the collar in the picture. That has a couple of positive effects: the leash is effectively shorter, and when she does pull, the friction from the leash constricting around her chest makes the pull gradual, rather than an abrupt hard yank. The key, though, is that it serves as a signal that I want her to walk like a pet, and stay by my side, and sheâs gotten pretty good at doing so.
Yesterday I thought weâd give running together a try, and it worked great! I walked her a few blocks on a long leash, so she could get her sniffies in. Then, once we reached a multi-use path thatâs about a quarter mile away, I put her on the leash wrap, and started runningâand she did just what I wanted her to! She ran along, next to me, at my pace. She didnât try to run off in some other direction. She didnât try to sprint ahead. She didnât lag behind like she didnât want to run. She just loped along next to me.
It was great!
I had neglected to bring water for her, so I was a little worried that sheâd overheat, but she seemed to do okay. We ran a mile, then turned around and walked partway home, but when it seemed that she wasnât overheated, I picked up the pace again and we ran the rest of the way back to our starting point, then I put her back on a loose leash and we walked home (where she did proceed to drink a whole bowl of water).
For future runs I will bring water. Iâll also make a point of getting out early, before the weather gets hot.
If this doesnât turn out to be a one-off thing, and sheâs willing to run with me on a routine basis, Iâll start taking her running every other day, sticking to short runs for a while to make sure we donât over do it, then gradually increase the distance until one or the other of us hits some limit or another. (Iâve been routinely walking her over 6 miles nearly every day, so weâre both already in pretty good shape.)