
Today in this article we are going to talk about how to assemble your dog pack as a dog walker. It’s a delicate balance. Honestly it has to do with making all of the dogs happy while also keeping yourself sane in the process. So in this article we are going to mainly talking about when you are walking the dogs on leash because we find that when you are picking up all the dogs up and then you are going to the dog park it’s a little bit easier. You can put some dogs together that you wouldn’t necessarily put together if you were walking on leash.
Dogs
With the dog walking license you can take up to six dogs on leash. That’s right six, that’s a lot, that’s a crazy amount and we actually prefer to take less dogs. We usually recommend to take three or four dogs where you are the happiest and you can give the most of yourself to the dog but you can totally take as many as you want. That’s completely up to you. You want to base the packs based on neighbourhood. So you want the dogs to live close to each other as close as is possible because you don’t want to be spending half of your time going from different location to location picking up all the dogs. You want to spend as much time on the walk as you possibly can with all of the dogs. You also want to try to pick dogs who have similar physical energy so it doesn’t necessarily matter the breed or the different sizes it’s more how physically active they are. So you want to try to get dogs who have the same kind of energy that way you can cater to everyone all the same time instead of always just slowing down for one or speeding up for another. You want to try to make like we have a good baseline of them all being in a similar place.
Puppies
We love them puppies are adorable but they are horrendous on walks like they are just crazy. So we suggest any dog that is six months or under that they do private walks on their own because they are still learning how to walk on leash. And before they walk in a whole entire group pack where everybody’s on leash they need to know how to walk on leash. So if you do private walks with them you can kind of get that leash training down, pat before they are added to the group and they forget all of that training because they are just so darn excited.
In general you only ever want to have one puppy on the group. And when we say puppy we mean like one year and younger after a year they are an adults pretty much. So one year and under you only want to have one on the group. And trust us on this because we have had more in the group and it is just mayhem and that’s because puppies they get so excited about a being outside be being with all these dogs see being with you is just too overwhelming for them. And they forget how to walk on leash they just try to jump on all the other dogs and play as opposed to walking in a straight line. And the reason that this is bad is, first of all it tangles the leashes and it makes it very difficult to walk but also some of the other dogs they don’t appreciate being jumped on, like especially if it’s a dog who just want to walk and pee on everything they are not happy that there’s going to be a puppy jumping in their face.
When it comes to older dogs you want to either put them on private walks or you want to have them in a smaller pack. It obviously depends on how old they are and if they have any medical issues going on. And that’s just because as dogs get older as with humans and other animals as well, our bodies start to kind of you know we get some aches and pains like it gets a little bit harder to move around. So you don’t want to have an older dog with all these younger dogs and then it’s trying to keep up and then it’s got to recover for a whole week after that walk because it was just too much for them. So you want to try to get an older dog with other older dogs as well so that they all can have that calm vibe. Now all can just take their time when they are walking.
If your dog is really struggling than a private walk may be a really good bet for them really play it by ear like when it comes to age it. It depends on the dog when you have an anxious or nervous dog. This is a little bit tricky when you have an anxious dog you want to really work them into the group slowly. So the worst, worst thing to do with an anxious dog is just to throw them into the pack and expect them to be okay. They are just going to get more nervous if that happens. So what you want to do is you actually want to put them on private walks for a little while just so they can get used to walking with you. And you can kind of assess what exactly makes them nervous when it comes to walk then you want to add one calm and chill dog on to the group, so it’s the two of them then slowly you can keep on adding the dogs in. Try to make them as calm as possible with dogs. If something negative happens the dog is never going to want to do that thing ever again and you want the dog to be really excited and happy to go on walks you don’t want to scare them right off the bat. So you do need to work them in slowly so that they can learn to love these walks.
Conclusion
And that’s how we pick our packs. Honestly every single dog is so particular and unique and it’s really going to be up to you at the end of the day to figure out who’s going to be good with who. So trust yourself and have faith in your choices. After doing these things you will be able to teach your dogs in a better way.