I feel like everyone who takes dog training seriously either grew with dogs that needed training OR they were a horse girl (no hate just an observation). I was neither of these things. My family dog growing up was a Bassador (Lab x Bassett hound). His name was Buckley. We rescued him around 2 years of age and he lived to be 15. I swear he was someone’s well trained and well loved pet dog before becoming part of our family. He was found wandering down a highway in Alabama and shipped up to a shelter in New Hampshire where we found him. He knew all of his basic commands, had good manners, loved car rides, and was satisfied with a 1-2 mile walk per day. This was all I knew of dog ownership before I brought Vinny home. My experiences with Vinny laid the groundwork, but nothing prepared me for living a normal life with a cattle dog (now two!).
I want to start by saying, it can be done. I also want to start by saying it is an entire lifestyle change and more work than I can express in a written paragraph. People always meet my dogs and seem to enjoy their company. It would be a disservice of me as a cattle dog handler to not give a realistic picture of what it is like to fulfill them every single day. These dogs were bred to work, and although they can live an extremely happy and fulfilled life without working cattle, they still require seemingly endless mental and physical stimulation.
Something I didn’t know before having cattle dogs is that working breeds need to learn to do nothing. All of the dogs I have interacted with, no matter how excitable they are when I met them, eventually calmed down and took a break on their own. Even the craziest of dogs seem to be able to tire themselves out. Cattle dogs typically do not innately have this off switch. When I brought Chief home, I knew he would be energetic and require a lot of exercise. So, that’s what I did. We ran around for hours and he seemed to get increasingly excitable albeit much crankier as the day went on. It took me a few months to understand that he needed to be instructed to settle, or else he never would. I added naps into his daily routine, and this was a complete game changer for both of us. Today, he is able to settle when needed which is important for both of our mental health.
My cattle dogs train every day. Mental stimulation is extremely important to their fulfillment. When Chickie first came home, she showed a high level of interest in walks. We would take short walks almost every day, and she would be relatively tired afterwards. Seemingly overnight, a regular walk was no longer sufficient to tire her out. In the mornings, we walk, play (her favorite games are flirt pole and frisbee rollers), then train for her breakfast. Afterwards, she is ready for a long nap in her pen until my husband’s lunch break. This process may seem like a chore but it is something I truly look forward to doing everyday with her and Chief.
I fit my workout in somewhere in between the morning routine I discussed above. It is important to make time for yourself to be the best version of yourself that shows up for your dogs. When I get home from work in the evening, I have plenty of free time to spend with them. We play outside, go for a walk, and occasionally go practice dog sports like dock diving in the summer or nose work games when the weather is bad. The dogs eat their dinner then have “calm down time”, which right now means Chief is on his place, Vinny is in his bed, and Chickie is in her pen or her crate if she can’t settle. We eat dinner, then typically play with the dogs again before bed.
On weekends, we dedicate a lot of time to our dogs. Chief and I do our longer runs together on Fridays. Saturdays we typically attend pack walks with our training facility, sometimes even a group class, and usually do more activities later in the day when they have recharged. My dogs’ favorites are trail walks, beach trips, or swimming. Sundays are more often than not spent doing chores or yard work, so the dogs always get a nice long trail walk at some point in the day for fresh air, exercise, and mental stimulation. This may seem like a lot but this is what I feel my dogs need and deserve. I chose to bring working breed dogs into my life and the least I can do in exchange is make sure they feel fulfilled each and every day.
I heard on a podcast recently that Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has many animals including dogs, does not check his phone/email/text messages until his dogs are fed in the morning. This is such a great testament to the fact that no matter what is going on in our lives, our dogs’ worlds keep turning. We need to show up for them every day. On the days I feel “lazy”, I find it turns my entire day around to just do something active with my dogs. My extraordinary dogs have helped me become a person that lives in the present and enjoys life more fully.
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