3 Tips for Walking with Your Senior Dog

3 Tips for Walking with Your Senior Dog

3 Tips for Walking with Your Senior Dog

Walks Become More and More Difficult

3 Tips for Walking with Your Senior Dog

Walking with your senior dog is a fundamental part of being a dog owner, but it seems, as your dog ages and becomes a older senior dog, that walks become more and more difficult. It is hard watching your best friend age. It is particularly watching your older dog in pain.

Walking with your senior dog can be gruelingly difficult for not only you, the owner, but your senior dog as well. Below are three tips that will help take the pain of aging from you and your older dog’s walks.

3 Tips for Walking with Your Senior Dog

1. Remember, a Senior Dog is No Puppy

It may seem like stating the obvious, but your senior dog is no spring chicken. The walks and runs you took her on as a puppy are not suitable for her as a senior dog. You are the human; you need to be the one to set the limits for your dog. She wants to go on a walk with you, and most dogs will try to keep walking with their owners, even after their bodies tell them to stop.

Dogs want to please. As they age they know that they don’t feel like they did when they are younger. Older dogs can become depressed over this, just like humans do. Senior dogs can also become depressed if they think that they have fallen from your favor.

If your dog believes that walking with you, despite her body telling her to stop, will please you, she will do it, even if it means injury to her. She will also do it because she likes to. Walks are fun! She gets to go outside, sniff the air, see the neighborhood, and do dog things. You need to be the one to set the limits.

If your older dog tends to tire after five minutes of walking, don’t push her beyond her limit! She will be happy to walk those five minutes with you. If she still wants to spend time outside, but is unable to continue to walk, sit on the porch with her, sit on a park bench with her; put her in the backyard. Just because she is and older dog doesn’t mean she doesn’t want and need to spend time outside.

3 Tips for Walking with Your Senior Dog

 

2. Walking Your Senior Dog Alone if Need Be

Perhaps you have another, younger dog. Walking your senior dog and a puppy is not fair to the senior dog. Puppies want to play, they want to run around, they want to wrestle, and they have boundless energy. Your senior dog will see that the puppy wants to play, and she will know that she can’t play like she used to. Her walk will be spent either attempting to play with the younger dog, which can lead to injury, or she will spend the walk wishing she could play, but knowing she can’t, which isn’t good for her either.

Let her know that you still care about her. Take your older dog on thier own walk. It is their special time. Most senior dogs tend to need shorter walks and less play time than puppies, so spending a few extra minutes to walk your senior dog alone will not take a significant amount of time. It will mean more than you know to your dog, and that could make all the difference.

3 Tips for Walking with Your Senior Dog

 

3. Consider a Special Senior Dog Walking Harness

Some senior dogs have hip dysplasia or elbow dysplasia, or perhaps one of their legs just doesn’t work as well as it did. Consider buying a special harness that will allow your dog to walk with less effort and pain. Such harnesses can support the dog’s hips, front legs, or entire body. These harnesses can be used to take your senior dog on a walk with less pain.

3 Tips for Walking with Your Senior Dog