Hello

We have an 11 - 12 week old puppy and wonder if we are walking him too much.

He has a quick 10 min around the block for a pee pee when we wake up.

40 min off lead at 10ish (about 2 miles)

40 min off lead at 2ish (about 2 miles)

30 mins up the park at 6pm playing ball and training etc.

10 min pee pee around block at 8pm before bed.

The thing is, he seems to need this amount of walking or he is chewing the house up.

I was going to start taking him running with me this weekend but I read on here I should wait until 18 months before that.

No on-leash running until at least 12 months. You want to give the puppy sometime to grow into his bones. Off leash is fine since he controls the pace.

These guys will take as much exercise as you can throw at them; the more you exercise them the more they expect. I agree with Pixie Bee that it's time to work on obedience. Your local library should have some books, or maybe others here can make suggestions. Brain work wears them out just as well, if not better, as exercise.  (This is something I wish I had spent more time on with Bo when he was a puppy, but my father in law was dying and we just did the best we could with him.)

Welcome to the forum, and congrats on your new little friend.

Library is a bit out, we live in France and not quite up to speed on the language yet!

We did buy some puppy training books off Amazon though.

I think maybe rather than walking him in the woods we'll just stick to the park for a bit then. Thats where we play fetch and try and get him to stay/come etc. And he can just stop whenever he wants.

Thanks for the help. He is gorgeous. If we take him out the yard at about 11.30 he seems to go through until the morning now.

We have to sometimes shut the door on him to stop him from going upstairs which he doesn't like very much. But we have a cat and they don't quite on at the moment. So we need to work on separation, but he is ok at night now.

He's great with the children, although he did nip at our eldest when he was excited the other day, but she does stick her face in front of his, I think she has learnt a lesson.

yes he's had all his shots and the vet said it was ok to take him out now.

When I say park....

We live in rural France, so the park is an old field where they used to play football. We are probably the only people that visit it.

Most of the people with dogs here take them hunting all day or just let them roam the streets. The French don't really do dog walking.

Yes quite. He knows when he's being naughty. And we do all the things the book tells us too.

He tends to jump up when he first see's you and at strangers, and sometimes when he does this he has a little nibble. We turn our back on him and give him his chew when he does this. It is becoming more and more infrequent.

But also, I don't want my daughter to get into the habit of putting her face near dogs faces.

So he got reprimanded, and she learnt a lesson. His temperament is generally very good. He lets them both do whatever they want to him.