Flying Poodles

How Much Exercise Does a Poodle Need, Anyway?

I find Dancer and Elly need a LOT of exercise, the more the better.

For brain exercise, I like to make sure that they train for five to ten minutes several times a day. By training, I mean agility training (which we do twice a week, formally), recall training, sit/down/stay/wait training, and so on. Of course, dogs are being trained 24/7 when they live with you, but I’m talking about how often I get out the treats and the clicker.

For physical exercise, I find it is essential for my girls to get an hour to an hour and a half off-leash racing and chasing (not just in the back yard) at the dog park four or five times a week. This keeps their muscles hard and their weight down. While we’re there, I walk so that the dogs keep moving as well. I find if I just stand around that the dogs just stand around or lie around, too. I probably cover about 2 miles at this point; it was more before my surgery, but I’m getting better steadily.

Besides the puppy park walks, we do the agility training twice a week, which requires them to work hard and sprint hard for about 25 minutes per session, besides the brain work of figuring out what I want.

In my experience, because poodles are content to sit on the couch and watch TV–anything to be with their moms–their owners assume that they don’t need as much exercise as a lab or a border collie. It’s not true. While poodles don’t seem to get fat like labs, they certainly do get soft and out of shape.