As of last week, I’ve started taking Ayla for a morning walk as well as her evening walk. Mostly she seems to be very wound up after a round of naps in the morning and if it prevents her from getting so wild that she wants to start using me as a chew toy, I’m all for a walk.

I know some people would say I might be avoiding the problem and that wearing her out is not training…well duh. But a tired puppy is a good puppy and since she only mouths and nips at us when she’s playing with something and just seems bored in general, a walk is the best “medicine.” I would gladly play with her in the yard, throwing a ball or something but she isn’t not a fan of sharing and doesn’t want to learn what “give” means so a walk is our own solution at the moment.

Anyways, it would seem that she is now so familiar with the paths behind our house that she knows exactly how far she wants to walk every day and if I attempt to make her walk more than 15-20 minutes, she simply refuses to budge. She walks along with me like normal until we get to the crossroads of the longer paths and if I start off on my way and leave her behind to catch up, she pretty much just sits there and ignores me. If she’s on leash, she sits and plants herself on the ground. Sure I could force her to come with me but I simply don’t have the desire to spend 45 minutes on a morning walk either…and if I felt she was doing it out of stubbornness, I’m pretty sure I would make her come along further. She still does totally fine at her evening walks and makes no protests at all about the length or direction of the walks.

Apparently she’s already starting to outsmart me…or at the very least just knows her body well enough to know what she needs and what she doesn’t. When she was about 3 months old, we both tried the morning walk routine separately and failed miserably. She would barely even leave the driveway…so now that she’s doing the same behavior down the walking path although she usually seems to really love walks, I will trust her judgment until she starts getting crazy at home after the walks as well.