The Key to Balance for Your Dog
Hello, and welcome back.
While I hope you’ve been having a great time over the run of bank holidays so far (if you’re UK-based), you might actually be enjoying the downtime that this weekend brings. No need to celebrate - it’s just a standard weekend.
Your dogs may also be enjoying the peace of no visitors or extra hustle and bustle on your walks.
It’s all about balance. Enjoy the fun, embrace the downtime!
Balance is something I am very keen for all pet parents to embrace. Yes, our dogs need stimulation and exercise, adventures and fun. But they also (like us) need sleep and rest. Linda dived into this topic last week for humans but I’d like to echo it for our canine friends.
One exercise that can be so helpful in terms of tracking the way the ups and downs of life affects our dogs is by journalling. Keeping track for a couple of weeks of your dog’s experiences and the amount of rest they get, combined with their daily levels of stress or excitement can be really useful to see how individual experiences impact our dogs. You could track the amount your dog barks, what protein they’ve been eating, how much sleep they get, whether the refuse collectors have been, if there’s been extra deliveries etc., how easily your dog relaxes after a walk. Whatever seems appropriate for your individual dog.
Hopefully this exercise will help you to see just how important balance truly is for your dog.
Until next time, enjoy this little treat of downtime!
Caroline