I guess we all agree that a tired dog is a good dog. Dogs that are tired physically as well as mentally don't get into mischief.
Our Weimaraner has endless energy and we are not able to physically tire her out. It doesn't matter how often I would throw the tennis ball for her in our backyard, she would want more. We realized very quickly that we had to think of something, so that she wouldn't get into trouble. My father-in-law, one of the best dog trainers I ever met, suggested obedience training, giving her "jobs" around the house and teaching her tricks. He told me that all these things would give her a purpose and it would make her a much happier dog. At first I was skeptical about the "happier" part. I knew an obedient dog was easier to take along and I also knew that I didn't want the embarrassment of being dragged around in public. I followed his suggestion. It was an amazing experience. When I got home after one of our first training sessions my husband asked me what I did with our Weimi. He said that she was walking around looking like she was extremely proud and happy. Then after her dinner, she was so tired and went to sleep!! Once we were done with the obedience training, we taught her tricks and jobs around the house. When she turned five I thought that her age probably had calmed her down and I gave her less things to do around the house and didn't practice obedience (she knew all the commands). This proofed to be a mistake. She became destructive. Whenever I left for work I had to stow away my books on the night stand and make sure the remote control was up high. She went through at least half a dozen of covers of my books and three remotes. We realized that she had become bored and I started with training again. The change was immediate.
This experience has taught me that our dogs need their mind and body in balance just like us. I now put a high value on walking dogs. Walking takes care of three things at the same time. One is that it gets me up and going in the morning and I get some exercise. The second one is the physical exercise for the dogs. And the third, and for me a very important one, it keeps them mentally stimulated. They get some "sniffing time" and they have some "obedience time" when we walk. They get so excited when they are inspecting the trails and learn which animal has walked them the night/day before. There are rabbits, chipmunks, birds singing, ... After that they have to concentrate and pay attention to me and we work on obedience. Once we get home the energy in the house seems much more relaxed. Although a dog gets physical exercise running around in the backyard, after a short period of time there is nothing new left to explore and they get bored.
