How to Take Care of a Dog - Exercising, Socializing, and Playing With Your Dog

1. Provide your dog with plenty of exercise. Provide the right amount of exercise for the type of dog you have. A small toy dog may be better playing games of fetch or ball to tire it out, while a Labrador needs to have good long walks, for at least 30 - 45 minutes twice a day in order to burn its energy. You may have a dog that actually requires a ton of exercise and never tires out, for example terriers are often capable of running all day without tiring.[9]
- Lots of exercise helps burn off excess energy, which, if unattended, could cause behavioral problems, such as chewing, digging, or excess barking.
- Make sure you walk your dog. Your dog should go on at least two small walks or one BIG walk a day. The length of these walks varies depending on the type of dog you have.
- No one wants their dog to run away. If you have a yard and you allow your dog to be outside by itself make sure you have a fence in your yard so the dog can't run away. Make sure it's tall enough for your dog not to jump over the fence.

2. Stimulate your dog's mind with reward-based training. Just like people, dogs can get bored. To lead a happy life dogs need mental stimulation. This stimulation can be in the form of obedience training. It is important to teach your dog to sit, stay, and come when called.
- Most dogs enjoy the one-to-one attention of a training session and these sessions help the dog to bond with you. If you use reward-based training, in which only correct behavior is rewarded and no punishment is used, the experience of training will be a very happy and positive one for your pup.[10]
- Train for around 10-20 minutes twice a day, depending on the concentration span of your dog. Always try to end each session on a positive note.
- Give your dog a reward each time it obeys your command. You can use small treats (remembering not to over feed your dog) or you can simply shower the dog with love when it does something correctly. The choice of reward depends on what motivates your specific dog.[11]

3. Socialize your dog. Dogs need to be well socialized in order to become well-adjusted adults. From just a few weeks of age introduce the pup to as many different people, sights, sounds, and smells as you can. What it encounters up through 18 weeks of age (when the socialization window closes) it will largely regard as normal and not be fearful of in the future.[12]
- If you got the dog as an adult then still introduce it to different experiences. Take care not to overwhelm the dog and make it fearful if it is not comfortable. This requires patient handling whereby you introduce the dog to the fearful object, but at sufficient distance that it does not alarm the dog. Reward calm behavior and, over time, move the object closer, rewarding as you go, so it starts to build a positive association with the object.

4. Allow the dog to play and display behaviors that are normal for the breed. For example, scent hounds, such as Bassets and Bloodhounds, love to follow scent. Make sure you give your dog time to sniff its environment. You may even wish to turn this into a game where you lay a scent trail and it gets to follow it.