9 Effectives Ways to Exercise Your Beagle

Beagles are active, intelligent, and fun-loving breeds who like to stay busy most of the time. They don’t just need a diet full of protein and nutrition but also a good amount of exercise to remain healthy.

But do you know that over-exercise can develop mobility issues in them?

That’s why it’s essential to determine the right amount of exercise your Beagle needs depending on its age and weight. Let us help you in selecting the perfect amount of activity your beagle needs.

 

How Much Exercise Beagle Needs?

Beagle puppy: you need to worry relatively less about the puppies, as they only require a walk of 5 minutes for every month of their puppy’s life.

Adult beagle: on average, a healthy beagle needs to exercise for 60 minutes per day.

 

9 Practical Ways to Exercise Your Beagle

Beagles for over a hundred years were known for their hunting and tracking smells, which suggest that they used to run for miles almost every day.

Just imagine how cruel it would be to snatch away these privileges from them by making them couch dogs!

Here, we have jotted down the best ways to exercise your beagle in such a way to fulfill its hunting and chasing instincts.

1. Walk

No matter what breed you pet, a walk is always going to be on the top.  Adult Beagles need to go for a walk twice a day. Some of the advantages your beagle gets from regular walking:

• To stretch muscles
• Improved metabolism
• Maintaining better muscle mass
• Relieves built-up stress
• It helps in maintaining a healthy weight

However, if your beagle is gasping, panting excessively, or is falling behind, it’s time to stop and give him some rest.

 

2. Hiking

Hiking sounds fun, especially with furry companions. Our energetic beagles can hike up to 10 miles, and with training, they can become better at hiking.

We bet they would love to spend long hours outdoors, hiking for miles, tracking scents, and getting all drained out.

How to take your beagle hiking:

1. Choose the nearest hiking spot; make sure you don’t let your beagle go off the leash
2. Make sure that they know verbal and hand commands
3. Initially, start with shorter hikes

However, take care of the following points:

• If your beagle gets tired quickly during walks, you should not consider taking him hiking yet
• Beagles who are not older than 18 months should not go hiking
• Always keep them on a leash, as they can get lost very easily
• Avoid going hiking in hot weather
• Take breaks in-between, avoid giving your beagle full meals before going on hiking

 

3. Tug-Of-War

When it comes to exercising your beagle, you can always choose options such as tug-of-war as it’s not only fun for them but also an excellent source of developing healthy chewing habits.

It also means that he will stay away from wires, shoelaces, furniture, and curtains of your house.

You can make your DIY rope by randomly selecting any soft yarn or rolling up a towel, but we recommend you buy a suitable one for your dog.

 

4. Throw A Ball

Beagles are naturally good at playing fetch a ball as it helps burn a lot of energy.

You can play and throw a ball with them for hours. It’s a good exercise option for dogs with pet owners who don’t want to invest much time or energy in conducting exercise games as you don’t have to move much.

Benefits of playing throw a ball with your beagle:

• Fulfills the jumping and running instinct of your dog
• Helps in reducing destructive behaviour
• Satisfies their hunting needs
• Creates a friendly bond with their owners

How to encourage your beagle to play throw a ball in 3 easy steps:

1. Excite them by showing the ball; allow them to sniff a bit.
2. Throw the ball
3. Ask your dog to bring back the toy; this will develop the sense of retrieving toys.

 

5. Running

Not every dog can excel in running. However, you are lucky if you are a beagle owner because they make excellent running partners. The average beagle can run up to 1-2 km at a stretch without getting fatigued.

The running exercise is not suitable for puppies, beagles below the age of 18 weeks.

Dog breeds such as this are prone to gain a lot of unwanted weight because they just love to eat a lot. Running is like high-intensity cardio for them; it helps them to burn extra calories and stay fit.

Keep in mind that beagles are not suitable for longer runs, so make sure you don’t overdo it.

Soft terrain, such as grass, dirt, and forest paths, are ideal for running. It’ll simply be more comfortable for your dog’s paws. On hot days, stay away from rough terrains like roads or cement.

 

6. Hiding Treat Games

The only thing you need to do this fun exercise with your beagle is tasty treats! This game will help to improve the terrible recall skills of your dogs, a fun way to keep your dog mentally stimulated.

If you start adding a nose work game to the routine, your beagle will easily stay out of trouble.

How to play hiding treat games with your beagle:

1. Find the treat; let it be anything your beagle loves to eat
2. Make your dog sit in a stay position.
3. Till the time you hide the treats in safe places
4. Command your dog, “go find the treats”
5. As soon as they find one treat, give them a positive reinforcement by petting them, saying, “my good boy”
6. You need to practice this until your dog learns what “find the treats” means!
7. Once they become experts, you can find more difficult spots to hide the treats

With such fun exercise games, your dog will learn to obey commands.

 

7. Dog Chew Toys

Dogs have the natural urge to chew, and some dogs can be heavy chewers. Sometimes, being a dog owner can be tiring, as you need to hide all the chewable stuff from getting destroyed. To save you all from this jeopardy, you should introduce them to dog chew toys.

Dog chew toys are not a luxury but the basic need of your beagle! Though dogs are often associated with bones, bones can be hazardous for them as they could easily break the jaw or teeth or cause other damages to the mouth and gums.

Benefits of chew toys:

1. Improves the dental health of your beagle
2. Fulfills the natural urge of chewing
3. Reduces destructive behavior
4. Mental stimulation
5. Helps to clean your dog’s teeth and gums
6. Helps smooth the teeth and scrapes away at tartar

If you have a puppy, buy the ideal one.

Tips to keep in mind while buying chew toys for your dogs:

• The chew toy should be durable for heavy chewers
• If you have a puppy, buy the ideal one. appropriate size should depend on whether they are a large dog or a small dog
• Dog’s chewing habits, strength, and what size and durability level

 

8. Dog Agility Training

Dog agility training is a very fun way to exercise your dog, you can start this training with your beagle as old as 8 weeks. Dog agility training is a sport where you direct your dog to go through certain obstacles within a particular time frame. You need to guide your dog to be as fast, and as accurate he/she can be.

As beagles can be quite stubborn at times, which makes them hard to train, but with patience, they can rule the agility training. However, you should always avoid intense dog agility training as it can be uncomfortable for your dog.

A few types of agility training for your beagle:

1. hula-hoop
2. maneuver around obstacles

 

9. Swimming

Beagles like any other dog can swim and the best part, due to their short fur you don’t have to worry much about them getting dirty like other dogs. With many other skills and qualities, beagles are also exceptional swimmers.

What else can be a more fun exercise for our adventurous beagles than swimming?

How to make your beagle swim:

1. No matter if you chose the nearby lake or swimming pool for your beagle, make sure to get them a life jacket
2. Introduce them to water, a bathtub is the best place to start with
3. Slowly introduce them to a higher level, which means more water! eg. a pool
4. After a week or two, your beagle is ready to hop in the water with you
5. Teach your beagle how to enter and exit the water
6. Positive reinforcement is very necessary

 

6 reasons why swimming is good for beagles:

1. One minute of swimming is equal to 4 minutes of running
2. Good stretching of joints
3. Keeps your dog’s heart and lungs healthy
4. Exercise and stimulation
5. Helps in weight loss
6. Maintain a healthy weight
7. Increasing metabolism
8. Improving circulation keeping the skin and coat healthy
9. Provides good cardiovascular, muscular, and mental exercise for you and your dog

 

What Happens If Your Beagle Doesn’t Exercise

Just like we humans need some amount of exercise, our dogs are no different. It’s very important for them to work out in order to remain healthy. When it comes to a breed like a beagle, they need at least an hour and a half of daily exercise.

A beagle can become fairly lazy if it doesn’t work out, which means he will become more prone to gain unnecessary weight.

Anger and frustration: If you leave your beagle on its own for the entire day, he will become more aggressive and frustrated because of boredom. Interaction with other dogs, and people, and a good amount of exercise is very important.

No mental stimulation: This can make your beagle very dull and hard to train.

Anxiety and depression: If a beagle is deprived of its daily activity then he gets more prone to develop unhappiness, which will slip him into depression and anxiety.

Non-stop barking: Do you ever wonder why some dogs keep on barking unnecessarily followed by nights of pitiful howling? That can be super annoying for not just the owners but anyone. If their pent-up energy is not released in positive ways, they use such negative ways to release the energy.

Destructive behaviour: Dogs are of a somewhat destructive nature and it’s completely normal. like chewing your socks, scratching on furniture, etc., But when dogs are deprived of daily exercise, they become more and more destructive with time. Which results in barking and biting guests, hurting other pets, destroying furniture, making them overactive or hyperactive in every situation, etc.

 

Conclusion

Any dog, especially breeds such as beagles, is full of energy that needs an excellent direction to release daily. Merely providing food and shelter is not the only responsibility you need to fulfill as a dog owner; exercising them regularly comes under this category too!

However, make sure you don’t push your beagle too much for exercise; a daily activity for 1 to 1:30 hours is the ideal time.