The short answer. Small or laid-back dogs: 30 to 60 minutes a day. Medium and large dogs: an hour to an hour and a half. Dogs bred to work, like collies, spaniels, huskies and most terriers: two hours or more, and they’ll still ask for extra. Split it over at least two walks. Puppies and old dogs need less, in shorter bits. And whatever this page says, your vet knows your dog and we don’t.
We looked this up more times than we’d like to admit with our first dog. Every site gave a different number, and every number made us feel like we were doing it wrong. The walks felt too short. Or the dog came home and did laps of the kitchen anyway. Or, years later, she started turning for home earlier than she used to and we couldn’t tell if that was normal.
So, honestly: there isn’t one right distance. What there is, is a rough range for the kind of dog you have, a bit less if they’re very young or very old, and a few things you can watch for that tell you whether you’re in the right place. That’s what this page is.
Think in minutes, not kilometres
Vets and the welfare charities all talk about exercise in minutes a day, not distance, and once you’ve had a dog for a while you can see why. Half an hour can be one kilometre of stopping at every lamp post, or three kilometres of brisk trotting. Both are proper walks. If anything the sniffy one does more for your dog’s head. Twenty minutes of serious nose work tires a dog out in a way forty minutes of jogging just doesn’t.
Distance still matters, but for a different reason. Distance against time is pace, and pace is what quietly changes when a dog gets older or something hurts. More on that further down. For planning the day, though, use minutes.
Grown dogs, by size and type
These are the ranges that UK and US vet guidance and charities like the PDSA broadly agree on. They’re for healthy adult dogs, and they count everything in the day: walks, play, training, chasing a ball round the garden. Not just the lead walk.
| Type of dog | Daily activity | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Toy and small companion breeds Chihuahua, Pug, Shih Tzu, Cavalier, Bichon |
30–45 min | Two short walks rather than one long one. Flat-faced dogs overheat fast, so keep it cool and don’t rush them. |
| Small active breeds Jack Russell, Miniature Schnauzer, Border Terrier, Dachshund |
45–60 min | Small doesn’t mean lazy. Terriers were bred to work all day and haven’t forgotten. |
| Medium breeds Cocker Spaniel, Beagle, Staffie, Whippet, most crossbreeds |
60–90 min | Spaniels and beagles sit at the top of this range, or above it. |
| Large breeds Labrador, Golden Retriever, German Shepherd, Boxer |
60–120 min | Build up slowly. A big frame and lots of hard pounding is a bad combination for joints. |
| Giant breeds Great Dane, Newfoundland, Saint Bernard, Bernese |
45–60 min | Less than you’d guess. Steady, gentle walks. No forced running and no stairs while they’re still growing. |
| Working and herding breeds Border Collie, Husky, Malinois, Vizsla, Springer, Weimaraner |
2 hours or more | These dogs need a job, not just a walk. Two hours on a lead won’t do what twenty minutes of training or scent work does. |
Two caveats. Dogs don’t read tables. We know a collie who would happily sleep all day and a pug who does hill walks. And if your dog is carrying a few extra kilos, more walking is the answer, but built up slowly at their pace, not a sudden hour-long march.
Puppies: less than you think
You’ve probably heard the five-minute rule: five minutes of walking per month of age, up to twice a day, until they’re fully grown. So a four-month-old gets twenty minutes, twice a day. The Kennel Club has passed it on for years and most breeders will tell you the same.
Two things about it. Nobody has ever actually tested it in a study. And the PDSA, the biggest vet charity in the UK, says outright that there’s no scientific evidence behind it and it won’t suit every puppy. What is well established is why everyone is so careful: a puppy’s growth plates don’t close until somewhere between twelve and eighteen months, later for big breeds, and hammering young joints is linked to problems later in life.
So use five minutes a month as a ceiling for lead walks, not a target. In practice:
- Short and often. Three ten-minute outings do more than one long one. A puppy who has flopped down has finished, even if you haven’t.
- Grass over pavement. No stairs, no jumping off things. Carry them down steps if you have to.
- Let them set the pace. Pottering round a garden, where they can stop whenever they like, is a different thing from being walked at your speed on a lead.
- Big breeds wait longest. No running alongside a bike, no long hikes, until the vet says the growth plates have closed.
Older dogs: shorter, more often, and watch the pace
An old dog still needs walking. Moving is the best thing for a stiff joint, and stopping altogether makes it worse. Vets who treat arthritis mostly say the same thing: ten to twenty minutes, two or three times a day, on soft ground, at the dog’s own speed. If they’re not stiffer the next morning, add a little each week.
The hard part with an old dog isn’t the walking. It’s noticing the change. In 2020 a group of researchers interviewed forty owners of dogs with arthritis about how their walks had changed. Every walk had got slower and shorter, but so gradually that each shorter walk had a reason at the time. Rain. Running late. She seemed tired. One owner said her dog was “cutting a wee corner off here, a wee corner off there, as if just to get herself back.”
A dog with a sore joint shortens her own walks long before she limps. You only see it across weeks.
This is where distance comes back in. If the same two-kilometre loop took 28 minutes in spring and takes 36 in October, that’s your dog telling you something, and you can only hear it if somebody wrote the numbers down. Bring that to the vet and you’ve got a real conversation instead of “she’s been a bit slower lately”.
How to tell if you’ve got it right
Forget the number for a minute and look at the dog. You’re probably about right if:
- they settle within an hour of getting home, instead of pacing or pestering you
- they’re keen to go out next time and keep a steady pace the whole way
- their weight stays put and you can feel ribs under a thin layer
Too little looks like restless evenings, chewing, digging, barking at nothing, dragging you along from the first step, and weight creeping up. Too much looks like lying down or lagging behind on the walk, stiffness or reluctance the next morning, sore pads, and in warm weather panting that doesn’t ease off when you stop. If a dog who used to manage a walk fine now shows any of the “too much” signs, that’s a vet visit, not something to push through.
Weather changes the answer
In summer, go early and late, take water, and put the back of your hand on the pavement. If you can’t hold it there for five seconds, it’s too hot for paws. Flat-faced dogs, heavy coats, overweight dogs and old dogs all struggle in the heat long before you do. A short walk in the shade plus a game of find-the-treat indoors is a perfectly good hot day.
In cold, wet weather old dogs stiffen up. A few short walks are kinder than one long one, and a slow first few minutes helps.
How we actually plan it. Pick a number of minutes from the table, split it into at least two walks, and keep it roughly the same every day. Dogs do far better on a boring, predictable routine than on a quiet week and a five-hour Sunday. If you use TrackMyPaw, you can set that number as your daily goal. There’s no leaderboard and no streak to lose. It’s just your number, for your dog.
Questions people ask
How far can a puppy walk?
On a lead, treat five minutes per month of age, up to twice a day, as the most you’d do rather than a target. So around fifteen minutes for a three-month-old and half an hour at six months. Pottering in the garden at their own pace doesn’t count towards that. Big and giant breeds should skip long walks and running until the vet says the growth plates have closed, which is often not before eighteen months.
Is one long walk better than two short ones?
Two shorter ones, for nearly every dog. Puppies, old dogs, small breeds and flat-faced breeds especially. A fit adult working dog can handle one long walk, but even they’re happier with a second short outing. And every dog does better on the same routine each day than on a big weekend walk and nothing in between.
Is a 5 km walk too much for a dog?
For a healthy adult medium or large dog, 5 km at walking pace is about an hour and well within normal. For a toy breed, a puppy, a giant breed or an old dog it’s probably too much in one go. Build up over a few weeks and check for stiffness the next morning.
Do I have to walk my dog every day?
Yes, unless a vet tells you otherwise. Missing a day isn’t a disaster, but the walk is how most dogs get their movement, their smells and their bit of the outside world, and it’s the main thing standing between a dog and boredom. If you really can’t get out, hiding treats around the house or ten minutes of training goes further than you’d think.
How do I know how far we actually walked?
Guessing doesn’t work. Most of us overestimate. A GPS walk tracker records the route, the distance and the time for each walk, and after a few weeks you can see the real average and, more usefully, whether it’s drifting. That drift is one of the three things your vet is going to ask about.
This is general guidance from a dog owner, not veterinary advice. Sources: PDSA, Exercise for dogs: our ultimate guide; The Kennel Club, Puppy and dog walking tips; Belshaw, Dean & Asher, “Slower, shorter, sadder: a qualitative study exploring how dog walks change when the canine participant develops osteoarthritis”, BMC Veterinary Research, 2020; VCA Animal Hospitals, Exercising dogs with osteoarthritis.