09/28/2026
A canine enrichment specialist said, "A dog who hunts for ten minutes and never walks is calmer than a dog who walks for two hours and never hunts — that's how much more powerful the hunt is than the walk."
I need to tell you what she meant.
Dogs have a wide range of personalities, as well as motivations. I prefer to call them drives. Right now we are talking about the kind of dog who watches everything. Hears everything. Follows you with his eyes even when his body is still.
He's the best dog you've ever had. But he was also the most restless dog you've ever had.
Every single night. Same thing.
You walk him in the morning. Thirty minutes. Then again after work. Forty-five minutes. Sometimes an hour. Sometimes longer if he was really wound up.
You'll get home. They'd drink water. Lie down.
Five minutes later. Back up. Pacing.
That slow, steady pace back and forth across the living room. Ears up. Eyes scanning. Whining softly. Picking up a toy. Dropping it. Looking at you. Walking to the door. Walking back.
Every single night. No matter how long the walk was.
You add a third walk some nights. Fetch in the yard. Tug with a rope for a few minutes before he'd let go and walk away.
Nothing changed the pattern. Walk more. Pace anyway. Walk longer. Pace anyway.
You started to think something was wrong with him. Maybe he was anxious. Maybe he needed medication. Maybe this is just what life with a high-drive dog looks like.
When you look restless dogs up on Google, every article says the same thing. Walk more. Stimulate more. Give him a job.
We need to start looking at what the breeds was designed to do, and make sure our activities answer those genetic drives.
"A dog who hunts for ten minutes and never walks is calmer than a dog who walks for two hours and never hunts."
Dr. Sarah Lin.
Canine Enrichment Specialist
The walk and the hunt aren't even in the same category. They live in different parts of his brain. The walk handles legs. Movement. Sniffing. That's it.
But his brain runs a completely different system all day long. A five-step sequence. Search. Stalk. Grab. Shake. Dissect. It's called it the hunt.
When that sequence completes — all five steps — his brain releases the chemicals that create real calm. Not tired calm. Finished calm. The kind where he lies down and stays down.
Walking doesn't touch that system. Not even a little. No matter how far. No matter how long.
The rope? He'd grab it. It would go silent. No feedback. His brain would stall at step two. He'd let go.
The ball? Step one only. Chase. Nothing after.
His toys? Same thing. Grab. Silence. Dead prey. Drop. Walk away.
Hunt started. Hunt killed. Every single time. Beginning, ending, no middle. It's and incomplete story.
The unfinished hunt doesn't disappear. It sits in his brain. All day. Building. By 8 PM it overflows as pacing. Whining. Restlessness.
Two hours of walking couldn't drain it. Because walking doesn't touch it. Ten minutes of a completed, finished hunt could. Because that's the only thing that does. You've both been working hard, just working hard at the wrong thing.
Along with teaching our dogs commands, we also need to accommodate they're natural behaviors. This not only includes the way we play with them, but the toys we select for that playtime. Tug-of-war is a common way to release pent up energy, but most do it wrong, and i'm guilty of it myself.
Once the dog is engaged, we bounce them up-and-down. We moved them from side to side. To be more effective and safer, we need to keep the rope lower to the ground. Bouncing them up and down is hard on the joints. The side motion is hard on the teeth. Although it may seem like the dog likes this interaction, physically, we're not doing the dog any favors. Also, we usually end the engagement when we get tired. Which stops the hunt short of completion.
Don't get me wrong. We use the full gambit of toys that are out there. But we make sure that some of the toys are more appropriate to what they're trying to do, complete the hunt.
The best toys for this are shakable. Jolly balls on ropes are great. Avoiding the plush filled toys for ones that have crinkly things inside, or the animal shapes that you can stuff with plastic water bottles are excellent as well. Dogs get bored, just like people, so it's a good idea to have a variety of these types of toys so that you can rotate them. Recently, i've seen toys that have multiple grab points. These work even better.
I've attempted to cram a whole lot of knowledge in just a few paragraphs. It may give you a new direction or avenue to look into. Some of you may desire a little bit more guidance and understanding. For that I suggest you reach out to me directly. So we can discuss your situation and make a plan for some meaningful resolution. My goal is to help you create a relationship with your dog. That's based on mutual trust, respect, and cooperation.
ThundersPack.com
