If walks keep adding fire, stop adding fire #dogtraining #dogtrainingtips

21 Oct 2026 · 2 min

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1:47

In this video, Max Randall explains that overly stimulating walks can raise a dog's arousal level, making additional walks counterproductive. He argues that simply increasing walk frequency or duration does not calm a dog; instead, it can create a feedback loop where the dog becomes more excited and harder to manage. To break this cycle, he recommends reducing walk length or frequency and, crucially, providing sufficient enrichment and sleep at home. He points viewers to a previous video on improving canine sleep to lower arousal and promotes an upcoming series on breed‑specific enrichment activities, urging viewers to follow along for practical, home‑based solutions that replace the reliance on walks for exercise and mental stimulation.

Chapters

Walking your dog less might actually be the one thing you've been looking for, and I'm going to show you exactly how we're going to do this correctly. If your walks are filled with triggers that keep arousing your dog, you'll find that the more you walk them, the more aroused they become. And these triggers—not always scary things, but exciting things—if your dog goes out there and just is nuts, this is for you. I understand the more you walk your dog, the more exercise and enrichment they're going to get. It's going to be tiring, so surely that will calm them down. But As we spoke about yesterday and the day before, we're talking about arousal. Because if your walks are fulfilling but they are twice as crazy as they are fulfilling, this doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how good a walk is if it's driving them nuts. You won't actually see the benefit. So more walks just increase your dog's arousal, and you never get that baseline lower and lower like we spoke about yesterday. But there is a catch, and it's a really big one. So let's say you start cutting your walk shorter You start skipping some walks or just picking more chill places, your dog's day-to-day life will be less enriching. So if we start spending more time at home but we don't have things at home that can help fulfill them, well then you are straight back to relying on more walks, but it's the walk that's driving them nuts. So you're stuck in this loop of just relying on a walk. So the only way you can do this successfully is if at home you have an actual way of fulfilling your dog. So there's 2 things I want you to do. Number one, watch yesterday's video where I helped you understand how you can get your dog sleeping more, because that will help drop arousal. But what I also want you to do is follow along this weekend and next week where we talk about enrichment and we talk about breed-specific enrichment, because that is game-changing for anyone with a dog. And if you think that'll be useful, follow along.