Jacob Morgan warns owners of high-drive dogs that a quick walk or endless fetch won't tire them out. Physical exercise puts dogs on autopilot and builds cardio without exhausting their brain. Mental stimulation that taxes the nervous system works far better, like progressive overload in human training.
Chapters
You want a pet that you can leave alone all day without putting in the work, you probably should have bought a fucking Tamagotchi. If you own a working breed and you work full-time, a well-structured routine is non-negotiable. I see this constantly in Perth. People buy these high-drive dogs and they think that a quick 15-minute walk around the block before they rush off to work is enough fulfillment for the day. It's not. And then they wonder why they come home to a destroyed couch, a dug-up garden, or a dog that's been barking at the fence for 8 hours straight. 80% of having a dog is just putting in effort. If you want to sleep in till 8 AM, scroll on your phone, and casually sip your coffee before work, you just shouldn't own a high drive dog. You have to earn the right to leave them alone. A lot of people think the answer is just run your dog into the ground, take them to the park, they get a Chuck It stick, and they mindlessly throw the tennis ball for 45 minutes while they just scroll on Instagram. That's not fulfillment, that's just putting your dog on autopilot. When a dog is chasing a ball back and forth, their brain is just turned off. They're just acting on instinct. And worse, you're just building an athlete. You're creating a dog with incredible cardio, which means next week they're gonna need an hour of fetch to get tired. It's progressive overload, just like going to the gym. If you bench 50 kilos this week, you're gonna have to bench 55 next week to get the same result. This is the exact same with our dogs. Mental exhaustion is infinitely more powerful than physical exhaustion. You have to tax their nervous system. You have to make them think. Let me walk you through exactly what I do every single morning for my most intense high drive dogs to set them up for a successful day.
