Are you on drugs or what? That’s just stupid running three hours with a dog like that. If you want a long distance dog go get a vizsla. Your Berniedoodle should be kept to a hour or less run given temp/ humidity.

Tend to agree here. We've got 2 GSD's that would go till they die without complaint. Well, one of them ran herself to the point of me having to carry her 3/4 mile back to the truck and it was "only" 72 outside and she'd had 20oz of fluid in the 80 minutes we were out. I thought I was being a good dog owner, but bigger and harrier dogs are not bred to shed heat. Use good judgement on the front end here.

I've got Greyhounds, and although they can sprint at 45 mph, we usually call it good at about 4 miles at my pace, especially in the summer. In the cooler winter temps, we've gone as far as 10 miles. I've brought water, but they've never been interested in it. So I make sure they are hydrated before we go, and they head straight for the water dish upon returning.

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Im Hungarian, so I'm partial to Vizslas but didn't know they were suited for 3 hour runs. Is it just the short fur or some other factors too?

My wife and I have been fostering dogs for a local shelter and at some point we will probably adopt one. I honestly didn't think any breed could go 3 hours, but it would be nice to have a 4 legged training partner like that.

Yes vizslas have no undercoat and shed heat very well not to mention have an astronomically high VO2Max. I’ve heard of owners taking them on runs as long as 20 to 30 miles. However I wouldn’t run them that long as a normal practice and certainly not in the heat and not on pavement. They prefer a soft surface after all.

While I'm not an expert on dog physiology, I did train sled dogs for a year in 2014/2015 so I have some experience with endurance breeds. We also had an Aussie that would join for some runs and most of the walks.


The biggest takeaway from long distance running is that it's crazy how fast dogs overheat. Most of our huskies were Alaskan huskies, rather than the siberians you normally think of. Alaskans have thinner coats and are better equipped for long distances like the Iditarod. Some of ours even had some non husky breeds in them. I remember once I was out for a run with a 6 dog team in about 20 degrees F and after a warmup we were moving pretty well. Pulled off for a short break after about 20 minutes of harder running and a few of my strongest dogs just dove headfirst into a stream that was tricking on the side of the path, both to cool down and get a drink. Sure they have more of a coat than pretty much any other breed, but it was cold. On warmer days (anything over 40), we wouldn't both hooking them up to a sled or kart, just a long walk.


If you're running on trails and the dog is allowed to roam, I think it's safe to say they'll find water if its available and if they need it. Otherwise, you need to make sure they're getting water breaks every 20-30 minutes at least. Or better yet, depending on the climate, just don't go longer than that with them.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
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I forgot to mention i live right next to the great salt lake and we run right next to ponds and ditches that he swims in the ENTIRE run. That is why i was was mostly wondering how to feed him or when the water is nasty how to give him water. Ol georgey boy can do 16 and then still run hot laps around the yard, hes done almost every run i have done since he was 6 months old..
I usually give him a clif bar at 2 hours lol

also forgot to say i get him cut super short every month. But i do need this input so thank you

I think i am safe with the ponds every 400 yards and i am that guy that has the dog off leash. but what about food is he o.k. in ketosis? Do i just let him drink whatever water or do i carry stuff for him? pretty sure abot now i should maybe bring some water that swamp is getting nasty..

There’s an “endurance test” when titling a dog. It’s 20km of running, needs to be completed at an average pace between 12-15kph. The temperature can’t exceed 72F. There’s a 15 minute break after the first 8km where the dog is examined for fatigue, excused if it is too tired and the dog must be between 16 months and 6 years to take the trial.

And the dog will run until it drops dead. 2 hours is too long to run with your dog and it’s longer than you need to do for any training.

Hope this helps,

Tim

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I have a vizsla and if it's below 60 he will run 10 miles with me on a leash. He's pretty good about letting me know when he's had enough. I took him out once when it was 85 on pavement and after a mile he was done and I stopped.

This summer I've been taking him to a trail system that's along a river and we run about 2.5 miles and I'll let him swim for 10-20 mins and cool off then run back to the car for 4-5 miles and he loves it. Right now he's got more swimming than I have since the pools are mostly closed.

I would just make sure you have a solid safe water source. The biggest disaster I had this summer was that he got into some bad water and couldn't control his bowels for 72 hours after it. I felt awful for him.

I have no experience with dogs (only have ever owned cats) or useful info for the OP... but I just wanted to say jump in and say this sounds like an awesome job!

For f’$$$ sake, just because he will run until he keels over doesn’t mean that you should run him until he does. Be a responsible owner.

Let me add to that. My pup is a pit mix and her absolute favorite thing is to go to the dog park and play with the other dogs. Play, means chase and wrestle with anything that is game. She will literally do it until she collapses if I let her. She does not have a quit gene. Since I’m not a dumbass I watch and I call her off and we leave after an adequate, but not dangerous, amount of exertion.

Take care if your dog. Just because he Will do something doesn’t excuse you for letting him.

I have a Siberian husky (Mischa) and a German shorthaired pointer (Hobbes). The Mischa is 5 and Hobbes is 2. We just got the pointer from a rescue org in January. His energy levels are INSANE and he's an unbelievable runner. I take him on ~ 10 mile runs. I put in about a 8min/mile effort but he pulls me to a 6:30 average pace for the run and after 10 miles, he is pulling just as hard as he was at the beginning. We did a skijoring race over the winter and over a 3.3 mile course he pulled me to a 14:57 (and I am NOT a good xc skier) - 2nd place by only 4 seconds to a very experienced skijor team. The husky can only go for a real run if it is under 30 Deg F - and even then for longer distance she goes pretty slow, though for short sprints (chasing furry creatures) she is very fast.

We have taken Hobbes on 5-hour hikes off leash and he spends the entire time zooming around. I cannot imagine how far he travels on these hikes... at most he gets 5 or 6 little treats when we stop for lunch. No in-race nutrition for him!

Recently we decided to find some higher protein food for him - basically in hopes that his poop volume would be a little less because he has to eat so many calories to cover all his exercise. So we got this: https://www.stellaandchewys.com/...ble/cage-free-recipe It's crazy-expensive, but after a couple months, because I can afford it, I think it is totally worth it for some dogs.

Mischa the husky is 5 and her energy level has gone down a lot recently. We thought it was just her maturing and mellowing out. Since we changed her to this food, her energy level has skyrocketed. She's like a 2 year old again. She is more playful and happy and has a much easier time keeping up with Hobbes than before.

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That's awesome that you trained sled dogs! When I entered my GSP in the skijoring category this winter at a sled dog race here in CO, I learned a ton about sled dogs. It was a sprint race where the 4-dog teams raced a 3.3 mile course and the 6-dog teams did about a 5 mile course. Most of the teams were true sprinters - mostly pointer mixes of some sort - skinny, leggy dogs with very short hair. The 6-dog sprint world record holder was there - I think 6 miles at some absurd average speed of like 26mph. Hard to believe. There were some siberian and alaskan husky teams there too, and they went at what appeared to be a slow trot compared to the sprinters - but for long distances, they can survive sleeping in -50 degree weather, where the sprinter dogs would just die in those conditions!

Here's a video of a 6-dog team coming off the start line. They keep up that effort level the whole race!



Even on the 3.3 mile course that Hobbes and I finished in less than 15 minutes, for the last mile he had to continuously dip for snow (go to the side of the track and grab some of the deeper snow in his mouth while running) because he was overheating, even though it was about 38 degrees F and he has very short fur.

Edit to add the Alaskan Huskies, while not as fast over the short course as the sprinters, were a lot faster than the pure-bred Siberians, which makes sense.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
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Those dogs are cooking! We were a kids program first and a "racing" program second, so we never pushed our dogs too hard. It really is an amazing experience running a team though. They want to go as hard as possible all the time. The smart dogs can match their effort level to the speed of the team. The overeager ones will pull as hard as they can no matter what, event if I'm on the brake to keep it slower. We put those dogs in "wheel" position, aka the back of the team where their strength can be utilized best. Those ones don't generally get the nod for lead haha. Here is one of my favorite pictures that I always use to show how excited these dogs are to run. Check out the dog in the back bouncing out of his harness. We call them boingers because they just can't calm down when they know they're about to run.



Here is a little video of our team running a race. I was just supporting here, you can see me handling the team in the beginning, with another guy actually running them. 6.3 miles in 23:16. Was about 10 degrees F that day. Linking to the turn around because that part is my favorite.
6 mile race

And then here I am running a 7 dog team in some deeper snow. Another very cold day with active snow/sleet, but was a great run.
Fort Kent training run

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Hardly an expert but I just got back from Alaska and spent some time with Iditarod winning dogs and main takeaways were, they will run til death.
Being the nerd I am, I asked calorie intake. They eat 5000cals/day off-season, 10,000+ calories a day during training/racing.
I asked how they get the dogs to eat that much since that can be hard for humans and they said they start them very young eating huge amounts of food and the ones without a big appetite don’t usually make it to the big time. Also like us, they train the dogs. They don’t just go for 20 mile runs. They build up slowly and pay attention to the dog.
Also they aren’t great at cooling themselves so even though it was only 65/70 degrees in the sun, they were struggling to do more than a mile or 2 without a break.

Takeaway. You can’t get force an adult dog to do long runs. You have to start young, build gradually and pay attention to their nutrition. And lastly, chose a breed that typically loves distance. Not sure a Berniepoodle fits that so be careful.

Awesome videos! Cool watching that 7-dog team pull through the deep snow.

and the "boingers"... I helped hold some dogs for the start of some of the teams and man... they are just out of their minds wanting to run!

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
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If it is really just a bunch of stagnant water, probably safer to have some fresh with you. Or you could even have him carry his own. Not sure on that specific product, but there are options out there that work well. Like someone else mentioned, if you're going to exercise them a lot, don't cheap out on dog food. Some high calorie food is probably necessary. It's also not cheap but is certainly worth it. Raw meat is also good. And then not 100% sure on the science behind it, but a lot of musher's make fish oil a regular part of a dogs diet. For mostly the same reasons that a lot of people supplement fish oil (joints and such).

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
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Be careful about letting him drink stagnant water. Bluegreen algae can kill a dog and there's nothing you can do about it.

I let my dogs drink from most bodies of water but if I can see any kind of algae on the surface, I keep them away from it.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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To the OP:
Your dog does not need food during a 2 hour run. You need to be very carefull with temperature relative to the dog’s coat and ensure he has regular access to water. If you work the dog hard you need to up the calories of his food. Increase the fat % of the food as you can’t just add volume. You’ll be surprised how much volume filler is in regular dog food. Look up some high quality hunting food or ask advice in a hunting store.

I am a GSP owner and live in a northern climate. I hunt with him in the mountains and he will go for hours and hours, easily covering 4-5 times the distance I do. I have done trail runs up to 3 hours with him off leash where he roams free popping in and out of the trail, just keeping me in sight. In winter I do 3-5 hours skiing with him both on and off leash.

As humans, dogs can train endurance. You should increase the time and distance gradually and see how he handles it. Some breeds, like GSPs, have enormous capacity. Poodles are working dogs with great endurance. I don’t know your breed but the poodle side should be a good start.

Thanks for that. I will be super safe with his temperature. He definitely is alot poodle and loves running and can run forever. I basically do what you do, keep him off leash and I never take him in hot weather unless its to clean ponds. I will get him some better food. I usually just give him bacon and fatty stuff before and after our long runs. I agree with alot of the other posters it would be easy to push a dog that loves running to hard. Ill watch it. I love that dog.

Doges with great endurance:


Husky's in cooler weather. They are the triathletes of the dog world

Saluki warm weather. They are marathon dogs

Golden Retrievers....they have big engines. Lots of trail runs with a Golden. Easy a 1-2hr dog

Labrador Retrievers . Another big engine dog. Lots of train runs including swimming at the same time with Labs.

Vizsla as already mentioned.

Dobermans are pretty good. Have run 12 mile with them no problems.

Whippet......Ran 12 mile with a whippet once and the dog probably ran 15 with no problems because the dog couldn't run in a straight line LOL.

All of this is based on the assumption the dog is in shape and all of these dogs were. Fat dog that lives on the couch will die if you run them like the above.

Never heard of a berniedoodle before this thread, it looks like a muppet!

Herr Doberman was a rural tax collector, among other things. He needed something aggressive enough to protect him from robbery while he made his rounds, smart enough not to eat the innocent citizens, and strong enough to keep up with his horse all day. When I first started to run with my dobie I did a lot of research and came across someone who said to never let them run more than 90 miles per day no matter how much they wanted to keep running.

My first dobie died at at 14. The longest run she ever had was 22 miles with me, off leash, so no telling how far she ran. We got home, she ate a little and took a nap then ran 20 miles with my wife. When she was done she acted like nothing happened. We recently got a new dobie and I trained her like I would a beginning runner. Something like a couch potato to 5k plan. She is up to a 4 mile run in the summer heat. Physically, she is ready for longer but she still has a puppy-ish brain and doesn't have the attention span to stay on leash any longer than that.

As others have mentioned:

• Dogs don't need fuel for a run. You would be surprised how long they will voluntarily go without food.
• Watch out for the heat. Some breeds are better than others. Generally a bigger snout and lungs handle the heat better.
• Make sure they get some access to water, but don't let them tank up if you are continuing to run. Some breeds will have bloat and intestinal problems.
• Don't run a puppy until they have finished growing (look up growth plates). Check the needs for your particular breed. The rule for a doberman is no on-leash running until after 18 months.
• Check their foot pads for scrapes or tears every run.