Though walks with dogs are completely commonplace, there have been remarkably few research studies on how these excursions affect our dogs. Almost any study in this area is likely to find out new things because we know so little about it. A recent study explored the pulse rate of dogs on walks and found some interesting results related to leash length, sniffing and the behavior that is most commonly described as “shaking it off”.
Sixty-one dogs were walked three times for 5 minutes each, and their pulse was recorded throughout. One walk was with a 1.5m leash, one was with a 5m leash and one walk was without a leash. (The order of the walks for each dog was random.) The dogs in the study were diverse in terms of breed, age, reproductive status, size and lifestyle.
via Whisker Therapy