Exactly. In the TX heat I've been walking the World's Smartest Dog at night, often fairly late at night so the pavement has time to cool, too. A casual neighbor might think he's not being walked, because they're not seeing me leave the house at ten or eleven pm and not returning for at least an hour. Mr. Wonderful, being a young GSD, needs lots of exercise--he usually gets in some fetch or keep-away in the backyard every day, too--but Miss Sweetheart, being an arthritic ten-year-old lab, is generally quite happy with one fifteen-minute walk, or at least she was until recently.** Our good friends/neighbors have a chi mix around that same age who is rarely walked; she's a teeny-tiny thing and gets enough exercise trotting around their house and backyard, especially since she's had surgery on her legs before and their vet said she should only have gentle exercise and not too much of it at this point. I've talked to people whose dogs spend much of their weekdays crated and don't get a lot of exercise in the week, but who spend pretty much every Saturday and Sunday on nature hikes, swimming in lakes, exploring forests from nine in the morning until six or seven at night, and come home exhausted. The dogs are happy with this routine and so are their people, so who's to say it's wrong or bad for the dogs? In the park where I walk, there's a man who often walks his little shih tzu. The man lives in the 55+ community right next to the park; the man himself is 104 years old. (Seriously, he really is.) I watch him slowly make his careful way along the path on days when it's nice enough outside for him to do it--sometimes an employee of the community or maybe a friend or employee of his is out with the dog--and think how awesome it is that he's out there and that he has his wonderful little friend with him (and he even tries to pick up the poop, something a lot of young and healthy people fail to do, which infuriates me). But he doesn't walk every day. Should he be arrested and have his only companion taken away because, at 104, he can't take it out for two-mile walks once or twice a day? I am all for giving dogs exercise as part of taking proper care of them, but as you said, the number of questions that need answering here makes this a bad idea even without the incredible government overreach. This is how it starts; you get this snitching culture going where you encourage people to stick their nose in the business of others and report them for not living the "right" way. I find this law terrifying. **Miss Sweetheart has had issues with her ears for years. Last time we took her to the vet, they tested them and declared she had a yeast infection in them, and gave us an ear wash to use. The combined weight and strength of my husband and my dad could not get her to lay there and let me pour this stuff into her ears. I've been able to wipe at them with a cotton ball soaked in the ear wash sometimes, but she generally hates that, too--and I can't really blame her, because who likes having liquid poured into their ears? I have to sneak up on her and do a quick swipe before she realizes what's happening. Anyway. It finally occurred to me that if regular Monistat is gentle enough to pump into ladyparts, it should be gentle enough for a dog's ears. I went out and bought a 7-day generic yeast infection kit and started putting half the applicator's worth of cream in each ear every night. Not only is it working amazingly well, but she loves it because the cream is soothing. And suddenly we have a dog who wants to play again and gets excited to go out for walks! It makes me feel awful that she was suffering so much and we didn't know it, and it makes me angry that the vet gave us this liquid and told us it could take months before we start seeing a real effect when within a couple of days with the cream her ears looked better and she seemed so much happier. tl;dr If you dog gets a yeast infection in its ears or paws (which is also common, apparently), don't bother with the stuff the vet gives you. Spend $5 for Wal-zole or whatever it's called and shove half the applicator's worth in each ear every night, and rub the ear well so the medicine spread down into the ear and up over the affected skin. She had a very bad infection so we're still treating her two weeks later, but the difference is incredible.