Humane to walk senior dog with younger dog?

[NEPEANDOGS]

I walk my dogs in my local park every day, and lately, I've been seeing a woman walking two chocolate labs.

One of the dogs is really, really old, with a white muzzle. The other dog appears to be younger.

The older dog appears to have arthritis. It has difficulty walking and drags its back leg. It walks very slowly, and with great difficulty. The woman is usually pulling on its leash to encourage it to keep up with the younger dog.

I see this woman walking this dog with the younger dog on a regular basis. On Sunday, I ran into her twice in the same day, once in the morning and once in the evening in the park with her two dogs.

I feel sorry for this older dog, and I don't like to watch it being pulled along on its leash when it seems to be having such difficulty walking.

I've never owned a senior dog before, so I don't know if this is an acceptable practice for a dog with mobility issues. Is this humane?

Isn't the older dog in pain and suffering when it is being forced to keep up with the younger dog?

[Melinda]

I always walked my senior beagle with my lab/dane/rotti pup, for the pup I used an extendy leash so she could run ahead and back....wear her out more, for the senior I used her 8 foot leash so we could walk slower, she had arthritis and a bad hip, it worked great for us, but then I never pulled her leash to make her go faster, we went at her pace

[mummummum]

Up until the leash part you had me.

Younger dogs ~ given the right circumstances can give new life to an old dog. Being dragged by the neck is not one of them.

My neighbour had an ancient Golden and a feisty and younger little Chi. My neighbour ran every morning. She jogged ahead, the Chi (on leash) ran with her and/or ahead while the Golden (off leash) walked behind. In this case the Golden liked being outside and liked being included in a run he used to do himself. The Chi was trained well enough to run back and forth between Momma and his brother that he was well entertained and well exercised. Momma got more than enough exercise running ahead then back again to check on her Golden.

That is obviously not the case here. There is no reason to drag a dog who obviously cannot run. Any chance you can take video evidence of this woman dragging her dog by the neck during one of these "runs"?