Thank you to Pet Lifestyle Expert & Animal Behaviorist Colleen Paige, National Walk Your Dog Week founder: http://www.walkyourdogweek.com/.
Sheba is telling her siblings to get out of their comfy places and get out walking! #DogWalkingWeek kicks off today! Join us, the Cascadian Nomads and Dolly the Doxie in our celebration! If you don’t know what it’s all about, please read all the details in our introductory post “Our Walk Your Dog Week Celebration Begins”.
We are ready to start our daily walks for one week today, and we’ll be sharing all about them over the next week. To help get you started, we’re going to share some tips that we used last year, and learned along the way of our 2014 walks. We’ll also keep you posted on how well we followed our own advice!
My first piece of advice last year was to Make a Plan! I’m already falling behind on that one, though I do have a rough idea of where we’ll be going and when. Having a plan helps to keep you motivated, and leads to less excuses not to get out there. I’m kind of in a “one day at a time” mode lately, but hopefully getting out there walking will clear my head and get me more focused!
At the same time: Try to be Flexible! I don’t know about the rest of the country, but I imagine you get the same crazy, unpredictable weather as we get here in New England. We’ve been in the routine of early walks lately, but now that the weather is cooling off, we’ll be going a little later. I prefer not to bundle up yet if I don’t have to! There’s also a hurricane headed for the East coast, so that may throw a wrinkle into everyone’s plans. No one is going to fault you if you miss a day or two because of the hurricane! We can always just tack on a couple days at the other end if we need to. Remember, our Walk Your Dog Week celebration stays open through October 15th.
Keep it Simple! Sometimes it’s best not to overwhelm yourself with elaborate plans. We’ll do longer walks some days, and shorter walks others. I will only be walking one dog at a time, because walking all three at once just doesn’t work for me.
Split up your multiple pets if it makes it easier. When our two girls were young, we had four dogs and we didn’t walk often. We played in the yard more, and I mostly walked our beagle Kobi because he didn’t play. I regret that….I wish I’d been more flexible and just taken the other dogs out for individual walks. If they had all learned to walk nicely then, I might have been able to at least take them out in pairs. Now that I get the girls out more, they walk much better. Plus, I think everyone enjoys their one on one time with me.
Multi-task! Walks don’t have to be only about walking. I use walks to work on training the dogs to heel, and on their loose leash walking skills as well. You can also practice getting them to pay more attention to you – we use the command “watch me”.
At the same time Let Your Dogs Have Fun! They don’t have to be in a march forward at all times (though that’s what my girls, especially Cricket, prefer to do!). Let them stop and sniff things. I sometimes get frustrated when all Luke wants to do is stop and sniff, but I try to remember that walks are for his enjoyment, and that’s what he likes doing. We may not cover as much ground, but it’s still time well spent.
Switch it Up! Try new places to walk; it really alleviates the boredom of walking in the same places all the time, for you and your dog. We’ll stick closer to home on the days I have to work, but on the days we have more time, we’ll get in the car and go someplace new, or that we haven’t been to in a while. It can be fun to find a place with some water. Even if your dog doesn’t swim, they might like just getting their paws wet. If it’s hot out, Cricket loves to just lie down in the water to cool off!
Use Proper Equipment! You don’t need a lot of equipment for walking, but having the right collars, harnesses, and leashes can make things much easier. We’ll share throughout the week some of our favorite equipment for walking. Don’t forget yourself either – having a good pair of walking shoes can really make your life easier. Remember to dress in layers if the weather is cool. A nice brisk walk can warm you up quickly!
One thing I learned last year was that the more we get out there, the better my dogs walk. We’ve been getting in quite a few walks this summer, but we haven’t been out daily. I look forward to seeing if more frequent walks show that same benefit again this year.
Don’t forget to sign up for our Commitment to Walk! You need to do so in order to be entered for chances to win prizes. The commitment is not just for bloggers, it’s for everyone! Just click below where it says “Click Here to Enter” and you can fill in what your plans are and your other information (your email is for prize winning purposes only, we would never share it). If you are sharing your progress on social media, enter a link to your public page or to our Facebook event page. If you are going to keep us posted on your progress through blog or social media comments, enter a link to a host blog.
Please be sure to check with your doctor and veterinarian before changing or beginning a new exercise routine.
Bloggers, join the hop and share your plans, progress, tips, and inspiration over the next two weeks! You’ll find that linky below as well, and remember, it is open through October 15th, so keep those stories coming!
We have been walking and I have been running. Not literally running, but so much cabin time, I have had a difficult time staying caught up on my blog. I hope to get a post up this week before the linky closes. Shooting for Wednesday. 🙂
PS. Drs. Foster and Smith has some good doggie raincoats at reasonable prices. I’ve had Callie’s and Shadow’s raincoats now for about six years and they’re still in good condition. I just bought one for Ducky – and a winter coat – early this year.
Thanks! We buy a lot of stuff from them so I’ll definitely take a look at the raincoats!
I bought the Seattle Slickers – yellow for Callie & Shadow, red for Ducky.
It is POURING BUCKETS down here! And, I still have to keep Shadow’s one foot clean. So we will be walking on the treadmill. We’ve been timing the potty breaks perfectly so far today. We’ve gotten outside during a break in the downpours and have managed to come back inside just before the next one. I even had a chance to clean up after them the last time out. 🙂
I’m glad you’ve at least been able to dodge the rain to get outside when you need to! Walking on the treadmill is better than no walking at all, so that’s great! That’s something I think about for the dogs. With the girls’ arthritis, playing in the snow is going to be a lot harder on them this year, and I wonder if having a treadmill would be a better way to get them the exercise they need. What kind of treadmill do you have?
Jan, it’s actually a human treadmill, made by Spirit. I bought it 4 or 5 years ago from a store that has since gone out of business. It folds up (the track has a small hydraulic lift) to stand in the corner of a room.
I originally bought it mostly for Callie because of her arthritis. She needed the extra exercise but couldn’t walk them on our road and couldn’t get her into and out of the car on my own to go to the park. She was a natural on it from the start.
I totally understand the weather thing. I’m in NY and winter gets cold!! I was thinking about this today because it has been raining here the last few days but Cocoa needs to go for a run/walk. So we go in all of it. I bring water in the summer and we have sweaters in the winter 🙂
Do you have raincoats too? I’m thinking I need to get raincoats for the dogs so I’ll have one less excuse to not go out when it rains. 🙂
We were actually talking about this the other day. She does not have one but we are thinking it would be a good investment 🙂
Walk one done! Ready for number 2!
You tell ’em Sheba, great advice! Mom’s planning is a little vague this time too, she wasn’t prepared this morning and we drove her nuts so we just went before she made too big deal out of it! Not to mention that with the two of us this morning out of control Taffy will not be joining us on our next outing, but don’t tell her. Love Dolly
Walking, yes. However, blogging about it… probably not. lol Just too much going on in my life these days.
I understand that! You can always just put up a quick photo and blurb on social media though! 🙂
Great advice. We’re definitely having to be flexible. In fact, when I heard the rain slow down we hurried to get Honey off the boat and on a walk before it started up again. Why by rigid and wet when you can be flexible and dry? 🙂
We totally agree with that! We had such a dry summer here, we forgot what it was like to try to time our walks in between the hard rain showers. But dodging rain is still better than dodging snow. 🙂
I was glad to see it looks like the hurricane is moving out to sea….so happy you won’t have to deal with that!
I’ve decided to commit to walking my pack 2x a day Saturday and Sunday. This is going to be FUN!
Hope you have a great weekend of walks, and we’re looking forward to hearing all about it!
Happy Dog Walking Week! We started out with our usual hour long morning walk, followed by Katie’s short but long in time 40 min walk. Walking in the fall is awesome!
I remember those short but long walks with Kobi! It’s tough for us humans to go that slow sometimes, but it’s so worth it because they just enjoy it so much.
We are really enjoying the fall weather and foliage too, it really is the best!
We don’t have any rain in our forecast so we are planning on putting our best paw foreward!
Lucky you! The rain seems to be missing us here so far too, fingers crossed it lasts!
Oh yay!!! We are good at this! hahaha! Always walking here in the husky house!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
Excited about participating. Will post our first day later this evening.
I’m ready for walking, I’ve got a new leash, my mom has un-chewed shoes and my dad is ready for lift off as the humanoid kite :o)
It sounds like you’ll be having a lot of fun over there! 🙂