A Walk In The Park

One of my favorite thing to do, besides eating treats and taking naps, is taking Mom and Dad for walks.

Walking is a cardio exercise which means it is good for your heart. It is also a weight bearing exercise which means it helps keep your bones strong. The more you walk, the more you can walk. That’s called endurance and like other kinds of exercise, waking makes the good chemicals in your brain feel happy. That’s called “improving your mood”.

Walking is very good for weight control. That means walking can help you keep your weight right or if you have too much weight, walking can help you make the too much weight go away.

Come to think of it, we dogs need to have good hearts, and bones and we like to have improved moods and controlled weight too.

Walking is magic. It’s does all kinds of healthy things and it’s fun. DixieLee and I have to get Mom and Dad to do more walking.

There are other reasons to get your humans to go for walks.

Walking with your human is a good time to build trust and bond with your human.

Walking uses up energy and that’s a really good thing for hyperactive dogs like DixieLee. When dogs have lots of extra energy they find ways to use it up and sometimes the ways they find can be very destructive. Nobody likes to come home and find a big hole in your sofa or your favorite shoes missing their heels.

Before you leave the house, make sure you are wearing your tags and you are on leash. Your human should take along some poop bags. Good neighbors always clean up after their dogs.

Don’t go for walks when it is too hot or too cold. Mom puts her hand down on the black top and counts up numbers and if it’s too hot for her hand, it’s too hot for our feet.

If you are going for a big walk, make sure your human brings water for them and for you.

So how big is a big walk? That depends on lots of things.

Age is important. Very young or very old dogs shouldn’t walk as long or as far as a middle age dog. The dog’s breed is important when deciding how long or far a dog should walk. Sport breeds can walk much bigger walks than a little dog like a Chihuahua.

A dog that has too much weight should walk to help lose that weight or dogs who don’t do many walks need to start out doing little walks and work up to big walks.

Today is a beautiful day. The sun is shining. It’s not too hot and there is a nice breeze. I think I’ll get DixieLee and we’ll tell Mom it’s time to go for a walk.

See  you when we get back,

Zeva

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Mom Was Right!

Me at 66 pounds

Me slimmed down to 56 pounds

Holy guacamole!  Who is that dog?  Flipping through my blogs, looking for ideas, I saw a photo of me from August 2014.  

Mom said I needed to go on a diet and at the time I thought she was bonkers.  

I’m part lab and labs tend to be stocky, right?

Well, here we are, just over one year later and what a difference!

 Mom’s a healthy living nut. She watches what she eats and goes to the gym every day.  DixieLee, Dad and I, well we like being retired and hanging out around the house.  We do yard work and such but we really like napping on the couch and watching TV better.

I hate to admit it but Mom was right.  She made all of us go on diets and get more exercise.  It’s not just about looking good it’s about feeling sooooo much better.  Since Mom made us all be better eaters and exercisers we all lost weight and have much more energy.  I lost 10 pounds! We all still grumble that we are starving but we really do like carrots and apple slices as much as cookies and even Dad has discovered that he actually likes vegetables.

I think the bestest part of getting healthy is the walks.  Mom makes us all go on big walks.  It’s so much fun that the minute DixieLee see that both Mom and Dad have their coats on, she runs to the rack where the leashes are an tries to get her halter down.

We never know where we are going which makes it very exciting.  Not going to the same places all the time gives DixieLee and me a chance to explore.  Sniffing out our surroundings is important so being in different places is lots of fun.  Sometimes we walk around one of the towns.  Sometimes we go to the dog park or to one of the hiking trails our part of New Hampshire if famous for but the best times are when we go to walk on the logging road up to the old orchard.

Mom and Dad like the logging road because it goes up a mountain so we get more cardio.  I love it because I get to be off leash.  I only get to be off leash when Mom knows there is no danger to me.  I NEVER get to be off leash where there are cars or even where there are going to be lots of people.  DixieLee doesn’t get to go off leash because before she came to live with us, she must have been trained as a hunting dog because she loves following a scent and would get lost for sure.

We didn’t start out walking up mountains or going for big hikes.  We started by taking short walks around town.  Yesterday we walked a trail that was three miles long.  That’s far!  It was a nice walk cuz we got to enjoy Nature.  It was peaceful, no traffic sounds or other people, and there were lots of scents from the animals who live in the forest.   

Walking with your humans has lots of other Ben Fits.  We are a pack of two humans and two dogs and walking is a way for us to get to know each other better and strengthen our bond.  Walking is a great way for humans to get rid of stress too.

So, if you or your human is a little on the chunky side, consider taking more walks.  Seriously, I know you’ll like it.

Your slimmed down friend,

Zeva

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