This week I’m discovering the joy of walking TWO dogs. I think we’re all agreed that walking a dog gives you more steps but let me tell you about walking two of them. My grand-dog Stella is spending the week with Penny and me. They enjoy spending time together, which makes visiting a lot easier on all of us.
Neither Penny nor Stella has great leash manners. Penny is now a 50-pound dog and Stella is 75 pounds and strong. Both dogs, in fact, are strong. Because walking both at once is a tremendous challenge, I tend to walk one dog and then the other.
If they were easier to walk together, we could go to some parks for a good long hike. Unfortunately, because I can really only walk one at a time, we just walk around my neighborhood or go to the nearby Bike and Hike trail.
I’ve tried walking them together but what a disaster. It was like some slapstick scene where the person gets pulled in all directions at once. And there’s me, yelling, “stop! Both of you, just stop!” but they didn’t listen.
The past couple of days have been a return to winter weather but the dogs still have to go outside. That really works as a motivator for me to keep walking.
As I was walking Stella, I thought about our conversation with Chris Freytag and the benefits of walking. Stella is a fast walker. Granted, she does stop occasionally for a quick sniff but otherwise, she’s moving. I definitely was getting my heart rate elevated while walking her. I need to have her visit more often because she’s a good workout.
Walking a dog is a great way to increase your daily steps but walking two dogs separately really increases your numbers, bringing us back to the idea of the joy of walking two dogs! I hope nobody brings me a third dog to watch.