Pretty well everyone agrees that taking your dog for a walk is just about the best exercise your dog can get, right? Maybe… or maybe not.
There are two broad categories of outdoor exercise – those that improve or maintain our dogs’ fitness, and those that are just good for the soul. The components of fitness are strength, proprioception, balance, flexibility, and aerobic capacity. So, let’s analyze which of these components are improved by going for a walk.
The focus of strength exercise is to build muscle size and tone. Strong muscles will allow your dog to do whatever kind of physical exercise he enjoys, whether that means competing in performance events or running through a forest while on a hike. A dog that is strong will also be less likely to experience an injury when something unexpected happens. It will also be less likely to develop chronic conditions, such as arthritis, because its strength will help reduce the effects of repeated impact on the body.
The science of strength training for humans is very clear. To build strength, it is important to engage in exercises that will:
Taking your dog for an invigorating walk provides them with none of the above three characteristics. It doesn’t target the weakest parts of your dog’s body, such as the front legs, core, or rear legs, it is certainly not low impact, and it is exceedingly difficult to recognize when your dog has reached overload, which is ideally when we should stop exercising them.
Proprioception is all about body awareness – understanding where all the parts of the body are in space. Proprioception is so important that there are specific neurological pathways that send neurological impulses, from proprioceptive receptors in the skin and soft tissues, up the spinal cord to the brain to help direct the body’s movements. To improve proprioception, it is best to provide the body with a wide variety of different types of movements and surfaces to walk on.
A walk on a city street or sidewalk does little to improve proprioception. But a walk on different types of surfaces, such as long and short grass, gravel, dirt, wood chips, etc., does improve proprioception by providing different substrates for the proprioceptors in the feet to contact. That’s especially true if the dog is going slowly enough for the feet to be in contact with the different surfaces for a while.
Much like proprioception, balance training strengthens your dog’s neurological system so that your dog can negotiate complex movements and react safely when put in an unexpected situation.
A walk over a relatively consistent surface like a sidewalk or mowed lawns doesn’t provide much challenge to your dog’s balance system. A hike over rocky or hilly ground does.
Flexibility is all about allowing the muscles to elongate and contract over their full working lengths, without overstretching and risking damage. Clearly, during a typical walk, your dog doesn’t fully stretch or extend its limbs.
Aerobic exercise involves moving in a way that will get your dog’s heart and respiratory rate consistently elevated over a period of time. Dogs’ muscles are different from those of humans. The system that provides energy to your dog’s muscles is already highly aerobic. To improve on your dog’s inbuilt aerobic abilities, your dog needs to trot at a consistent, fairly significant speed for at least 20 minutes, or swim at a consistent speed for at least five minutes.
Most people taking their dogs for a walk are not able to walk fast enough for long enough to really improve their dog’s aerobics, unless the dog is a pretty small tyke – like under 20 pounds. But there’s good news on the aerobic front! Since dogs are already such aerobic machines, they really don’t need much help in this area unless they are competing in Mushing, Canicross, Field Trials, or Herding Trials. So, for most of us, strength and stamina are what we need to concentrate on.
Try this thought experiment. First, imagine yourself at less than half your human height, with four legs, a furry body, a wagging tail, and an incredible sense of smell. Now, imagine yourself running, bounding, walking, and resting at times, on a path in a forest, jumping over logs, rolling in a pile of dry leaves, listening to the different bird calls, playing in a trickling brook, and smelling the scents of moist soil, moss, and old, crumbling logs. This feels so good for your soul!
Next, imagine yourself attached to a six-foot leash, walking on hardtop in a straight line at the constant speed of your person, who is looking straight ahead, listening to music on their earphones. You would like to stop and sniff, maybe send a pee-mail note or two to the neighborhood, but you are whisked past these tantalizing odors. Your feet are pounding on the pavement, and while you love being with your person, you sure wish that they would look down at you, which always makes you feel better.
The literature is rife with the benefits to people who take their dogs for walks. The science is clear that moving is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself. Dog walking, in addition to providing exercise, increases the likelihood that you will exercise in other ways as well. One study showed that older adults with dogs took more steps, burned more calories, were less likely to be obese, and got more and better sleep than non-dog people.
Dogs are also great social catalysts, so they increase interactions between people, which is an important benefit for everyone. So, if you want to reap the benefits of exercise by walking your dog, by all means do so in moderation, but recognize that, depending on how you go for a walk, you might be the main one benefitting, rather than your dog. If you plan on going for a multi-mile march with your earphones on, consider whether it might be better for your dog to stay at home.
If you truly want to give your dog the gift of a walk, enjoyed from your dog’s point of view, take him or her for a saunter. Dress yourself and your dog for the weather, attach a long line (12 feet or 4 meters works well) to their collar, and head out to the very best that nature in your locale can offer.
Saunter on grass, through fields and forests (off-leash, if possible), or along the sidewalk at your dog’s pace, stopping to sniff as long as they want, sending numerous group pee-mail messages. Watch the squirrels tease them from the trees, and expect to go nowhere important. That is one of the greatest gifts you can give your dog; it is so good for their soul. And you might just find it’s good for yours, too.
