Benefits of Walking Your Dog

BENEFITS OF WALKING YOUR DOG

Here is a story that shows the benefits of walking a dog.

When I was little, I loved taking Goldie, our lab and golden retriever mix, for walks with my dad. I thought it was cool that I could tell Goldie to “heel,” and she would fall in line with me as I went along. Anytime I wanted to stop and inspect a rock, or a stream, or a frog, simply saying “Stay” would result in Goldie sitting down and watching my dad and me indefinitely.

We had a different rescue named Ace in middle school. My dad traveled quite a bit at this point and wasn’t as available to go on walks. It became my loose tradition to go on Sunday walks with Ace around my neighborhood, thinking about my week ahead — what girls I might try to talk to, how I would approach sports practice, you know, kid stuff.

I moved to live with my grandparents in a different state at the beginning of high school. I found myself dog-less, but continued my Sunday tradition on my own, running and walking for an hour or two through Virginia Beach. My dad bought me a car my junior year of high school and my Sunday walks were replaced by cruising around with my friends Chris and Tim.

ADOPTING THE DOG, RUBY

Fast forward six years, and I’m living in Florida, making rounds for my clinicals in chiropractic college. My Sunday walks are a thing of the distant past, replaced with studying for board exams and late-night trips to the gym. An itch to have a dog had been present for about a year, but I told myself I was too busy.

Three mornings a week were spent at an outreach clinic for people who could not afford chiropractic care during this time. While writing chart notes in the lounge one morning, a classmate of mine, Ryan, came back and said, “Patrick, you are looking for a dog, right?”

He took me off-guard because I wasn’t, but “Maybe,” is what came out of my mouth.

“Come out here and talk to my patient,” Ryan said.

I came out and met Tammy the hairdresser. Someone had dropped off a puppy in a laundry basket outside of her salon. After caring for the dog, whom she had named Ruby, for months, Ruby grew too big to hide. Tammy’s low-income housing did not allow anyone to have animals and she hesitated giving Ruby to a shelter for fear of them putting her down.

I arranged to visit Ruby at Tammy’s home the next day. My friend Chris was visiting from Virginia, so the two of us headed over to her house on the way to play in an intramural softball game. When we walked into the house, a 60 lb. ball of nervous energy greeted us. Ruby was a mix of pitbull, chocolate lab, and something else. She would lunge towards us, then jump back into a far corner of the room.

Tammy said she was very skittish around everyone except her so we shouldn’t expect her to come too close. We sat down and continued talking. A few minutes later, Ruby had climbed onto my lap on her own accord, which really surprised Tammy because “Ruby [was] afraid of EVERYONE.”

Showing me the fresh scarring, Tammy told me that when she found Ruby in the laundry basket, she had a pretty gnarly gash in her side. She figured there must have experienced some severe trauma as a baby that made her so anxious.

Then came the hard sell. “Can you take her? I have toys, food, and a bed you can have.”

Chris was quiet. I could tell he liked the dog but knew she would be a handful. As a big brother to me, he had spent years pulling me out of troubling situations I had jumped into. I told her I wanted to, but needed to think about it.

Tammy pressed, “I need you to take her now. I just need you to take her, I’ll get too upset thinking about it. I love her and want her but I have to let her go. I need you to just do it, and I know you are the right person.”

20 minutes later, Chris and I headed to softball with my brand new scarred-up pitbull mutt, a cage, a choke chain, plastic toys, a very big bone, and half a bag of cheap food. During the game, a buddy’s girlfriend walked her around, and then we took Ruby back to my condo in Daytona Beach to start her new life.

Ruby had serious anxiety. She ate everything in my house, including several utensils and a record player. She broke through seven, yes seven, dog crates, bending them open with her mouth. She ran away so many times.

I related. I’d had a traumatic life myself, one I rarely shared with anyone, and I knew what it felt like having constant thoughts of fear and pain. I decided I was going to do my damnedest to give her the support I had wished for. What I lacked in knowledge I could make up for with patience.

She and I watched every episode of the Dog Whisperer during my lunch breaks, Ruby growling and barking at the dogs on the show as I took notes on my laptop. The only thing that calmed her down was about an hour of walking. Beyond that, I was at a stand-still, but I was convinced Ruby was not going to be stuck with her anxiety forever.

My mom bought me both of Cesar Millan’s books on dog training, and I devoured them. He gave me incredible tools to understand the experience of the dog and how to channel their energy through rules, boundaries, and limitations. The foundation of all of this was, of course, exercise.

Ruby became a Frisbee dog and a mountain biker. I taught her to pull me on my road bike for up to a half-hour at a full clip. We played games at home that incrementally taught her more complicated tasks. We turned her meal times into obedience challenges. I made her carry water, leashes, and doggy bags in her own backpack wherever we went so she had a job.

Slowly, and by slowly I mean very slowly, Ruby calmed down, and made lots of friends. She was no longer fearful of each new person. The constant in Ruby’s development: we walked 60 minutes every morning and 60 minutes every night during the week. On the weekends, we would often do one long walk and then head for the dog park or the mountain bike trails. When we got back from morning walks, Ruby would re-hydrate and then go to one of her spots in my condo and relax upside down, belly up. Only when we skipped a walk would I come home to a chewed up Air Jordan and a guilty look on her face.

I spent our walk time listening to music or NPR until I discovered podcasts. From then on, I listened to Lancet Neurology or Professor Frederick Carrick repeatedly to steadily soak up information. I was now in practice for myself and worked way too much, always short on time for everything else. I had a love/hate relationship with my Ruby walks, but deep down, they were therapeutic. I had to connect with her during this time, and I couldn’t prioritize something else. I just had to be in that moment.

ADOPTING THE DOG, NEMESIS

One afternoon, I was finishing up with my last patient when my secretary knocked on the door and said, “Dr. Eley, when you are done, there is someone else here to see you.”

When I came out, I found a mother, child, and a medium-size red-nosed pitbull sitting in the middle of my waiting room.

The woman spoke, “My mom, Henrietta, said that you are really good with pitbulls, and we are hoping you might be willing to adopt Nemesis,” looking down at the red-nose between her legs. “I have had him since he was a puppy. We have an old Rottweiler, and he attacks Nemesis, so he has spent pretty much his whole life in his cage. I feel bad and know he needs a better home. I’m scared that if I give him to someone in my neighborhood, they will fight him.”

I looked directly at Nemesis. He looked directly at me and growled in a deep guttural tone.

“I’m really not looking for a dog,” I said.

Henrietta’s daughter talked me into allowing Nemesis to come by for a visit later that night.

It just so happened that my friend Tim was in town visiting from up north. He was great with dogs and had a hand in training Ruby.

I filled him in, “So there is this dog, and he needs a home, and I know I can’t keep him, but I just wanted to see how he would get along with Ruby.”

I explained that Nemesis was probably going to be very aggressive. We came up with a plan to handle the dogs meeting using all the tools I’d picked up from those hours learning from Caesar.

A little later in the evening, the woman and her daughter arrived at my place with Nemesis. Tim had Ruby on a leash, and I began coaxing Nemesis out from the car as the ladies watched. He growled a little at me as I led him out by his leash, but he did climb out of the car.

Once on the pavement, I let him sniff me for a moment and look around. Then Tim brought Ruby from behind the car. Nemesis immediately lunged at her, teeth flashing. Tim and I expected this. I caught him and forced him to the ground, then to his side with a firm grip on his neck. I held him down, he pushed against me for a few moments, then stopped but remained rigid, breathing hard.

After a few minutes, he finally gave up and slowed down, going limp under my hands. That was our cue. With the girls watching in astonishment, I hopped to my feet and took off down the street with Nemesis by the leash. Tim told them we would be back shortly, and he followed me with Ruby on her own leash.

We started walking. Tim caught up to me with Ruby to his right. I kept Nemesis to my left. Tim had Ruby in perfect position, and she was a pro at walking submissively in tandem with a human at this point.

Nemesis on the other hand was completely lost. He dragged behind me and then sped in front. It was clear he had never been walked properly. He was certainly focused on keeping up with the other end of his leash and paying no attention to Ruby — our plan was working. After about half a mile, Nemesis fell in line, his ears went back, his tongue fell out and his eyes fixed to the ground ahead of him.

He was walking — in the moment and focused on the task at hand! Tim stuck to the plan and smoothly moved Ruby between himself and me, then handed off her leash. The two dogs stayed perfectly at my side. If they noticed each other, they didn’t show it. After a few minutes, Tim took Ruby and moved next to Nemesis. The two dogs were right next to each other, walking.

When we arrived back at my home about a half-hour later, Tim led the pack, and I had both dogs next to each other, holding them with only one hand. We walked straight inside, I didn’t want to lose our momentum. Tim got some things from the owners and sent them on their way. The sleepover had begun.

FINDING THE DOG, NEMO

The very first thing we did was free Nemesis of his stupid name. He became Nemo from that day on like the little fish in the movie. Tim and I spent the next week breaking up occasional fights over bones and food, but nothing too serious.

Through a few phone conversations, we came to find out that he had never been on a walk and he was now one year old. He had spent almost all of his time in a cage, hiding from the Rottweiler. On our first walk in daylight, Nemo laid down after ten minutes, unable to go on, and I had to carry him home while Tim continued on with Ruby. Everyday, Nemo got a little stronger, and we walked a little longer.

A month went by and Tim flew back up north. I was on my own with the dogs, who were already sleeping intertwined with each other. Our first morning walk sans Tim, I put my headphones on as always, and we headed out to the neighborhood.

A few minutes into the walk, something occurred to me while glancing at a tree leaf. I had walked the same route more than 1000 times, and I didn’t have any idea what species of tree, grass, and flower were on my path. I had spent years in my own head, on all these walks, never being “in the moment.” I always pushed my dogs to achieve presence, but then I slipped off into god knows where.

I took my headphones off and put them in my pocket. Thus began a year of morning walks in silence, learning and loving my surroundings: the sound of the wind, the smell of the water, the reflections of the Florida sun. I would spend time meditating using breathing techniques, I would play hide and seek with Ruby. Nemo stayed on leash. He never got to where he could deal with dogs outside of our little family, but that was OK with Ruby and me. We just wanted to be there for him.

On my birthday in 2012, we didn’t walk. Nemo, Ruby, and I piled into my Ford Escape and started driving north. I had been planning a move for some time. With a series of states to tour over the next months before making a final decision, the dogs needed more stability.

I met my dad halfway up the east coast and handed the dogs off. They were going to have a new home in Virginia, at least for the time being, where they would have plenty of attention, room to play, and walks. After making the hand-off, I turned around and drove straight back to Florida.

I ended up in Chicago to live near my sister. There are a lot of things you don’t think about when you move from the beach to a huge city like Chicago. The sand and soft grass I had grown accustomed to was gone, replaced by turf toe and sore arches in my feet from all my concrete.

Ruby and Nemo now lived in Virginia. I could see via Facetime that they were very happy under my parents’ care. What I couldn’t see was how short-lived that happiness would be.

Nemo died in early 2014 at the age of four. It happened quickly. He stopped eating and drinking about two weeks before emergency surgery revealed inoperable metastatic cancer. He never showed any signs that anything was wrong until the two weeks before.

During these two weeks, he would do some of his morning walk. Then he’d lay still in my childhood room until my dad would come home, at which point he would get up and go to him, tail wagging. My dad would get some blended food and water into our young companion with a syringe, and then Nemo would go back to my room. Even up to a couple days before the end, he got up and tried to go on his morning walk with Ruby.

On his last walk, he only made it to the front yard, where he laid down and looked at the sun. My dad tells me Ruby came over to him and started sniffing his stomach (where the largest tumor was found), and then tried to push him to get up and play. He wagged his tail, but couldn’t.

The morning after Nemo was put to sleep, Ruby appeared at my parent’s bed and did her best to lead my dad to the back door. It was time to walk, and so they did. Step after step, my dad and Ruby kept moving forward that morning, and they haven’t stopped since.

Strangers commonly told how well-behaved these animals were. I’d say they weren’t well-behaved, they were just tired from playing and walking. In reality, I knew the hundreds of hours we had spent working on commands, boundaries, and limitations; however, none of it would have been possible without our daily movement ritual.

CONCLUSION

Our walks helped them disperse energy from their bodies, something we as people have really gotten away from. Whatever had happened to Ruby and Nemo in their lives. Whatever their “issues,” each morning, they were excited to move forward, and they were sad if they didn’t get this opportunity.

I have to wonder if I walked for them each morning, or if they were walking for me. Ruby alone walked me through broken ribs, broken hands, concussions, shingles, pneumonia, deaths of friends, professional betrayals, fights with loved ones, broken feet, torn muscles, financial problems, and the list goes on.

I never found myself locked in my house with the shades drawn for days on end because Ruby and Nemo never let me. I always had to get up. They taught me that we had to walk. No matter the pain, no matter the challenge, and no matter the history, we get up and put one foot in front of the other.