| The most important finding was that dog owners walked nearly twice as much as non-dog owners, walking 300 minutes a week as opposed to the 168 minutes of the non dog owners. Interestingly enough when you subtracted the amount of time people walked with their dogs from their total walking minutes, dog owners actually did less unaccompanied walking than non dog owners, suggesting that dogs were a primary reason for their increased activity.
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A case could be made that dogs make excellent personal trainers for conscientious dog owners. It should be mentioned that not every dog owner was a dog walker and approximately 25% of the dog owners did not walk regularly with their pets. Shane tried to answer the difficult question of whether people become more physically active when they own a dog or whether physically active people are more likely to go and buy a dog. Using something called ‘theory of planned behavior’ his conclusion was that the obligation to walk a dog was a significant factor in the higher walking totals of dog owners.
A local dog owner, Barbara Barnard, in reference to her dog, Achilles, said, “I walk him an hour every morning before I go to work. I had a hip replacement last July and he keeps me going and motivated too. Today is my day off and I would like to be at home on the couch watching TV but I’m out here in the cold walking my dog.”
We should add that you have to walk as well as the dog in order to benefit from being a dog owner.
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recoil