Walking the Dog

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about alternative exercises throughout the month of June. Cross training can easily be expanded outside of the realms of running, weight lifting, bicycling and swimming.

Photo by PhotoNerdThis week, Scott talks about walking your dog as a form of exericse. You will get more out of it than if you just sauntered down to the neighborhood store to get a newspaper, because your dog is going to have a lot of energy and you will have to work to keep him under control.

When I was growing up, we used to take our dog to the park to go for walks. He would probably cover somewhere between four and six times the distance that we did when he was off of the leash as he ran back and forth from the trail. We also taught him how to use the ladder in the pool, because he was a big fan of jumping in whenever he wanted after the first time that he accidently fell in. He could run around and play for hours on end, which meant that we were outside running and playing with him.