Walking with Gus

Don’t tell my husband, but I prefer walking alone with my dog to walking with anyone else, including him. I’ve been thinking a lot about my needs lately (because I’ve been reading Cheryl Richardson’s The Art of Extreme Self-Care), and I have discovered that walking with Gus ranks up there with good food, sex, and sleep.

It has been tough to walk with Gus regularly since the kids arrived on the scene almost 5 years ago. He is too strong to walk while also pushing a stroller, so I had to either find another adult (Harold or a neighbor) to go with us or I had to enlist Harold to watch the kids while I escaped with Gus. Add on our crazy schedules and the fact that there are minimal streetlights in my neighborhood and, especially in the winter, it was very difficult to work in more than a weekend walk.

Somehow, in the last few months, I’ve found ways to squeeze in more walks with Gus (though not always alone). I want my kids to like walking their dogs (I want them to understand that it’s part of having and caring for dogs), and the kids have recently turned a corner of sorts and abandoned the strollers. Kate will go for short walks with just Gus and me. The promise of alone-with-Mommy time is enough to buoy her through the mile or mile and a half route. Matthew will also go on walks with me, although it’s slightly more stressful because he runs the whole way and I don’t always have full confidence that he will listen to my pleas to slow down and not run out of my sight when Gus makes a pit stop to pee on a bush. Still, we all let off steam and get some fresh air, so I take the stress with the benefits.

My favorite walks, though, are the ones with just Gus and me. Gus’s ears are perked up and he lopes along, thrilled to be smelling other animals, peeing on bushes, and stretching his legs. Just the act of walking with him makes him so HAPPY. Who else is so easy to please? When I am walking with Gus, I am alone with my thoughts but I am not ALONE. There is minimal talking (other than an occasional “good dog” or “this way”), which lets me smell the air, feel the wind, hear the birds, hear my thoughts. When I run in to other walkers, I am less self-conscious when walking with Gus because, again, I am not alone. I have a purpose in my walk.

Gus is also a great “pace dog.” Although he is about 11 years old (rescue dog, so no one knows his exact age), he is still pure muscle. His walk is probably about a 14-minute mile, and he tolerates my jogging, which is about an 11-minute mile. When I walk by myself, I notice that I’m exercising and I feel the stress on my ankles or back. With Gus, my interval trainer, I actually enjoy what I’m doing. The sight of his perked up ears bobbing up and down are enough to keep me going.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the mortality of my dogs. Maggie is almost 16 years old (I’ll write about walking with Maggie later this week), and I know that she can’t defy the odds forever. I do complain from time to time about the realities of sharing my home with two big, hairy dogs. I flip ottomans and kids’ toys and laundry baskets on the living room furniture any time we leave the house to keep the dogs off of the furniture. I am incapable of keeping up with the tumbleweed of dog hair on my hardwood floors. And if I don’t wash the dog beds weekly, you can tell as soon as you enter my house. But despite those minor inconveniences, I can’t imagine not having the greeting when I return home, the gentle presence when I’m feeling ill, and my walking partner who helps me stay sane.