It's official: Walking dog is good for pet and owner

[DoozyDog]

Thursday, January 26, 2006

By Linda Wilson Fuoco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Dogs of many breeds and breed mixes are frequent fliers on the sidewalks of Mt. Lebanon. Most walk briskly, and most walk with obvious glee, with tails aloft and wagging. They walk on leashes attached to people, for Mt. Lebanon is a town where leash laws are enforced, and that's a good thing.

Dogs and their people walk at all hours of the day and night, but the dog-walking traffic is always fairly heavy in the early morning, before work and before school, and then again in late afternoon, after work and school and before dinner.

On a certain recent day, dogs and their walkers were out in force at a relatively odd time, 2:40 p.m. on Sunday. It was 20 minutes before the start of the Steelers-Broncos AFC championship game, and it seemed like the dog walkers wanted to make sure those dogs wouldn't need to go out during the big game.

Sure enough, the streets and the sidewalks were eerily empty while the Steelers thrilled fans with a 34-17 victory over Denver. Dogs, people and cars returned to the sidewalks and streets when the game ended.

The sidewalk regulars -- both dogs and people -- are generally fairly trim, which is really no surprise. Now there's a university study that confirms this fact.

"Daily Dog Walks Work Off Weight for Owners, MU Researchers Find." That was the headline on the e-mail I received from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Well DUH! was my first response. But I read on.

"Having a pet can encourage owners to get more exercise," said the study funded by The Missouri Foundation for Health. Participants had "more weight loss than most nationally known diet plans."

This was a win-win program in so many ways, starting with the free walking shoes given to people who signed up for the study.

"The research project encouraged economically disadvantaged, disabled participants to walk with dogs on a regular, graduated schedule," says the news release.

Since those people didn't own dogs, faculty and staff loaned their own dogs to participants in the study. The dogs are regulars in the PALS program at the University of Missouri-Columbia College of Veterinary Medicine. The PALS in this case stands for Pet Assisted Love and Support program. The dogs have passed a good citizenship test and a safety training program.

"Our goal was to look for ways to increase the average exercise regimen. We found that being responsible for a pet, such as committing to walk a loaner dog, encourages people who did not own dogs to walk more often and for longer periods of time," said Rebecca Johnson, associate professor of nursing and director of the school's Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction. She collaborated with Richard Meadows, director of community practice at the Mizzou Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.

"Our first study group averaged a weight loss of 14 pounds during the one-year program."

People began the program by walking 10 minutes per day, three times each week. Eventually they walked up to 20 minutes per day, five times each week. There was an inside route for rainy days.

One group walked for 50 weeks. A second group walked for 26 weeks. The 50-week group lost 14 pounds. While people in the 26-week group did not register a "statistically significant " weight loss, they did engage in other activities that surprised the researchers.

"By the end of the study all participants were walking for longer periods of time and walking for daily errands instead of using some other type of transportation," Ms. Johnson said.

Now here's the really cool, unexpected results:

"Two of the participants made a trip to the humane society to adopt animals," Ms. Johnson said. "Several began volunteering to walk the dogs at the shelter."

Many of the human participants said they didn't walk because they thought it would be good for their health. They said "they enjoyed walking because they knew it was good for the animals."

I can't wait to hear the results -- and details -- from Ms. Johnson's next research project, which involves taking animals to the gym.

"While walking only addresses certain aspects of fitness, Ms. Johnson believes that animals viewed as support companions while at the gym can increase a participant's self-esteem and encourage them to exercise in other ways that will benefit their health," says the conclusion of the news release.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06026/644153.stm