Walk your way to good health

If you have a dog, then chances are you know the look: droopy eyes, expectant panting, tongue lolling, tail wagging or tail thumping.

Woe betide the dog owner wearing sneakers or who lets the word "walkies" slip because that is usually enought to send the average hound completely around the bend.

And when confronted by a pooch wild with hope and expectation many people put down what they were doing and dutifully head out the front gate, a delighted dog whipping around their ankles.

Some owners do it out of love or out of some responsibility or out of guilt, or maybe a combination of all three. The fact is most humans just cannot bear to disappoint man's best friend.

Canadian scientists have even come up with a term to describe how humans feel about their responsibility to take pooch for a walk - dog obligation.

According to the 2005 British Columbian study by the University of Victoria, dog obligation was a key reason dog owners walked more than non-dog owners.

Not that dog obligation is a bad thing. In fact, it is probably just as good for your as it is for your dog.

A new UWA study has now taken existing research further and shown that dog owners are 68 per cent more likely to get their recommended level of physical activity per week than non-dog owners.

According to the Dogs and Physical Activity study by the School of Population Health at UWA, dog owners reported 55 more minutes of total physical activity per week than non-dog owners.

Owners who walked their dog five or more times a week were also seven times more likely to achieve their recommended level of physical activity per week than non-dog owners, according to the study based on 1800 people in Perth.

These results were significant because dog-walking could be a vital tool in the battle to increase physical activity in the general population, said study author and PhD student Hayley Cutt.

As a nation of pet lovers, there were already 2.8 million households in Australia with a dog, Miss Cutt explained.

The problem was up to 50 per cent of dog owners never walked their dog, she said.

In fact, some studies had shown that dog owners who never walked their dog were actually less likely to meet their recommended level of physical activity compared to non-dog owners.

One of the objectives of the UWA study was to identify factors which encouraged or prevented dog owners from walking their dogs and hence help people tap into the benefits of having a personal excercise motivator in the form of a pooch, Ms Cutt said.

"If we could shift some of those dog owners who currently don't walk their dogs and those who walk their dogs occasionally into daily dog walkers, maybe we could have a significant impact in terms of the community physical activity levels," she said.

Trevor Shilton, Heart Foundation National Physical Activity Manager, enthusiastically backed the call to encourage dog-walking, saying the amount of physical activity people needed to reap the heath benefits was not huge.

Current Heart Foundation guidelines recommend 30mins of moderate-intensity physical activity on most or all days of the week, although a longer period was even better, he said.

"People ring me here at the Heart Foundation and say "Trevor what sort of excercise equipment do you recommend?" My first question is do you have a dog? If they says yes, then my second question is - does it have a leash?" Mr Shilton quipped.

"Quite apart from anything else, your rowing machine or treadmill doesn't look at you with those puppy-dog eyes pleading for you to jump on board and go for a walk the same way a dog does."

"The public health message is really about getting off the couch and on to the footpath. It's not so much about running on the track and onto Beijing."

Mr Shilton said he increased the amount of walking he did by taking his shitzu/maltese on short walks four to five times a week when he ran errands.

Ms Cutt said she did not need an alarm clock because her two dogs ran upstairs each morning and hovered around her bed nudging her to take them out.

Some studies have already projected estimated savings to health care costs if people got regular excercise by walking the dog, Ms Cutt added. She pointed to a 2001 study which found that if all dog owners walked their dogs, the health care savings to the State in disease prevention could total an estimated $175 million per year.

"(The impact of dog-walking on physical activity levels) is really big-picture stuff," she said.

Reference: www.thewest.com.au

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