Near the beginning of this year, Katie at Lessons From 4 Legs started a Walking Challenge. Anyone can join the walking challenge with their dog, setting their own walking goal and updating Katie on their progress (so that she can add it to the progress bar on her blog). The challenge does not have to be walking; it could be running, jogging, cycling, or any other activity with your dog.
It sounded like a great idea to me, so I joined with Chispita. I do not walk with her by any street, because I do not want her to run onto one if she sometime runs out the door. I just walk her through our twelve acre yard, so it is hard to measure miles. I would be able to calculate the distance if we walked along the perimeter of the yard, but there is too much tall grass to do that.
Katie suggested that we could do a time challenge instead, so the goal I set was 7 hours per week of walking with Chispita, or 1 hour per day. I do not have a watch, so I started taking a timer with me in my pocket whenever I went outside with her. At first the weather was extremely cold, less than 10 degrees sometimes, so we could only be out for a few minutes at a time. I soon fell way behind the goal, getting about 1 hour per week. But soon enough it began to warm up, and we could spend more time outside.
One of the best walks we had while doing the walking challenge was the one to Gammelgarden Museum, when we saw the beavers. Most of the other walks were just normal strolls through our yard.
With this warmer weather, Chispita and I have been catching up in the walking challenge. To catch up completely, we would have to have walked 127 hours; we've only done 50 so far. I think we will be able to catch up now that Chispita has started outdoor agility training. Each training session adds to the time we have done in the walking challenge (although agility has more running in it than walking).
A new part of the walking challenge is a giveaway that Katie decided to have. Everyone who is in the walking challenge is entered in a drawing for a prize; everyone who is on track with their own goal is entered for a second drawing; and everyone who makes a post about the walking challenge, linking back to Lessons From 4 Legs, is entered for a third drawing.
What a great post! Thanks for doing a walking challenge post, you and chispita are officially entered in two of the WC drawings.:)
ReplyDeleteI was so interested to see how you are getting your WC hours. It's really awesome you have so much space to walk in. I would love to have that, we do almost all of our walking in the city and the pups hardly ever get off leash time.:(
Working in your agility time is great too! Being creative with spending time with our pups is the point of the challenge and you're really getting it. Thanks for being part of our challenge!