Every single morning of my life when I get out of bed I know that there is one thing that will happen no matter what and that is my morning dog walk.
I acquired my first dog as an adult, all the earlier dogs were my parents working dogs, at aged 19 and at that time I was dancing (ballet, jazz and ballroom) regularly, I was playing Indoor Basketball through the winter, I walked a lot as I didn't have a car, and I ran, jogged. Maybe only two kms a day at first but I built it up to about five kms and a couple of times a month I would go for a longer run. So when I got the dog and it grew strong enough, she ran with me and it was great. This was 1971/72 on. I never leashed the dog - she just ran relatively with me, except when she saw a cat and did a runner after it. I generally ran in the mornings. If we went to stay at the beach I would go out for an early morning beach run. If I went to stay in Auckland with friends, I still jogged off in the mornings with the dog. I found this a wonderful way to stay fit and the dog sure loved it. Eventually that dog got too old to run and I ran on my own for a while and then I got a Fox terrier.
I had to run her on leash and for the first couple of years. Even when I went camping at the beach she would run off into the distance and leave me to jog alone, but eventually we got it right. About this time in 1981 ish, I fell and damaged my left ankle. I had medical help with it but it never really came right. I didn't get any recommendation for physiotherapy, the ankle was always very swollen and misshapen and the dancing went down the gurgler as did the basketball and the running. I did run a little bit but struggled with 8km fun runs on the ankle. So I did more walking. Around 1983 I got a lovely labrador/weimarana cross bitch and decided to go with my Father on Duck Shooting forays. This was great sport and the dog loved it. The foxterrier wasn't so good and barked in the maimai when she saw the ducks flying over. However for a number of duck shooting seasons, the winter sport became the walking looking for a pheasant or two and clambering around in the wetlands picking up ducks with the dog. This too was an early morning exercise and the peace and beauty of the mornings out with the dog were becoming impressed upon my mind.
I was involved with friends in the re-building of a 16foot runabout boat so that we could go trout fishing on the lakes. We all had dogs and would set off in the early mornings onto Lake Rotoiti or Okataina, or Tarawera for a day of fishing. When we stopped at a beach for comfort stops for us and the dogs, the dogs would wander off into the bush and we would sometimes wander with them. They were whizz kids with the possums. We used to time them. About ten minutes off the boat they would be into the first possum. They would retrieve it back to the beach and then go off and do it again. May I say that in NZ possum's are a huge pest that demolish the native flora and even attack the eggs of nesting native birds, so every dead possum is a good possum. The Foxterrier would climb the tree and knock the possum to the ground, the Labradors at the bottom would kill it and retrieve it. At the beginning we used to skin the possums and feed the dogs the legs and bury the rest, but in the end they did it so often we would be digging big holes just to bury the darn things.
I was living in Ngongotaha by the Waiteti Stream by 1988 and had some seriously beautiful lakefront and stream frontage to walk every morning with the dogs. My previous home on a hill was reasonably restricted for walking places. My walks were usually about 45 minutes as that was about all I could fit in. I often worked until 10.30p.m. so getting up early and walking was hard, and I generally needed to be in my office by 9.a.m. I was running a bit, and swimming in the lake and the stream in the summer, with the dogs of course. I told myself even on the coldest mornings, that the dogs needed the walk, but I am starting to question now whether it was the dogs or I who needed the walk. Very seldom did I miss a morning of walking.
Then I moved to a lifestyle block in Hamurana and found myself with three dogs, accidentally, and a Donkey, non-accidentally. Every morning for the last 14 years I have got up just a bit earlier so that I could take the dogs down to the Lake for a walk, and a swim. I now have four dogs and the donkey has been integrated into the one hour walk five days a week and a two hour walk on Sundays if I am home and not out doing dog competitions or something else.
As for the ankle, well I managed to fall and break it properly two and a half years ago and it broke my heart not being able to walk. It took a while to work up to strength again but the pain was really difficult to bear. Recently I asked my doctor what I could do and he suggested going to Orthotics at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where a technician called Noelle, built me some inners for my shoes. Well I have been liberated. I can walk properly again, I can even run a bit which is magic. I am back to really enjoying the scenery and the weather conditions, good and bad again. The pain from walking with the ankle had somewhat taken the shine off the beauty surrounding me, but no more.
I will be 61 in a few months and have owned 10 dogs over the last 42 years, with varying amounts of overlap, and I wouldn't hazard a guess how many hundreds of kms I have run and walked the dogs and I doubt I would be in the shape I am in now if that hadn't been the case. I have had a few bouts of illness and heartache and the misery of grief, but through it all the one constant, has been walking the dogs. My sanity has been preserved by this ritual and I hope to continue this lifestyle for as long as possible. I absolutely recommend it as the green solution to all ailments. My dogs just love it too.
