Walking

4 Lessons Dogs Teach Us About Life

We adopted a mixed-breed puppy five months ago. She’s jet black with white patches, and we named her Flower. Two little boys, a puppy, and two elderly cats make for a special brand of pandemonium — and a lot of joy. I grew up with dogs, but I’ve spent 15 years with feline companions. So Flower astounds me. “She listens! She seems to like us! We can actually train her not to do something!” Our cats, quintessential introverts, have no interest in such things.

Pets are a huge responsibility and expense. Americans spend 60 billion dollars a year on them. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on what we get from these intimate inter-species relationships. Here are a few of the lessons Flower has been teaching (or reminding us of).

You don’t need words to communicate

Dogs are experts at reading non-verbal cues and tone of voice. They watch us nearly as closely as our own infants and can supposedly read us better than chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest primate relatives. Scientists say humans and dogs evolved as companions over tens of thousands of years, and some theorize that wild dogs instigated the inter-species relationship by learning to understand our gestures.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Dogs watch us nearly as closely as our own infants and read us better than primates. #dogs” quote=”Dogs watch us nearly as closely as our own infants and read us better than primates.” theme=”style1″]

For a long time, people assumed dogs were not as highly sensitive as they seem but were learning to recognize a cue, such as an angry voice. However, a more recent study suggests dogs categorize humans’ varied emotional responses, which helps them attune to our moods. And the ability seems to be intrinsic (not learned). In any case, spending time with a dog is an amazing lesson in how much we communicate without opening our mouths and how much we can learn about people by paying attention.

Empathy is powerful

One afternoon on the way to the dog park, Flower was a bundle of energy. It had just rained and the winding trail was slippery. As we rounded a curve, Flower saw the gate to the park, lunged for it, and pulled me down. Flower forgot all about the dog park. She turned around, ran to me, curled into my lap, and started licking my face.

I spend a lot of time with two little boys who are still learning the ins and outs of empathy — “It doesn’t matter if you’re sad, right Mommy?” But empathy seems to come naturally to Flower. And she’s not unusual in the canine world. A dog is more likely to approach someone who’s crying than someone who is humming or talking, according to one study. Relationships — human or canine — can be challenging. A little empathy goes a long way.

Movement is fun

Dogs are excellent movement coaches. Flower never puts exercise on the end of her to-do list after a litany of chores. Moving is one of her favorite things, second only to food, and she never takes for granted the simple joy of walking or running or playing ball. Her zeal for moving helps us all add more of it to our days. Moreover, she reminds us that it can be our favorite part of the day.

Categories Don’t Always Fit

Adopting a dog can supposedly ward off loneliness, not only because you have the dog as a companion, but because the dog invites more social interaction with other people. It’s true. Our walks these days are filled with happy conversations with strangers. People love dogs.

Many passersby are curious about what breed Flower is. She is about as mixed-breed as dogs get. We usually list off a few of the breeds we’re relatively certain she has — English Pointer, Australian Shepherd, etc. But that answer usually does not suffice. Quite a few people are convinced they know what category she’s actually in. From Jack Russell Terrier to Bulldog to Border Collie, we’ve heard lots of different ideas. We humans sure like our categories, don’t we? Flower’s a good reminder that dogs (and people) don’t always fit in one.

I loved having a dog companion when I was a kid, and it’s fun to see how much my boys already love Flower. (Unfortunately, our cats are not such huge fans.) Training a puppy is not easy, but it has a way of reminding us what’s important. Besides, watching Flower chase her tail never gets old.

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Want Healthy, Happy Kids? Walk With Them.

By Abby Quillen

Walking has always been my favorite mode of transportation. Yes, it’s usually the slowest way to get somewhere, averaging fifteen minutes per mile. But it makes me feel clear-headed and invigorated when I get to my destination. Thus, I’ve long preferred striding, strolling, or sauntering to driving, riding, and even biking. That’s why I’ve commuted by foot to school and work most of my life, even when I was nine months pregnant.

My kids don’t exactly share my zeal for bipedal locomotion.

“You know, the car is faster,” four-year-old Ira patiently explains as we amble toward his preschool.

“One block, Mom. One block. Then we’ll turn around,” seven-year-old Ezra declares as we maneuver our puppy out the door for an after-school jaunt around the neighborhood.

I’ve never seen research on the topic, but the mental health benefits of walking seem to diminish rapidly when a child is trudging beside you complaining. So I’ve allowed and even encouraged the boys to grab their bikes on walks in the past. Wheels tend to help them move along at a nice pace, and their complaining wanes.

However, this year I’m on a mission to get my kids walking more. I love bikes, but I’m convinced walking, the upright movement that distinguishes us as human, is an under-appreciated key to good health. Moreover, not walking — 35 percent fewer kids walk and bike to school than they did in 1969 — may be causing a lot of problems for our kids (and the rest of us).

Walking is Anti-Sitting

Walking is not as vigorous as running or playing. But it may actually be the moderate intensity of walking that makes it so good for us. Why? It doesn’t tire us out, so we continue to move around for the rest of the day. However, those vigorous bouts of high-intensity movement we usually call “exercise” often encourage us to sit more. In one study, exercisers were 30 percent less active on the days they hit the gym. That’s a problem because varied all-day movement seems to be the ticket to optimal health.

You’ve probably seen the headlines that sitting too much increases cardiovascular issues, even when people exercise vigorously several times a week. Excessive sitting is bad for kids too. Just three hours of uninterrupted sitting caused the blood vessels of girls, aged nine to 12, to restrict in a study. Unfortunately most kids sit a lot. Worldwide, children sit for about 8.5 hours a day.

[clickToTweet tweet=”On average, kids sit for 8.5 hours a day. The antidote? Walking. #walking #kidshealth” quote=”On average, kids sit for 8.5 hours a day. The antidote? Walking.” theme=”style1″]

What’s the antidote to sitting? Lots of walking. Walking is not only good for our hearts and organs, it’s good for the entire body. Riding a bike gets the blood flowing, however, the hips stay flexed, our shoulders hunch forward, and our tails tuck. However, walking, when done in proper alignment, is the opposite of sitting. The movement elongates the spine and tones the pelvic floor. Biomechanist Katy Bowman calls it a “biological imperative,” because we must do a lot of it to maintain a healthy body, especially a healthy skeleton.

Walking Builds Healthy Bones

Experts say childhood is the best time to invest in healthy bones. According to the National Institute of Health, bone mineral density peaks around age 20 for boys and 18 for girls. Healthy bone mineral density both makes kids less at risk for childhood fractures and less likely to experience osteoporosis and fractures later in life. Alarmingly, more kids may have low bone mineral density than in previous eras, according to Orthopedic Surgeon Shevaun Mackie Doyle, perhaps because they get less activity and exposure to sunshine.

Biking gets kids outside, offers cardiovascular benefits, and is great for the environment when it replaces car trips. But it’s not so great for bone health, according to a number of studies. In studies, cyclists, especially those who ride on smooth terrain, have the same or even lower bone density than sedentary control groups. (Swimmers also have similar bone density to sedentary people, likely because both groups don’t bear their own weight while they’re moving.)

Walking not only builds healthy bones, it encourages kids to run, jump, skip, gallop, tromp, and tree-climb, all of which are superb bone builders.

Walking Improves Quality of Life

Walking isn’t just important for our bodies. It boosts mental health. It helps people attune to the environment, rather than their worries, and has been shown to increase the size of the hippocampus and improve memory. Walking to school helps kids focus for the rest of the day and has been shown to reduce the need for kids to take ADHD medication, according to a British study.

Daily walks also boost immunity, decreasing people’s chance of getting a cold by as much as 30 percent. That may be especially alluring to parents as we enter another cold and flu season.

Maybe you’re already convinced about walking’s superhero qualities? Warning: your kids may not be. Mine complain walking is boring and say it makes their legs tired. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to make it more palatable.

How to Help Kids Love Walking

“You know, Mom, that was sort of fun,” Ezra remarked the other day after a one-and-a-half-mile walk to a school-related meeting. This walk is straight uphill, and a few months ago, he would have balked at the idea of it. So it was an exciting moment for me. However, getting him to this point required some effort on my part. The following tactics have made walking more fun for my kids and may help your kids enjoy walking more too.

Go Somewhere Fun

Whether it’s a playground or a birthday party, having a destination gets kids moving. One popular hike in our area is a winding uphill trek, but every kid I know hustles to the top. Why? There’s a swing up there.

Walk to School or on Errands

Walking is best when it’s used as a mode of transportation. That way, it becomes a seamless part of life, and kids and adults alike are less likely to think of it as optional “exercise.” Let’s face it, exercise is too often an activity we don’t enjoy that encourages more sedentary behavior for the rest of the day. It’s better to make walking routine.

Bring a Friend

Nothing seems to gets a kid moving like another kid. The instant a friend joins us, complaining vanishes as the kids race each other to the end of the block and scramble up trees.

Play games

A game of Red Light, Green Light or Follow the Leader is a sure way to get kids excited about a walk. We’ve invented our own walking game called Force Fields. Basically, there are imaginary “force fields” we can fall into in as we walk, and someone has to rescue us with an imaginary rope or magic dust. The game relieves my kids’ fatigue and boredom quickly, and they have a great time thinking up variations, such as “whirlwind force fields” and “quicksand force fields.”

Expect to Carry Little Ones Sometimes

Little legs tire faster than ours, so our littlest kiddos will probably need to be carried sometimes. It may be tempting to bring along a stroller or backpack, and I do when we’re going a long way, but these tools can encourage more sitting than walking. So on shorter walks I leave them at home and expect to carry my four-year-old occasionally. Here’s what I’ve learned. When I resist carrying him, everyone is miserable. When I happily let him climb up on my back, he’s usually back on his feet and running around within a block or two. And the good news is, carrying little ones is something we’re built to do, and it makes our bones and bodies strong. Think of it as strength training with built in hugs.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Walking builds healthy bodies and brains. With a little creativity, kids can love it. #kidshealth” quote=”Walking builds healthy bodies and brains. With a little creativity, kids can love it.” theme=”style1″]

Conclusion

Many adults are looking for ways to feel better, relieve musculoskeletal pain, and connect with our kids. At the same time, we’re worried that our kids get sick too much, spend too much time on the couch with electronics, or have trouble focusing at school. The solution to all of those problems and many more is free and accessible to nearly everyone. Walk!

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Do you walk with your kids? Have you found ways to make it enjoyable for them? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Imagine a City With No Cars

By Abby Quillen

Every summer in Eugene, the city blocks off a neighborhood to car traffic for an afternoon, and people come out to bike, walk, roll, dance, do yoga, listen to music, and celebrate in the streets. The event, called Sunday Streets, and similar ones around the country are inspired by Bogota, Colombia’s Ciclovía, which started in 1976.

We always have a great time wandering around and celebrating human powered transportation. While most people don’t want to live in a city with no cars, Sunday Streets events help us envision safe and vibrant city centers that cater to people, instead of automobiles.

As I mentioned last week, August will likely be quiet here, as I travel and revamp this site. (Of course, I may not be able to resist stopping in for a garden update; there’s so much happening out there!) I look forward to seeing you back here at a new and improved website in September.

Lessons in Car-Free Living

By Abby Quillen

My family is doing an experiment in car-free living. We’re considering going car-free for the winter, mostly because our only car needs major repairs, and it’s too old and unreliable to sink much money into. We want to save money to buy a better, more efficient vehicle next year, and the best way we can think to do this is by living sans automobile for awhile.

We tried the car-free life last month to see how difficult it would be. My husband rode his bike to and from work. My son and I walked and rode everywhere. Honestly, it’s been great. My husband has been enjoying getting exercise outdoors each day, since he has to be inside all day. Our son is getting older and can walk further distances, making it much easier than the last time we tried this a year ago. And we’re having a great time riding bikes together to the store, park, library, and farmer’s market on the weekends.

This feels like a normal, sensible way to live. But what we’re contemplating is downright radical. Just look at these statistics:

41 percent of urban trips in the U.S. are under 2 miles.
90 percent of those trips are made by car.
6 percent of them are made on foot
Less than 1 percent are made on bicycle.

It’s no secret that driving is not good for us, the environment, or our society. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, “Driving a private car is probably a typical citizen’s most “polluting” daily activity.” Cars spew hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide into the air, and air pollution is linked to asthma, heart disease, cancer, and even diabetes. According to a 2004 study, each hour we spend in a car each day is also associated with six percent greater likelihood of being obese. And driving isolates us from each other, and too often, leads to rage and aggression

It takes about 30 minutes to walk two miles, and about ten minutes to ride a bike that far. Most of us can use more exercise. So why are we driving so much? City planning – suburbs, strip malls, cul-de-sacs, drive-through restaurants, and box stores with gigantic parking lots – undoubtedly plays a huge role. But even in places where it’s easy to walk, ride, and take transit, like where I live in Eugene, Oregon, the vast majority of people still drive alone nearly everywhere they go.

My family is learning many lessons from our experiment in car-free living. Maybe they can help others who want to drive less or ditch the car altogether.

Plan trips wisely

During a downpour a few weeks ago, my husband made four (yes, four) trips to the hardware store to get materials to fix our faucet. If he’d been driving, it would have been annoying. Because he was riding his bike, it was also exhausting. I don’t think we’ll make that mistake again. We are learning to plan all of our trips much more carefully.

Break old habits

The hardest time to be car-free is in the evenings. We want to zip out for take-out or run to the store to get a dessert. Like quitting any habit, we’re just having to change our ways – as painful as it feels sometimes. The good news is we’re saving a lot of money (and keeping packaging out of the landfills) along the way.

Make the journey part of the adventure

I interviewed a car-free family with four kids for an article awhile ago. Monica Adkins told me that riding bikes often sounds difficult before her family sets out, but once they are on the bikes, “It feels good on my face and on my hair. My kids are giggling and talking and closer to reality. And we’re getting exercise. Everything about it feels really good.” I think about her quote all the time. We often lose a lot in convenience and ease when we leave the car at home, but we gain lots of fun and fresh air on our journeys.

Learn to barter and ask for help

“The hardest part is asking people for rides,” my husband lamented recently. He’s right. But it’s also the best part. Our neighbor offered to drive us to the airport, and we got to know her a lot better during the drive. A friend helped us pick up chicken food in exchange for some fresh eggs, and we were both excited about the trade. We’ve also started car-pooling with some friends to a weekly get-together, and we always have a great time on the way over. So even if it’s hard for us to ask for help, we’re building a tighter community and closer friendships.

Set a goal and celebrate

We’re not planning to be car-free forever, but for now we’re sort of reveling in it – in how healthy it is, in how much money we’re saving, and in the little bit we’re doing to make the air cleaner for everyone. It’s also freeing not to worry about maintaining an old and ailing vehicle – at least for now. We know the idea of living without a car may sound crazy to a lot of people, but it’s starting to seem a lot less crazy to us.

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Are you trying to drive less? Do you have any tips to share?

Adventures on Foot

By Abby Quillen

I’m reading Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, a hilarious account of his adventures on the Appalachian Trail (AT). Of his first day on the trail, Bryson writes:

It was hell. First days on hiking trips always are. I was hopelessly out of shape — hopelessly. The pack weighed way to much. Way too much. I had never encountered anything so hard, for which I was so ill prepared. Every step was a struggle. The hardest part was coming to terms with the constant dispiriting discovery that there is always more hill.

The AT is 2,160 miles. It runs from Mount Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia, traversing 14 states. According to Bryson, 1500 people set out to complete it each year, but only 300 people make it to the end.

Despite Bryson’s eloquent descriptions of the miseries of trudging day after day through endless forests weighed down by a gigantic backpack, I’ve always dreamed of taking an adventure on foot when my son’s older. I love to walk, and I hope I’ll get the opportunity to tackle at least some portion of one of these trails someday.

The Colorado Trail (CT)

The CT stretches almost 500 miles, from Denver to Durango, traveling through six wilderness areas and eight mountain ranges and rising to 13,334 feet. I’ve done day hikes on many portions of the Colorado Trail, and every part I’ve visited is beautiful. (The below picture is actually from a stretch of the 401 Trail near Crested Butte, Colorado, but it gives you an idea of what makes hiking in Colorado worthwhile.)

colorado — Colorado Scenery. Credit: trailsource.com

The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT)

The PCT zigzags 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon, and Washington. It passes through six of the seven ecozones in North America, including deserts, mountains, and old growth forest. Three hundred hikers attempt the entire trail each year, walking through the Mojave Desert, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Yosemite, Crater Lake, and the Columbia River Gorge.

pct — Pacific Crest Trail. Credit: nordique

The North Country Trail (NCT)

The longest hiking trail in the U.S., the NCT stretches 4,200 miles from New York to North Dakota. It spans mountains, forests, and prairies and skirts Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.

North Country Trail. Credit: Daniel Morrison

We have no shortage of long hiking trails in the United States. The National Trails System totals 60,000 miles in all 50 states. It’s longer than the Interstate Highway System. If you’re looking for a place to hike, or just want to dream of your own adventure on foot, you can find lots of information about America’s hiking trails at americantrails.org.

I’d also like to take a hut trip someday. On these adventures, you spend the day walking in the woods. Then instead of sleeping on the ground or on a platform in the outdoors, you sleep on a bed in an inn. Huts range from rustic cabins to grand lodges. Europe abounds with hut hiking adventures. The accommodations in the Alps are supposedly quite luxurious; think: “arugula salad, beef consommé, entrecôte steak, and fine cheeses”. But you can also take hut trips in Colorado, New Hampshire, Georgia, Glacier National Park, Yosemite, and other locations around the U.S. You can learn more about hut hiking here.

Have you ever taken an adventure on foot? Would you like to? I’d love to hear about it.

Living Local

By Abby Quillen

A few years ago, Kurt Hoelting, a wilderness guide and commercial fisherman living in the San Juan Islands in Washington, took an online quiz to calculate his carbon footprint. He was living fairly simply, so he was shocked to find that his carbon footprint was gigantic. The culprit? Air travel. So Hoelting made a resolution. He would spend an entire year only traveling within a 60 mile circumference of his house and using only public transportation, his bike, his kayak, and his feet. He wrote a book about his experience called The Circumference of Home.

In an interview Hoelting said that his experiment made him see the world from a new vantage point. His first adventure was walking a 130 mile circle around the Skagit Basin and Whidbey Island, and he expected a nice, long wilderness hike. But he was shocked at how complicated walking turned out to be, because our world is built for cars, not foot-travel. As Hoelting walked, he noticed “nooks and crannies” of wildness everywhere that he’d been missing when traveling by car.

Hoelting’s experiment made me think about my own walks. I love to walk, and I’ve walked nearly every day for as long as I can remember. Thus for much of my life, I’ve been exploring circles around the different places I’ve lived. Recently I was on a walk in the hills near my house. It was a route I’ve taken dozens of times before. But this time I noticed something I’d never seen before: at the end of a cul-de-sac, it looked like there was a path leading into the trees.

It was a rare occasion where I didn’t have my son or his stroller with me, so I followed the path. I found myself in a city park that I’d never heard of or seen on a map. I only knew it was a park because of the city’s sign, which is lying on the ground in the undergrowth. Trees have fallen across the trail in places. And I’ve yet to see another person there even though I now visit regularly. It’s just as Hoelting described – an unexpected pocket of wild in the middle of a residential neighborhood. And I’m sure I never would have noticed it from inside a car.

I can’t tell you how much visiting this little patch of wilderness has added to our lives. My son and I call it the “forest”, and when we talk about it, my son says, “deer!”, because we so often watch deer grazing there. We also listen to birdcalls and look for different kinds of bugs and just sit together on a log and soak up the forest, which is something I’d missed, because like Hoelting, my family lives a lot more locally these days than we used to.

It’s hard to believe that just a few months ago, we didn’t know this wonderful place existed. What else might we be missing right outside our door?

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