We took our daily hike yesterday at Shaw Woods, one of the newer Portage County Parks. We like to go here because there usually aren’t many other people around. Yesterday there were four other cars in the parking lot which is quite a lot for this location. Here, my husband is waiting with our five dogs we take hiking while I run a poop bag back to the trash can. We didn’t even make it into the woods before one of them went. I do greatly appreciate the parks that supply trash cans!

We encountered two others out hiking with their dogs. And while we dearly love dogs, obviously, I always pull out my pepper spray whenever any approach now, in case one is loose. This is my reaction ever since we had a run in with loose dogs that attacked a while back. Encounter With Loose Dogs, Gone Bad. It is my job to keep my dogs safe and I take it seriously.

Walking around yesterday, I could see the beginnings of signs of spring. The leaf buds are visible on some of the trees, the birds are more active, and my favorite, the peepers were singing. Some other type of frog was singing too. If you stood still, you could hear one group of frogs croaking and off in the distance another group would answer their calls. The spring peepers are my favorite though. If I stand at our back door in the evening, I can hear them singing from our neighbor’s pond. Sometimes I stand outside our back door just to listen to the performance.

The benefits of hiking or walking are many. We humans enjoy better health and reduced anxiety. For many reasons. Not the least of which is, if we don’t take the dogs for their daily outing, they make us pay. Without a chance to expend energy they get into trouble. They know when it is around the time we head out. About ten minutes before hand they start pacing. If we haven’t changed our shoes by then, they begin coming up to us and staring in our faces. If we still haven’t responded, a few of them will come up and poke us repeatedly with their pointy noses. Can you say spoiled?

They give us the incentive we need to keep walking even on days when we don’t feel like it. If we want an easy day, we hike up the road to the township park and back. The footing on the roadway is level and the round trip is only two miles. Once the weather warms up we will switch to going in the morning, leaving earlier and earlier, the hotter it gets. We’ll see how long I make it as I don’t do well with heat.

How do you get your dogs exercise? Remember, a tired dog is a good dog!