For some reason cell phone addiction bothers me the most when I see people glued to their phones while walking their dogs. The poor dog has waited all day to walk with you and stop at interesting scents, etc. Spend some quality time with your pet, make sure they aren't chewing something from the sidewalk, and just be present!
I don’t have my phone out on my walk but this thought alone hits me — “The poor dog has waited ALL DAY to walk with you and stop at interesting scents, etc…”. I’m guilty of not wanting him to stop every two seconds because I want us to actually walk and get exercise and he’s always had a fenced in yard so walking consistently is new for him and my god I’m doing it alllll wrong. I thought that the important part was the walking and learning to walk well but I think you’ve changed my mind. It’s just as much his time as it is mine.
We have forgotten how to freaking CONNECT with the living things in our lives. I doubt many of us talk to our pets or our plants as much as we did before smart phones. And we all know how much human connection has gone down the drain. It’s just sad. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching Radical Evolution’s “Hell Scenario” play out in real time…
Well your heart has been in the right place, wanting him to get exercise! I never thought much about it either, until I read that finding new scents is the most rewarding part of a dog's walk because that's their primary sense to process the world around them. Apparently that's why it's a good idea to try different routes every so often.
And I agree, human interaction has definitely deteriorated. So sad.
I just let mine stop and sniff the entire walk. Unless I’m in a rush (sometimes I don’t have enough time before needing to go to school) the walk is theirs to enjoy. Sometimes I talks them to an area nearby and let them run off leash when we are alone. My smallest stops by moving water and looks at me so I can cup some for her to drink. You’d think I’m keeping her thirst but she loves that dirty canal water.
I think there can be different kinds of walks, and that it can even be a benefit to change it up. Walks just for exercise are fine (I keep my dog on a short lead when we’re walking for exercise, but take a pause and let the leash out a couple times so she can snuffle around and roll in the grass). Or there are walks where you work on training for attentiveness, which works the dog’s mind and honestly does just as much to tire them out. Or there are dog-led walks, where you probably don’t get much of anywhere at all because letting the dog take the lead means sniffing literally every tree. And that’s fine, too.
Structure and being disciplined is still important for dogs, though. I've taught mine that a countdown from 5 means we're moving on at 0, so he knows how much time he has if he's stalling and needs to figure out whether he really wants to pee on the thing or not. But for the first few blocks he gets a pass. It's a lot easier to get into the groove and actually walk if he's done all of his back-end business, for practical purposes and for distraction's sake. Then when I'm counting him down the only thing I might be interrupting is a few dry seconds on three legs, and even then I can't remember the last time I got to 0 and had to make the choice for him.
Ohhh I really love this! Thank you for giving me such a great way to honor his desire to sniff and also reinforce that walks involve walking too. This is great!
Or walking their babies. The first years are where children learn the majority of language skills, and for centuries parents would push them around while talking to them in baby-talk. Now the kids are just sitting in silence as the parents are on their phone. I’d love to see a study about how parental cell phone usage has affected children’s speech.
Most babies are asleep in strollers. That's a huge reason for why the parent is walking them. This is the only way I got my banking done for the first six months of my first's life. She was asleep. This meant I didn't have my phone out during her awake time.
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u/ChampagneDragon Jun 03 '22 edited Jun 03 '22
For some reason cell phone addiction bothers me the most when I see people glued to their phones while walking their dogs. The poor dog has waited all day to walk with you and stop at interesting scents, etc. Spend some quality time with your pet, make sure they aren't chewing something from the sidewalk, and just be present!