[nagdu] Amount of walking

[Tracy Carcione]

Hi Joy.
I've been wondering about that myself.  My brother is one of those people
who just goes from vehicle to wherever and back.  When I've found myself
in the land of the car doing the same thing, I've noticed Ben gets pretty
antsy after a couple days.  It's not the life for him, or me.
But I don't walk near as much as Bryan!  I'm impressed!

I try to get in a mile or so every day, though during the winter I have
let a day or two go by and gone nowhere, or only a couple blocks to the
grocery or whatever.  I take public transit in to my office twice a week. 
I walk about a mile back to the bus terminal in the City.  I also walk
around my neighborhood.  I have a couple 8-10 block routes I take when I
feel like just taking a walk.  Last night, my husband and I walked about a
mile to go to a nice restaurant we like, and waddled back.  We could have
taken a taxi, but I wanted the exercise.
I certainly could do more, though.
I try to vary my routes, but often there aren't that many choices that
work well.  Meaning routes where I can hear the traffic well, and am not
trying to cross busy streets with no light, and routes that don't take me
way out of my way.  Or that are just way too crowded to be really fun.  If
I'm walking for fun and exercise, I actually want it to be fun, and not
burn Benny out.
I'm looking forward to spring, and being able to get out more and go farther.
Remember how in class they say that the dog needs to work every day to
stay sharp?  I have found this to be very true, and the more the better. 
For Ben, about a mile seems good, unless it's somewhere different and
exciting.  At the TSE reunion, one of the instructors remarked to me that
one can really tell which dogs have put on the miles.  I thought that was
interesting.
Tracy