Your dog probably had a rough night with Independence Day fireworks, and if you decide to reward them with a long walk, make sure you pay attention and aren’t distracted by Instagram or reading online news.
There are several reasons that you do not want to be distracted while walking your dog.
First, you want to make sure they don’t eat anything that could be harmful.
“Dogs are going to pick something up off the street. We want to know what that is, as veterinarians, because that’s going to help us be able to treat them if they need to come in for something that they’ve ingested,” said Amy Pike, veterinary behaviorist with the Animal Behavior Wellness Center in Fairfax, Virginia.
She told WTOP the main culprits are chicken bones, cigarette butts and joints.
“Also I’ve seen dead rodents and so if someone has laid poison out and the rodent has died, … the dog has now just ingested the poison,” she said.
Pike said that, in addition, if your head is down multitasking you may miss key communication from your dog, “like their ears start to pin back, they look like they’re licking lips, they might start to blink really rapidly and lean away from whatever is triggering them.”
Not paying attention to these early signals might prevent you from your dog getting into a fight with another dog.
Tugging on their leash instead of being present with your dog may also be missing the entire point of the small neighborhood journey.
Sniffing their surroundings is the most enriching part of the walk for your dog. “It’s not about the mileage,” said Pike who said a dog walk is akin to your pets checking their “pee-mail.”
“If they’re allowed to sniff and engage in those types of enriching activities versus just getting mileage. They’re gonna be way more tired, the more they engage their brain than just trying to go for a power walk,” said Pike.
