BREAK FROM INERT

We don’t walk our dog. Being the chip-eating, TV-watching, sedentary people we are, getting up off the couch to give our dog some exercise is a beyond what we’re willing to do for the 5 lb. interloper.

My mom walks her dog. Four miles is standard.

My Sophie would keel over and die on a four-mile walk, seeing as she’s never walked a mile at once; a trip to the mailbox is like Christmas.

Today and for the weekend, we are dog-sitting my mom’s athletic pup, Gus. (Uncle Gus to Soph, as he is our brother and Sophie is my daughter. That’s Haley’s brilliance, right there.) Gus is accustomed to physical exercise, so I thought it only polite to take him on a walk; I try to be a good little hostess. (Ha!—take him on a walk? He took me!)

The Husband clipped Soph to her pink polka-dotted leash. I clipped Gus to his what seems like 18-foot retractable leash. I slipped on my flip flops. My spouse slipped on his Birkenstocks (another story for another day). Off we went. And went. And went.

See, we’ve lived in this neighborhood for nearly a year now, and this was our first time exploring it by foot (since we’d much rather watch television and eat chicken wings than inhale the fresh air). Turns out this charming little golf community in which we reside is rife with foot paths and big, fat sidewalks.

Huh. Who knew?

Gus spent much of the walk staring back at me with a Hurry up, would you? look in his eyes. The Husband spent much of the walk trying to teach Soph to heel. Soph spent all her time trying to Mush! on her leash and playing deaf when he demanded, "Heel!" I earned myself some bulbous blisters on the bottoms of my feet through the mere act of walking. Flip-flops on a 2-mile walk of leisure: bad idea. Walking in heels tomorrow is going to be all sorts of fun.

As soon as we found our way home, Sophie snarfed a treat, had some water and promptly passed out for four hours. I put up my feet at my desk. The Husband sat down with his laptop. Gus ran circles around my desk chair to make up for the 2 miles his walk lacked.

We should walk our dog more often.