I'm new here... and I'm wondering if any of you have dogs, and count walking your dog towards your fitness minutes/workout activities. I walk my dog for 45-60 minutes every morning, and I rarely count it toward my fitness minutes. I don't really get my heart rate up, as my pup is too busy peeing on stuff to walk briskly. We walk at a 3-3.5/mph pace at most.

The interesting thing about walking relative to jogging is that you burn roughly the same amount of calories per mile. It just takes you much longer to cover the same distance.

A moderate walk with the dog that doesn't get your heart rate up probably won't improve your cardiovascular health all that much (esp. if you're used to it), but it does burn calories, and thus is a Good Thing.

If you followed the dog's footsteps, you'd probably burn about twice the calories. After all, it's rarely a straight line between pee stops.

Kim

When I first started I did count it, but I was in poor shape and wanted to encourage myself to move as much as possible. Now I don't count it, but our walks as often pretty short.

Sometimes when I walk my dogs, I jog in place everytime they stop. If I do that, and we walk at least 20 min, then I count it...