Will this be a long story? I hope not.
When I first met the woman I would eventually marry, I had two cats & she had a dog. I was, as the saying goes, a "cat person." This is not to say I didn't like dogs - I loved them. I would pet them, play with them, roll around on the ground with them. But my lifestyle seemed to be more cat-oriented - cats were more self-sufficient, they didn't seem to need my affection as much, etc. & so I kinda looked down on "dog people."
Oh man, I used to get so annoyed at the "dog bandana" people in Austin who brought their dogs (fully bandanaed) to pubs & restaurants. The dogs just seemed miserable. They'd pant in the heat under the tables while their owners ate & drank & smoked & rarely paid any attention to them.
Then, alas, I started dating a woman with a dog. It's not fair to call her a "dog person" as she had loved many cats in her past. But she brought a dog into my catty life.
& yes, she took her fucking dog everywhere. Not just to restaurants & pubs, no. She went on long walks with him every damn day, especially to the so-called "green belt" in Zilker Park, where she'd disappear for hours while I was at work. What was up with that?
She invited me, from time-to-time, usually on the weekends, when I didn't have to work. (She was a grad student, she had very few responsibilities.*) I'd want to sleep in, I wouldn't want to escape the crushing Austin heat by waking up too early in the morning & then spend four sweaty hours walking in pseudo-wilderness with bike riders & other dog people.
Not that I didn't occasionally go. When we adopted a second dog, Ringo, & a third dog, Winston, I did find the time to make those weekend outings, but I confess I was always unimpressed by the unstructured nature of the walks, by what seemed to me to be a waste of time disguised as exercise.
Eventually, we moved from Texas, & ended up in West Virginia, then Kentucky. & around that time, something changed. I wish I could tell you what it was, but I think it had something to do with two things:
1) I became closer to the dogs. &
2) I recognized the walks for what they were: bonding time.
After we moved, I stopped working a regular nine to five/eight to five/eight to four/whatever job. I spent most of my time with my animals, which meant the dogs as well as the cats. & we - the dogs & I - became close. So when it came time for walks, fuck yeah I wanted to go. I liked to be around them. We were buds. We loved each other. Let's go for a motherfucking walk!
At this point in time the wife & I were married, so we would go on the walks & we discovered that we could use this time, this specific time, this specifically demarcated time, to talk about things that were important to us. It was not uncommon for the wife to come home from work & say, "I have so many things to tell you, leash the kids up."
It's almost a certainty that, by the second year we lived in Lexington, I was a true believer in dog walks. So much so that now, when the wife is away doing work stuff in far-flung places, I will still drag my lazy ass out of the bed at the early hour of six am - before it gets too fucking hot in Texas - to walk the dogs their average three miles a day.
You heard me! Three miles! Three miles of pooping, peeing, dragging, & sweating!
If you were to hang out with me & my future wife in 2003, just two years into our relationship, & you were to say to me, "In less that ten years, you will not only walk the dogs every day with your wife, but you will also enjoy it, & you will do it without her when she is not able," I would have laughed in your face. It was inconceivable.
Now it is one of my daily joys. & I am so glad I changed. I wouldn't have it any other way.
* Boy, would she get mad at that joke.
