By: Nicole Nichols, SparkPeople Blogger
3/30/2011 10:00 AM   :  103 comments   :  10,597 Views

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It's been just over a year since my favorite four-legged fitness buddy stumbled into my life. One March evening, my husband and I found the stray puppy darting back and forth across a busy street. She didn't have a collar or microchip, and by the looks of her bony ribs, she had been on her own for a while. After calling shelters and searching for her owner, we officially adopted Ginger as part of our family.

Now it's a normal part of our routine to walk (or run) with Ginger every morning and every night, too. Managing the household, going to work, waking up, cooking dinner, hitting the gym—it all revolves around Ginger's exercise/feeding/potty routine these days. We push back everything else to make sure one or both of us walks or runs with her not once, but twice a day.

If I go out of town sans dog like I did last weekend, I actually miss my daily walks with Ginger. Left to my own devices, I don't have a built-in workout "appointment" each day. I have to motivate myself to get active, which is far harder than knowing Ginger is waiting for me by the door. This led me to wonder: Does your pet motivate you to work out?

One thing's for sure: Making sure Ginger gets the exercise she needs to stay fit, healthy and content means that my husband and I are even more active than ever before. Rain, show, shine, heat, ice—whatever the weather—we exercise with Ginger morning and night. Even on my rest days from exercise, thanks to Ginger I'm taking part in beneficial active recovery in the form of a brisk walk rather than parking it on the couch. She's the reason I've been able to maintain current—and longest—workout streak: 66 days and counting!

I couldn't have kept that up without Ginger motivating me each day. That's why dogs make the best fitness buddies. That's not just my opinion either; research supports the idea. A few months ago I shared a study that showed dogs trump people as walking buddies because humans tend to make excuses while dogs don't. And a recent New York Times story, "Forget the Treadmill. Get a Dog." shared even more research on dogs are workout motivators.

In one of the studies author Tara Parker-Pope reported on, researchers found that among 2,170 Michigan dog owners, those who took their pets for regular walks met federal criteria for regular moderate or vigorous exercise. Nearly half exercised an average of 30 minutes a day at least five days a week. By comparison, only about a third of those without dogs exercised that much.

A desire to get more active—and maintain the motivation to stick with a routine—isn't a bad reason to consider getting a dog. As long as you are committed to properly training and caring for a pooch, I think it's a great reason. Now that I have a dog, I'm more active than ever before, taking Ginger for walks, runs and hikes every day. Even if I'm not motivated to do it on my own (and trust me, there are many cold mornings that I'd much rather stay in bed), she inspires me to get outside because I know it's what's best for her. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

Far more fun than a treadmill, maybe what you really need to stick to a workout routine isn't the latest workout gadget, but a little motivation of the furry kind.

Do you have (or have you had) a dog that motivates you to exercise? Would you consider "exercise motivation" a good reason to consider adopting a pet?