Sadie does Intervals

 

This our dog Sadie, a Welsh Corgi we adopted from a rescue organization. She is the epitome of a couch potatoe.

The reason that she was given up for adoption was that she was originally in a breeding kennel but had gotten too fat to be bred.

Hence our ongoing efforts to accustom her to not being in a kennel 24/7 but instead having our home and a big yard to move about in. We are also trying to teach her the concept of play, she will chase a ball but fetch the ball seems beyond her or so she would have us think. Finally and most importantly, we are helping her loose weight. Yes, like her owners, Sadie is in training.

Although you can't see it so well in the photo, Sadie's belly just barely clears the floor and she has no waistline, earning her such sobriquets as "bubble butt", "princess piggy", and because of her exceptionally full hindquarters, "thunder thighs." So much for her self esteem.

In our continuing attempts to help her with her weight, as well as adding some variety to her mostly sedentary life, Sadie and I walk a couple of miles each day. Usually she is excited and performs at a brisk trot for the first portion of the walk, stopping only to investigate certain smells and leave her own messages. As the walk continues, she seems to warm up and get her second wind. She actually starts attempting some gallops. This probably her attempt to keep up with me as I walk briskly and to keep me from pulling her along by her collar. This is the "walk a little sit a lot" portion of the walk. If she feels that she is being forced to go too far or too fast, she begins to saunter very slowly along on the grass without making any attempt to sniff the sniffs and smell the smells. She saunters more and more slowly until she sits down. After a brief pause, she starts up again at an almost gallop, only to repeat her cool down, saunter and rest interval sit, every two to three hundred feet. And so it goes for the rest of the walk. Interval training Sadie style.

Recently I have added running alongside the bike to her routine. We don't do miles, but measure progress in yards and feet. After several weeks she can make it around the block, about 1/3 of a mile, before she gives up and out. Considering that her legs are only 8" long, that's a good distance.

Strangely enough, she has decided that if intervals work while walking, they probably work while running as well so our riding pattern strongly resembles our walk pattern. The first portion of the ride is a good gallop at 4-5 miles per hour, the middle portion is short bursts of speed followed by a long slower interval of gentle trot or quick walk. In contrast to the walk intervals, as we turn the corner onto our street, she becomes more like a horse headed to the stable and actually has even achieved speeds as fast as 8 miles an hour, for all of about 500 hundred feet.

Today, since she was traveling so strongly, I thought I might attempt a second partial run around the block with her. I was quickly disabused of that notion as she tore across directly in front of the front wheel of the bike. I was saved from a fall or a quick sail over the handlebars by good brakes and a picture perfect panic stop. The fact that since I was riding casually, I was riding out of the clips helped as well.

When I looked over to scold Sadie, she made her point by firmly planting her butt on the driveway. So much for doing some the extra distance.