Dogs, Physical Activity, and Walking (Dogs PAW)

Abstract

Preliminary results suggest that this pilot intervention is an acceptable and feasible strategy for promoting dog walking among dog owners.

Evaluation of the Dogs, Physical Activity, and Walking (Dogs PAW) Intervention

“…We have previously reported on the feasibility, acceptability, and immediate outcomes of the Dogs PAW postintervention (Richards, Ogata, & Ting, 2015). In this preliminary analysis, participants agreed that the intervention e-mails were easy to read and understand and that the frequency of e-mails was adequate.…”

“…Dogs PAW was a 3-month, e-mail-based RCT designed to increase dog walking among dog owners (see Richards et al, 2015, for a complete description). Briefly, Dogs PAW was developed to be in line with SCT and based off the individual, interpersonal, and environmental correlates of dog walking found in two previous studies (Rhodes et al, 2012;Richards et al, 2013b).…”

“…Participants were well educated, with most of the participants completing at least a 2-year college degree. A complete description of participant characteristics is available in Richards et al (2015).…”

Dog ownership and all-cause mortality in a population cohort in Norway: The HUNT study

“…Nonetheless, most of the 29 studies in this systematic review were cross-sectional associations between dog ownership and walking or physical activity levels [5]. The magnitude of this effect was replicated in small-scale dog walking intervention trials [6,7]. However, some studies found the absolute difference in reported walking or physical activity between dog owners and non-dog owners to be small in magnitude or non-significant [8–10].…”

“…The Scopus data base was used from 2000 to the end of 2016, and all papers with the Title terms (dog* AND (physical activity) or walk*)) were included. Two raters (SK and AB) considered all abstracts and coded them as [1] correlates or prevalence studies using cross sectional designs [including the association between dog walking and physical activity]; [2] editorials, opinion pieces; [3] measurement studies; [4] qualitative research; [5] interventions to increase DW; [6] epidemiological studies, longitudinal, cohorts, and [7] health benefits of pets, dogs. Inter-rater agreement was 87%, and all discrepancies were reconciled.…”