Of Moving, and Treading

I started running after Murphy.

Not literally, though there were times I did find myself chasing him up and down the street. I started running for pleasure after Murphy started running, for exercise.

It was the only way to drain all of his energy.

Murphy is, and has always has been, a very demanding creature. He’s high energy, a highly energetic dog, which means his body—and his brain—never stop moving. As a puppy, Murphy would literally bounce around the house, four feet leaving the ground as he bunny hopped from room to room. He’d bounce until he grew bored, and then he'd go to the basement stairs, where he would run up and down, up and down, over and over and over.

For a solid twenty minutes, Murphy would race up and down the stairs.

Then he’d stop.

And then he’d start racing around the house. He'd tear around the living room, kick up the Oriental rug with his back paws, and run to the dining room, where he would clumsily knock over everything on the coffee table. His toenails would scrabble across the kitchen floor as he spun circles around the island, and dig gouges when he would go so fast he couldn't stop. After a half-hour of continuous, thunderous noise, there would be silence, and stillness.

And then, a cat would streak by. The ground would shake as Murphy came charging around the corner, and  I would have to literally jump out of the way—onto the banister, down the stairs, onto a chair—to avoid any form of bodily injury. He'd chase the cat, and bark when it escaped, and my sanity could only handle so much.

Murphy was crazy.

He was exhausting.

Exhausting to watch, exhausting to listen to, and parts of me felt bad that he only seemed to really enjoy running around when he was inside. I did everything I could to ensure he had enough outside stimulation. When the weather was nice, we went down to Leesylvania State Park and practiced swimming. We took walks with friends, went and played with big dogs, and played fetch in large, fenced in areas. Murphy liked being outside—he didn’t fetch so much as watch the ball fly in one direction and then take off in another—but hated exercising outside. When we’d go out for a walk, he would, at some point, stop, lie down, and refuse to get back up. I thought of everything to get him moving again: water, food, a high-pitched, enthusiastic voice. Nothing worked. In the end, I had to lift him back onto his feet and half carry him all the way back home.

It was frustrating for both of us. Murphy’s a mover—feet going, tongue hanging sideways out of his mouth—who doesn’t enjoy going anywhere. He loves meeting dogs, and likes his trips out with his English Mastiff best friend, Jameson, but would rather stay at home and run around the house, or right outside of it. At a year old, he was the same way. He preferred the familiarity of home, of the stairs and grooves in the backyard, over the smells and sounds and openness of the dog park. The only problem with letting him move at home, was he went into the neighbor's yards. He tore up the hardwood floors. He ran furrows into the carpet. He dented the walls.

Until I bought the shock collar, I couldn't trust Murphy outside. When I limited the racing in the house, he would get into trouble. The day I stopped his up-the-stairs-down-the-stairs routine, Murphy raided the cat boxes, ripped up graduate school paperwork, chewed the tongue off my mother’s brand new L.L.Bean boot, and ate one of my a credit cards and twenty dollars in cash. It was obvious that the only way to keep him out of trouble was to somehow keep him moving.

But how? How do you keep an 80-pound monster moving, without really moving?

Two words: the treadmill.

My stepfather, Frank, had bought one for my mother, an avid runner, the Christmas before Murphy arrived. Mom used the treadmill, though relatively infrequently, so it sat unused in the basement. I’d seen dogs running on the treadmill on TV, and figured if Murphy could master the command “out”—where he has to leave the kitchen entirely and lie down on the rug in the family room—the first time I taught it to him, he’d probably pick up walking or running on a machine pretty quickly.

He did.

In fact, he picked up the treadmill on the very first try. All I had to do was slip on his leash and lead him to the machine. I stood beside him, like I normally do when we go for a walk, urged him onto the belt, and hit start. With me standing by his side, Murphy didn’t panic. He didn’t jump. He just stood still, and waited. He walked when the speed picked up, feet steady and sure. I stood beside him as he started to trot, watched his head start to dip, made sure his tail was still wagging as the minutes passed. After a few minutes, I unclipped his leash, and watched Murphy walk on the treadmill. He was so focused on exercising that he didn’t even notice when I moved from his side, to the couch, on the other side of the basement. When I stopped the treadmill ten minutes later, Murphy just looked at me, drool slipping from between his lips, eyes bright. He wanted more.

I gave him more. His enthusiasm for working out quickly became routine. Once in the morning, once in the evening, Murphy would go outside and then he’d come in and walk. I’d call him over to the treadmill and he’d hop onto the belt, and wait. I’d turn it onto whatever speed or incline his energy demanded, and I let him go; he’d trot or run as I worked or cooked or folded laundry. Sometimes, he’d walk for an hour. Sometimes he’d run for twenty minutes. As his energy wanes, he moves less and less. 

Now it's friends and family, sometimes even strangers, who want more. More energy. More running.

They ask: Is it okay to put your dog on the treadmill? Isn’t that cruel and unusual punishment? Does he even like it?

Show me.

I always reply the same way:

It’s been three years and countless miles. Murphy’s tail is always up, his head is always down. His eyes are bright. He likes to walk, likes to run, so much so that he has mastered the art of moving, of putting one paw in front of the other. He no longer moves, he no longer runs. He treads.

Come see: