As soon as I walk through my front door, there is my little doggy wagging his tail in excitement. I’m so exhausted, but that little bugger gives me his big doe eyes and looks at me like “When are you walking me mama?”

Since Lucky doesn’t understand (nor does he care), let me give you an idea of my typical work day.

• I’m up at 4:30am and out of the house by 5am.
• I’m in the gym from 5:15-6am.
• I get ready in that stinky gym bathroom and then I’m off to work.
• I’m at my job from 7am – 4:30pm.
• I don’t get home until 5:30 in the evening due to carpooling and picking up my daughter from daycare.

During our pre-dog days, I would just go home, cook dinner, and settle into bed. I would have absolutely no energy to do anything afterwards.

Ideally, a nice relaxing walk in the evening would help me not only settle down, but burn off a few extra calories. But I always had the legitimate excuse that I was too tired.

I’ve read the advice given to “find an exercise partner.” I thought my husband would be my walking partner. Well, he’s full of excuses too. Then I had my daughter and I thought “She’ll go on a walk with me.” Well, like father like daughter.

And then I got lucky. Literally.

My dog’s name is Lucky. There are no excuses with him. In fact, he’s the one pushing me out the door. He’s the one I have to answer to and he’s just so darn cute, I can’t say “No.” Well, it does help that I don’t want him to go pee or #2 in the house.

So now I have a nice relaxing walk every night and I’m able to burn off some extra calories too. I realized that even though I was looking for a human exercise partner, I found one in a canine. We need to look at the variety of options that are available to us to help us reach our goals. It may not be what we planned, but we still can achieve the same goals through other means.