Only one other study appears to have examined the relationship
between dog walking and children's physical activity . Similar to our findings, Salmon et al. (2010) reported that 59%
of children aged 5–6 and 10–12 years who owned a dog walked their
dog . In support of our findings,
they also found that neither child-report frequency of dog walking/
week or ‘family dog walking’ was associated with increased
accelerometer-measured moderate-vigorous physical activity . Based on findings from adult studies, we hypothesized
that dogwalking rather than dog ownership per sewould be associated
with children's physical activity behaviors, however this was not
supported in terms of levels of weekly walking and physical activity.
Our findings differ to the handful of studies reporting positive associations
between dog ownership (vs. dog walking) and children's physical
activity . It
is possible that the measure of dog walking behavior used in our study
and by Salmon et al. (2010) was insufficient to detect differences in
overall levels of weekly walking and physical activity. It is also likely
that in children, dogwalking is not themain avenue throughwhich children
accumulate physical activity with their dog and active play in the
home and yard may be more common ways that they are active with
their dog