BACKGROUND
regular physical activity is beneficial for the health of both people and animals, and has a role in preventing and treating numerous causes of morbidity and mortality  <cit> .
with rising levels of obesity in both humans  <cit>  and dogs  <cit> , the potential of regular exercise undertaken together, such as dog walking, has come to the fore as a realistic public health intervention that benefits both humans and dogs  <cit> .
numerous studies have confirmed that dog owners are more physically active than those without dogs, but also that not all pet dogs are walked regularly .
more recently attention has turned to exploring the barriers and incentives to regular dog walking using both qualitative and quantitative research methods  <cit>  in order to identify modifiable factors that can be used in interventions to encourage dog walking .
most research to date has been conducted in north america  or australia .
owners consented to providing the information by completing the questionnaire after reading an information sheet.
data collection
data collection has been described extensively previously  <cit> .
briefly, doorstep interviews with  <dig> households in a defined geographic community in cheshire, uk, identified  <dig> dog owning households that were subsequently recruited to self-complete a questionnaire survey about owner and dog behaviour and general management.
data was collected in the period july – october  <dig>  much detail was collected on dog walking practices and on dog and owner behaviours that may contribute to, or be proxies for, the strength of the dog-owner relationship.
the dataset comprised of  <dig> dogs owned by  <dig> households who participated in the study by returning their questionnaires.
data analysis
data analysis was performed in minitab® statistical software version  <dig>  and ibm spss statistics for windows version  <dig> .
data were analysed at the level of the dog, for the binary outcome of walking frequency - dog is walked at least once or more per day – referred to as ‘daily dog walking’.
simple univariable associations were examined using chi-squared tests and binary logistic regression for dog demographic, household demographic, management, reasons for getting a dog, dog behaviour and walking behaviour variables .
variables were selected due to their potential to act as barriers or incentives with dog walking frequency, for example measuring an aspect of the owner-dog relationship or a commitment to animal care.
previously created demographic variables describing the household age structure and occupation type structure were also used  <cit> .
for variables where a cell contained zero because all dogs were walked daily, one dog was randomly selected and changed to walked less than once daily, and univariable analysis performed again.table  <dig> univariable analysis of dog demographic factors associated with daily dog walking
dog type
breed type
size*
age
sex
neutered
owned since a puppy less than 12 weeks
<dig>
dog source
dog duties
<dig>
*sizes were defined in the questionnaire with examples: toy, small , medium  large , giant
number of dogs
<dig>
own a horse
house type
number of people in household
< <dig>
presence of adult males
<dig>
presence of adult females
household age category
<dig>
household occupation category
<dig>
<dig>
<dig>
<dig>
<dig>
presence of person unemployed/retired/looking after family
where cells had zero cases, statistics are not presented, and where cells have only one case, presented statistics should not be considered reliable
dog access when people in the house
dog access when people in the house recoded
dog lies on furniture
dog lies on laps
<dig>
amount of interaction* with people per day
play with dog in garden
attended training classes
dog been to vet in past year
<dig>
dog vaccinated in past year
dog had check up in past year
dog seen vet for health problem related to walking in past year
dog flea treatment last 3 months
dog worm treatment last 3 months
companionship
protection
hobby
<dig>
showing or breeding
exercise
working dog
always had a dog
family member wanted dog
gift
where cells had zero cases, statistics are not presented, and where cells have only one case, presented statistics should not be considered reliable
*multiple reasons could be indicated
barks at visitors
growls at visitors
growls at household members
<dig>
how likely to greet person
how likely to greet dog
playful with dogs
aggressive to dogs
eats raw carcasses on a walk
rolls in carcasses/faeces on a walk
play fetch games
play tug-of-war games
play hide-and-seek games
play rough-and-tumble games
play chase games
<dig>
roaming
dog ever on a lead
lead type used
dog ever allowed off lead
usual walk length
walk streets*
walk park*
walk beach/marsh*
walk countryside*
walk farmland*
walk regularly in same place
<dig>
walk in a group
< <dig>
notice same people and dogs on a walk
<dig>
pick up score
a
pick up categorised
where cells had zero cases, statistics are not presented, and where cells have only one case, presented statistics should not be considered reliable
*multiple typical walking areas could be indicated
acalculated from score 0– <dig>  in  <dig> contexts
variables p <  <dig>  on univariable analysis and with sufficient data  were used for multivariable model building using backwards elimination.
this was first conducted in smaller models of grouped factors as presented in the tables, then combined and further reduced.
variables remained in the model if they were significant  or if removal/addition resulted in substantial change to the effect of other variables.
the fit of the final model was assessed using the hosmer-lemeshow statistic and classification of percentage correctly predicted by the model.
when building the multivariable models, a number of decisions were made for practical purposes.
the walking variables ‘walk regularly in same place’, ‘walk in a group’, and ‘notice same people and dogs on a walk’ were not used as it was deemed likely that these strong associations were, at least in part, due to reverse causality .
due to small groups and wide confidence intervals the ‘household occupation category’ variable was also excluded from the final model building process.
furthermore, the decision was made to use ‘size’ of dog instead of ‘breed type ’ and ‘owned since a puppy’ instead of ‘dog source’ as these were collinear and better described in terms of the context of the outcome, by the former variables.
finally, due to the nature of a minority of the dogs in the dataset being non-independent as they lived together in households , we re-ran the model randomly selecting only one dog from each multi-dog household; the results and conclusions drawn were largely and qualitatively consistent with the model containing all dogs so only those findings are presented here.
RESULTS
walk frequency
one dog  was reportedly never walked,  <dig>  less than once a week,  <dig>  once a week,  <dig>  several times a week,  <dig>  once a day,  <dig>  twice a day,  <dig>  three times a day and  <dig>  ‘other’; of these,  <dig> reported walking  <dig> times a day or more, one was an unvaccinated puppy that was not walked so treated as missing data, and for one it was not possible to estimate usual walk frequency from the answer given.
for one dog this question was not answered.
thus, of 276/ <dig> dogs with clear data provided,  <dig>  were reported to be walked less than once a day, and  <dig>  at least once a day or more.
an alternative to walking a dog may be letting it roam without the owner: the majority of dogs  were reported to be confined to a secure area;  <dig>  generally confined but have escaped in the past,  <dig>  not confined but generally choose not to roam; and  <dig>  allowed to roam freely.
the majority of owners  also reported that household members interact or play with the dog in the garden area ‘often’, which could be considered an alternative form of physical activity with the dog.
walk length
households reported that dog walks were, on ‘average’, 16-30mins  or 31-60mins  in length; it was rarer for walk lengths to be only up to 15mins  or over 1 h .
place of dog walking
the most popular places for walking dogs were in the countryside , on the beach  or on the streets .
in contrast, parks  and farmland  were less popular.
it was very common for households to report walking regularly  in the same place .
travelling in the car or public transport to other areas to dog walk was also common;  <dig> households  did this several times a month or more but  <dig>  never.
off/on-leash while on walks
sixteen  dogs were never walked on a leash.
short leashes were most commonly used  with  <dig>  being walked on an extendable flexi-leash and  <dig>  a mixture of both.
the majority of dogs were allowed to walk off-leash in certain areas  or most of the time  with only  <dig> dogs  being kept on a leash all of the time.
dog behaviour on walks
the majority of dogs were reported to ‘often’  greet and make physical contact when they see a person;  <dig>  were reported to do this ‘never’ or  <dig>  ‘rarely’.
if they were to see another dog, dogs were reported to ‘often’  or ‘sometimes’  greet them and make physical contact;  <dig>  were reported to ‘never’ or  <dig>  ‘rarely’ do this.
on a walk,  <dig> dogs  were reported to ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ play with dogs and  <dig>  ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ be aggressive to dogs.
whilst the former may be considered an enjoyable part of the dog walking experience for the owner and dog, the latter behaviour may be considered undesired by and thus a disincentive to talking the dog for a walk.
further potentially undesirable behaviours were also investigated; however, the majority of dogs were reported to never find and eat raw carcasses , roll in faeces or carcasses  or eat dog faeces .
reasons for getting a dog
for  <dig> dogs  the reported reason the owner chose to get a dog was for exercise; the most common reason indicated was companionship .
dog walking and social interactions
twenty seven  dogs were walked with other dogs known to them either ‘everyday’ or ‘often’, whereas  <dig>  never did this.
however,  <dig>  reported seeing the same people and their dogs  on dog walks ‘everyday’ or ‘often’.
univariable analysis
univariable associations between factors and dog being walked once a day or more are reported in tables  <dig>   <dig>   <dig>   <dig>   <dig> and  <dig>  statistical findings are not reported when no dogs are reported in a category.
cells where only one dog is reported were considered unreliable and not taken forward from multivariable analysis, although calculated statistics are reported.
it is interesting to note that dogs that were kept outside or in a utility room, were all walked every day .
however when this variable ‘dog access when people in the house’ was regrouped to ‘unrestricted or mild restriction’ versus ‘restriction to one or a few places’, there was no association.
further, dogs that had ever been to training classes, were acquired to show or breed, were working dogs, and that were never/rarely played with in the garden, were all walked at least once a day .
due to the lack of data for statistical analyses, these variables could not be modelled further.
however for univariable analysis purposes we randomly selected one dog within each variable to change to not walked daily but the findings did not approach significance .
in addition, all dogs whose owners reported never picking up after their dog on a public path, park or street, were walked every day .
there was strong evidence of a positive association between walking once a day or more and reporting regularly walking in a group , or seeing recognisable dogs and owners .
multivariable analysis
in the final multivariable model  daily dog walking was independently associated with: number of dogs ; size ; number of people in the household ; having got the dog as a hobby ; dog lying on furniture ; dog lying on laps ; growling at household members ; and playing chase games with dog .table  <dig> multivariable binary logistic regression model of factors associated with daily dog walking
number of dogs
< <dig>
number of people in household
<dig>
reason got dog - hobby
<dig>
size* of dog
<dig>
dog lies on furniture
<dig>
dog lies on laps
<dig>
dog growls at household members
plays chase games
<dig>
n =  <dig>  hosmer-lemeshow = <dig> .
predicted correct in classification table  <dig>  %
*sizes were defined in the questionnaire with examples: toy, small , medium  large , giant
discussion
this study is the first to describe in detail dog walking behaviour in a uk dog population and has identified a number of factors independently associated with daily dog walking.
owning multiple dogs, a small dog, and increasing numbers of people in the household were negatively associated with daily dog walking, and thus may be barriers or disincentives to dog walking.
other factors associated with daily dog walking were related to the strength of the dog-human relationship, for example: acquiring the dog for the purposes of a hobby; letting the dog lie on furniture ; and letting the dog lie on laps .
finally, growling at household members and playing chase were negatively associated with daily dog walking.
a conceptual model of how these factors may be influencing dog walking via the relationship is presented in fig.
<dig> fig.
<dig> conceptual map of behavioural and demographic variable influences on daily dog walking via the dog-human relationship and support/motivation/obligation provided by the dog for walking
it is plausible that aggression might be caused by reduced exercise, but only aggression specific to household members, not other dogs or people, was associated with lower odds of walking daily; thus the association with aggression to household members is more likely to be due to problematic behaviour that can weaken the dog-human bond.
playing chase games may be a substitute activity for dog walking; however it is interesting that only chase and no other reported types of games was associated with not walking daily.
this leads us to believe that there may be something in particular about chase games that is associated with a weaker human-animal bond.
this may be explained by the personal observation that when working with dogs and their owners, those that ‘play chase’ are often dogs that are preferring to not go back on their leads at the end of the walk, or like to steal items and get their owners to chase them for it.
owning multiple dogs has also been found to be a barrier to regular walking in some studies  <cit>  but not in others  <cit> .
plausibly multiple dogs might be harder to manage on a walk or there may be less incentive as they have each other to play with.
our findings are also in agreement with other studies which have showed that smaller dogs are less likely to be walked than larger dogs  <cit> .
our study is in agreement with others showing that dog sex or neuter status is not associated with dog walking behaviour  <cit>  but did not find any evidence of a negative association between dog age and dog walking,  <cit> .
furthermore our findings agree that there is no evidence of an association between owner gender and dog walking behaviour  <cit> .
however, we found evidence that having more people in the household was a barrier to daily dog walking and this may be a reflection of there being children in the household; .
previous literature investigating whether having dependents or other people living in the home is associated with dog walking behaviour was inconclusive overall  <cit> .
in contrast to the expectation that getting a dog for the purpose of exercise may be associated with dog walking, of which we found no evidence, getting the dog for the purposes of a hobby does appear to be associated with daily dog walking.
this is a novel finding and may indicate greater commitment to spending time with the dog.
the walking variables ‘walk regularly in same place’, ‘walk in a group’, and ‘notice same people and dogs on a walk’ were not used within the model building as it was deemed likely that these strong reported associations were, at least in part, due to reverse causality .
however this context deserves future investigation as motivation to walk may be related to the social contact provided through dog walking.
our study lends strong support to the suggestion that the human-dog relationship is key to incentivising dog walking behaviour  <cit> ; dog management factors such as letting the dog lie on the sofa, lie on laps and the personal factor of having acquired the dog for the purpose of a hobby, were associated with walk frequency.
due to the multivariable analysis model including size, we know that these associations are not simply due to the effect of size, eg small dogs being more likely to lie on laps.
it also demonstrated that behaviour such as aggression or reported frequent chase games  are barriers to walking.
interestingly, aggression towards household members was associated with reduced walking, but not aggression towards other dogs or visitors to the household.
this suggests that aggression towards the owner may be less manageable than aggression to other people/dogs when it comes to walking, and also, and most importantly, that it is likely more damaging to the human-animal bond, supporting the hypothesis of the role that the relationship plays in motivating an owner to want to walk their dog regularly.
our findings are in contrast to previous studies which found that behavioural issues are not associated with dog walking, but this was once support and motivation provided by the dog for walking are included in models  <cit> .
it is possible that certain dog behaviours and management factors may contribute to the support and motivation for walking a dog can provide.
this may also be true of demographic factors such as dog size, hence why they also do not appear important correlates when support and motivation provided by the dog for walking is accounted for in some previous studies .
further investigation is now required, particularly into aspects of the dog-human relationship or dog-related factors that may contribute to the feelings of support and motivation provided by a dog that can encourage dog walking behaviour.
future studies should also investigate the context of dog walk frequency for dogs that are kept outside, go to training classes, were acquired to show or breed, are working dogs, and whose owners do not pick up their dog’s faeces.
the main strength of our study is the detailed data collected allowing in-depth exploration of many aspects of dog and owner demographics, and dog and owner behaviours and management factors, compared to many previous studies.
in particular, much detail was collected on dog walking practices and on dog and owner behaviours that may contribute to, or be proxies for, the strength of the dog-owner relationship.
thus new aspects relating to dog ownership and the dog-human relationship could be explored.
a further strength is the use of multivariable modelling techniques to adjust for the effects of other variables and test for independence of associations, something that has not always been done in previous studies of this nature  <cit> .
this study was limited by its relatively small sample size meaning that we were unable to investigate further some household demographics such as age and occupation, any effects of dog breed, and other management factors that did not contain enough data for further statistical analysis.
in addition, the data was collected in one specific area of the uk, a semi-rural area where dogs may be walked more frequently, and thus findings may not be completely generalisable, particularly as there are cultural differences in the way dogs are owned and managed.
it was also collected in the summer-autumn period, which may affect dog walking practices reported if seasonality has an influence.
this study also did not ask specific questions concerning the human-dog relationship, nor this specifically in relation to dog walking; for example support and motivation provided by the dog for walking  <cit> ; a sense of ‘obligation’  <cit> ; and feelings that the dog ‘enjoys’ walking  <cit> .
in addition, although this study measured some aspects of problem behaviour, it did not ask questions specifically pertaining to problem behaviour during walking, such as pulling on the lead .
the health of the owner was also not investigated specifically.
future studies should investigate these contexts further.
working status and occupation was also difficult to investigate within this dataset.
future studies may wish to include a specific measure of whether someone in the household is often at home during the day, either due to non-employment, study, part-time work, or working from home, as this could influence dog walking strategies.
CONCLUSIONS
this study identified that a number of factors related to the strength and nature of the owner-dog relationship are associated with daily dog walking.
future studies need to investigate further how dog demographic and behavioural factors, plus owner behavioural factors and perceptions of the dog, influence the dog-human relationship in respect to the perceived support and motivation a dog can provide for walking.
this information can then lead to the design of effective interventions to promote dog walking behaviour through this relationship, and improve the health of both people and their pets.
competing interests
none of the authors of this paper has a financial or personal relationship with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence or bias the content of the paper.
all own a dog.
authors’ contributions
cw and rc carried out the data collection.
cw carried out the data analysis.
hc and rc helped to design and interpret the analyses and draft the manuscript.
all authors read and approved the final manuscript.

 regular physical activity is beneficial for the health of both people and animals, and has a role in preventing and treating numerous causes of morbidity and mortality. with rising levels of obesity in both humans and dogs, the potential of regular exercise undertaken together, such as dog walking, has come to the fore as a realistic public health intervention that benefits both humans and dogs. numerous studies have confirmed that dog owners are more physically active than those without dogs, but also that not all pet dogs are walked regularly. more recently attention has turned to exploring the barriers and incentives to regular dog walking using both qualitative and quantitative research methods in order to identify modifiable factors that can be used in interventions to encourage dog walking. most research to date has been conducted in north america or australia. owners consented to providing the information by completing the questionnaire after reading an information sheet. data collection data collection has been described extensively previously. briefly, doorstep interviews with households in a defined geographic community in cheshire, uk, identified dog owning households that were subsequently recruited to self-complete a questionnaire survey about owner and dog behaviour and general management. data was collected in the period july – october much detail was collected on dog walking practices and on dog and owner behaviours that may contribute to, or be proxies for, the strength of the dog-owner relationship. the dataset comprised of dogs owned by households who participated in the study by returning their questionnaires. data analysis data analysis was performed in minitab® statistical software version and ibm spss statistics for windows version. data were analysed at the level of the dog, for the binary outcome of walking frequency - dog is walked at least once or more per day – referred to as ‘daily dog walking’. simple univariable associations were examined using chi-squared tests and binary logistic regression for dog demographic, household demographic, management, reasons for getting a dog, dog behaviour and walking behaviour variables. variables were selected due to their potential to act as barriers or incentives with dog walking frequency, for example measuring an aspect of the owner-dog relationship or a commitment to animal care. previously created demographic variables describing the household age structure and occupation type structure were also used. for variables where a cell contained zero because all dogs were walked daily, one dog was randomly selected and changed to walked less than once daily, and univariable analysis performed again.table univariable analysis of dog demographic factors associated with daily dog walking dog type breed type size* age sex neutered owned since a puppy less than 12 weeks dog source dog duties *sizes were defined in the questionnaire with examples: toy, small, medium large, giant number of dogs own a horse house type number of people in household < presence of adult males presence of adult females household age category household occupation category presence of person unemployed/retired/looking after family where cells had zero cases, statistics are not presented, and where cells have only one case, presented statistics should not be considered reliable dog access when people in the house dog access when people in the house recoded dog lies on furniture dog lies on laps amount of interaction* with people per day play with dog in garden attended training classes dog been to vet in past year dog vaccinated in past year dog had check up in past year dog seen vet for health problem related to walking in past year dog flea treatment last 3 months dog worm treatment last 3 months companionship protection hobby showing or breeding exercise working dog always had a dog family member wanted dog gift where cells had zero cases, statistics are not presented, and where cells have only one case, presented statistics should not be considered reliable *multiple reasons could be indicated barks at visitors growls at visitors growls at household members how likely to greet person how likely to greet dog playful with dogs aggressive to dogs eats raw carcasses on a walk rolls in carcasses/faeces on a walk play fetch games play tug-of-war games play hide-and-seek games play rough-and-tumble games play chase games roaming dog ever on a lead lead type used dog ever allowed off lead usual walk length walk streets* walk park* walk beach/marsh* walk countryside* walk farmland* walk regularly in same place walk in a group < notice same people and dogs on a walk pick up score a pick up categorised where cells had zero cases, statistics are not presented, and where cells have only one case, presented statistics should not be considered reliable *multiple typical walking areas could be indicated acalculated from score 0– in contexts variables p <  on univariable analysis and with sufficient data were used for multivariable model building using backwards elimination. this was first conducted in smaller models of grouped factors as presented in the tables, then combined and further reduced. variables remained in the model if they were significant or if removal/addition resulted in substantial change to the effect of other variables. the fit of the final model was assessed using the hosmer-lemeshow statistic and classification of percentage correctly predicted by the model. when building the multivariable models, a number of decisions were made for practical purposes. the walking variables ‘walk regularly in same place’, ‘walk in a group’, and ‘notice same people and dogs on a walk’ were not used as it was deemed likely that these strong associations were, at least in part, due to reverse causality. due to small groups and wide confidence intervals the ‘household occupation category’ variable was also excluded from the final model building process. furthermore, the decision was made to use ‘size’ of dog instead of ‘breed type ’ and ‘owned since a puppy’ instead of ‘dog source’ as these were collinear and better described in terms of the context of the outcome, by the former variables. finally, due to the nature of a minority of the dogs in the dataset being non-independent as they lived together in households, we re-ran the model randomly selecting only one dog from each multi-dog household; the results and conclusions drawn were largely and qualitatively consistent with the model containing all dogs so only those findings are presented here.  walk frequency one dog was reportedly never walked, less than once a week, once a week, several times a week, once a day, twice a day, three times a day and ‘other’; of these, reported walking times a day or more, one was an unvaccinated puppy that was not walked so treated as missing data, and for one it was not possible to estimate usual walk frequency from the answer given. for one dog this question was not answered. thus, of 276/ dogs with clear data provided, were reported to be walked less than once a day, and at least once a day or more. an alternative to walking a dog may be letting it roam without the owner: the majority of dogs were reported to be confined to a secure area; generally confined but have escaped in the past, not confined but generally choose not to roam; and allowed to roam freely. the majority of owners also reported that household members interact or play with the dog in the garden area ‘often’, which could be considered an alternative form of physical activity with the dog. walk length households reported that dog walks were, on ‘average’, 16-30mins or 31-60mins in length; it was rarer for walk lengths to be only up to 15mins or over 1 h. place of dog walking the most popular places for walking dogs were in the countryside, on the beach or on the streets. in contrast, parks and farmland were less popular. it was very common for households to report walking regularly in the same place. travelling in the car or public transport to other areas to dog walk was also common; households did this several times a month or more but never. off/on-leash while on walks sixteen dogs were never walked on a leash. short leashes were most commonly used with being walked on an extendable flexi-leash and a mixture of both. the majority of dogs were allowed to walk off-leash in certain areas or most of the time with only dogs being kept on a leash all of the time. dog behaviour on walks the majority of dogs were reported to ‘often’ greet and make physical contact when they see a person; were reported to do this ‘never’ or ‘rarely’. if they were to see another dog, dogs were reported to ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ greet them and make physical contact; were reported to ‘never’ or ‘rarely’ do this. on a walk, dogs were reported to ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ play with dogs and ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ be aggressive to dogs. whilst the former may be considered an enjoyable part of the dog walking experience for the owner and dog, the latter behaviour may be considered undesired by and thus a disincentive to talking the dog for a walk. further potentially undesirable behaviours were also investigated; however, the majority of dogs were reported to never find and eat raw carcasses, roll in faeces or carcasses or eat dog faeces. reasons for getting a dog for dogs the reported reason the owner chose to get a dog was for exercise; the most common reason indicated was companionship. dog walking and social interactions twenty seven dogs were walked with other dogs known to them either ‘everyday’ or ‘often’, whereas never did this. however, reported seeing the same people and their dogs on dog walks ‘everyday’ or ‘often’. univariable analysis univariable associations between factors and dog being walked once a day or more are reported in tables  and statistical findings are not reported when no dogs are reported in a category. cells where only one dog is reported were considered unreliable and not taken forward from multivariable analysis, although calculated statistics are reported. it is interesting to note that dogs that were kept outside or in a utility room, were all walked every day. however when this variable ‘dog access when people in the house’ was regrouped to ‘unrestricted or mild restriction’ versus ‘restriction to one or a few places’, there was no association. further, dogs that had ever been to training classes, were acquired to show or breed, were working dogs, and that were never/rarely played with in the garden, were all walked at least once a day. due to the lack of data for statistical analyses, these variables could not be modelled further. however for univariable analysis purposes we randomly selected one dog within each variable to change to not walked daily but the findings did not approach significance. in addition, all dogs whose owners reported never picking up after their dog on a public path, park or street, were walked every day. there was strong evidence of a positive association between walking once a day or more and reporting regularly walking in a group, or seeing recognisable dogs and owners. multivariable analysis in the final multivariable model daily dog walking was independently associated with: number of dogs; size; number of people in the household; having got the dog as a hobby; dog lying on furniture; dog lying on laps; growling at household members; and playing chase games with dog.table multivariable binary logistic regression model of factors associated with daily dog walking number of dogs < number of people in household reason got dog - hobby size* of dog dog lies on furniture dog lies on laps dog growls at household members plays chase games n =  hosmer-lemeshow =. predicted correct in classification table  % *sizes were defined in the questionnaire with examples: toy, small, medium large, giant discussion this study is the first to describe in detail dog walking behaviour in a uk dog population and has identified a number of factors independently associated with daily dog walking. owning multiple dogs, a small dog, and increasing numbers of people in the household were negatively associated with daily dog walking, and thus may be barriers or disincentives to dog walking. other factors associated with daily dog walking were related to the strength of the dog-human relationship, for example: acquiring the dog for the purposes of a hobby; letting the dog lie on furniture; and letting the dog lie on laps. finally, growling at household members and playing chase were negatively associated with daily dog walking. a conceptual model of how these factors may be influencing dog walking via the relationship is presented in fig.  fig. conceptual map of behavioural and demographic variable influences on daily dog walking via the dog-human relationship and support/motivation/obligation provided by the dog for walking it is plausible that aggression might be caused by reduced exercise, but only aggression specific to household members, not other dogs or people, was associated with lower odds of walking daily; thus the association with aggression to household members is more likely to be due to problematic behaviour that can weaken the dog-human bond. playing chase games may be a substitute activity for dog walking; however it is interesting that only chase and no other reported types of games was associated with not walking daily. this leads us to believe that there may be something in particular about chase games that is associated with a weaker human-animal bond. this may be explained by the personal observation that when working with dogs and their owners, those that ‘play chase’ are often dogs that are preferring to not go back on their leads at the end of the walk, or like to steal items and get their owners to chase them for it. owning multiple dogs has also been found to be a barrier to regular walking in some studies but not in others. plausibly multiple dogs might be harder to manage on a walk or there may be less incentive as they have each other to play with. our findings are also in agreement with other studies which have showed that smaller dogs are less likely to be walked than larger dogs. our study is in agreement with others showing that dog sex or neuter status is not associated with dog walking behaviour but did not find any evidence of a negative association between dog age and dog walking,. furthermore our findings agree that there is no evidence of an association between owner gender and dog walking behaviour. however, we found evidence that having more people in the household was a barrier to daily dog walking and this may be a reflection of there being children in the household;. previous literature investigating whether having dependents or other people living in the home is associated with dog walking behaviour was inconclusive overall. in contrast to the expectation that getting a dog for the purpose of exercise may be associated with dog walking, of which we found no evidence, getting the dog for the purposes of a hobby does appear to be associated with daily dog walking. this is a novel finding and may indicate greater commitment to spending time with the dog. the walking variables ‘walk regularly in same place’, ‘walk in a group’, and ‘notice same people and dogs on a walk’ were not used within the model building as it was deemed likely that these strong reported associations were, at least in part, due to reverse causality. however this context deserves future investigation as motivation to walk may be related to the social contact provided through dog walking. our study lends strong support to the suggestion that the human-dog relationship is key to incentivising dog walking behaviour; dog management factors such as letting the dog lie on the sofa, lie on laps and the personal factor of having acquired the dog for the purpose of a hobby, were associated with walk frequency. due to the multivariable analysis model including size, we know that these associations are not simply due to the effect of size, eg small dogs being more likely to lie on laps. it also demonstrated that behaviour such as aggression or reported frequent chase games are barriers to walking. interestingly, aggression towards household members was associated with reduced walking, but not aggression towards other dogs or visitors to the household. this suggests that aggression towards the owner may be less manageable than aggression to other people/dogs when it comes to walking, and also, and most importantly, that it is likely more damaging to the human-animal bond, supporting the hypothesis of the role that the relationship plays in motivating an owner to want to walk their dog regularly. our findings are in contrast to previous studies which found that behavioural issues are not associated with dog walking, but this was once support and motivation provided by the dog for walking are included in models. it is possible that certain dog behaviours and management factors may contribute to the support and motivation for walking a dog can provide. this may also be true of demographic factors such as dog size, hence why they also do not appear important correlates when support and motivation provided by the dog for walking is accounted for in some previous studies. further investigation is now required, particularly into aspects of the dog-human relationship or dog-related factors that may contribute to the feelings of support and motivation provided by a dog that can encourage dog walking behaviour. future studies should also investigate the context of dog walk frequency for dogs that are kept outside, go to training classes, were acquired to show or breed, are working dogs, and whose owners do not pick up their dog’s faeces. the main strength of our study is the detailed data collected allowing in-depth exploration of many aspects of dog and owner demographics, and dog and owner behaviours and management factors, compared to many previous studies. in particular, much detail was collected on dog walking practices and on dog and owner behaviours that may contribute to, or be proxies for, the strength of the dog-owner relationship. thus new aspects relating to dog ownership and the dog-human relationship could be explored. a further strength is the use of multivariable modelling techniques to adjust for the effects of other variables and test for independence of associations, something that has not always been done in previous studies of this nature. this study was limited by its relatively small sample size meaning that we were unable to investigate further some household demographics such as age and occupation, any effects of dog breed, and other management factors that did not contain enough data for further statistical analysis. in addition, the data was collected in one specific area of the uk, a semi-rural area where dogs may be walked more frequently, and thus findings may not be completely generalisable, particularly as there are cultural differences in the way dogs are owned and managed. it was also collected in the summer-autumn period, which may affect dog walking practices reported if seasonality has an influence. this study also did not ask specific questions concerning the human-dog relationship, nor this specifically in relation to dog walking; for example support and motivation provided by the dog for walking; a sense of ‘obligation’; and feelings that the dog ‘enjoys’ walking. in addition, although this study measured some aspects of problem behaviour, it did not ask questions specifically pertaining to problem behaviour during walking, such as pulling on the lead. the health of the owner was also not investigated specifically. future studies should investigate these contexts further. working status and occupation was also difficult to investigate within this dataset. future studies may wish to include a specific measure of whether someone in the household is often at home during the day, either due to non-employment, study, part-time work, or working from home, as this could influence dog walking strategies.  this study identified that a number of factors related to the strength and nature of the owner-dog relationship are associated with daily dog walking. future studies need to investigate further how dog demographic and behavioural factors, plus owner behavioural factors and perceptions of the dog, influence the dog-human relationship in respect to the perceived support and motivation a dog can provide for walking. this information can then lead to the design of effective interventions to promote dog walking behaviour through this relationship, and improve the health of both people and their pets. competing interests none of the authors of this paper has a financial or personal relationship with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence or bias the content of the paper. all own a dog. authors’ contributions cw and rc carried out the data collection. cw carried out the data analysis. hc and rc helped to design and interpret the analyses and draft the manuscript. all authors read and approved the final manuscript. 
these findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the strength and nature of the human-dog relationship incentivises dog walking, and that behavioural and demographic factors may affect dog walking via this mechanism. furthermore, a number of factors related to the dog-owner relationship and the dog’s behaviour were associated with daily walking, including: having acquired the dog for a hobby; dog lying on furniture; dog lying on laps; growling at household members; and playing chase games with the dog. future studies need to investigate how dog demographic and behavioural factors, plus owner behavioural factors and perceptions of the dog, influence the dog-human relationship in respect to the perceived support and motivation a dog can provide for walking. regular physical activity is beneficial to the health of both people and animals. exploration of barriers and incentives to regular dog walking by owners is now required so that effective interventions to promote it can be designed.
 regular physical activity is beneficial to the health of both people and animals. the role of regular exercise undertaken together, such as dog walking, is a public health interest of mutual benefit. exploration of barriers and incentives to regular dog walking by owners is now required so that effective interventions to promote it can be designed. this study explored a well-characterised cross-sectional dataset of dogs and owners from cheshire, uk, for evidence of factors associated with the dog being walked once or more per day.  factors independently associated with daily walking included: number of dogs owned dogs negatively associated); size positively associated); and number of people in the household. furthermore, a number of factors related to the dog-owner relationship and the dog’s behaviour were associated with daily walking, including: having acquired the dog for a hobby; dog lying on furniture; dog lying on laps; growling at household members; and playing chase games with the dog.  these findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the strength and nature of the human-dog relationship incentivises dog walking, and that behavioural and demographic factors may affect dog walking via this mechanism. future studies need to investigate how dog demographic and behavioural factors, plus owner behavioural factors and perceptions of the dog, influence the dog-human relationship in respect to the perceived support and motivation a dog can provide for walking. keywords dogswalkingphysical activitycross-sectional studyissue-copyright-statement© the author 2015 