Dogs really are man’s best friend.  Studies show that dog owners walk faster and more often and are more likely to have an active lifestyle all because of their four-legged friend.

Dr. Sandra McCune, an animal behaviorist from Leicestershire, England co-edited the book in which this study was published, called “The Health Benefits of Dog Walking for People and Pets.”

“I’m fascinated by what a great motivator dogs can be,” said McCune.

According to a recent survey of more than 1,011 dog owners done by Mars Petcare, dogs are the reason for 66 percent of walks the owner takes per week. 25 percent of people with children and pets visit parks and other outdoor spaces regularly because of their dog.

“Personally, I have a Labrador,” McCune said. “When it’s dark, when it’s raining, the dog needs a walk, every day.”

In addition to helping with diet plans, dog walking also boosts social and communal ties, McCune claims.

“If people go out with a dog, they’re more likely to have a conversation,” she said.

Because of all the health benefits dogs can provide to their owners, the YMCAs in several U.S. cities will host “The Power of Pets,” a program that includes dog runs and walks, as well as dog yoga and other activities.

“It’s a chance to get the community together,” Katy Leclair, executive director of the Lake View, Illinois YMCA said of the program. “Families with dogs tend to be more active.”

Experts believe that dogs promote exercise and health because they provide companionship, much like a workout partner.

“Dogs can provide that companionship,” said Shirley Archer, a spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise.” Frisbee tossing, ball throwing, agility competitions, dog and human boot camps, are great opportunities to be active,” she said. “But obedience training is a must.”

Laura Cartwright Hardy is a grandmother, fulltime graduate student and active dog lover, according to Reuters.  The Little Rock, Arkansas resident owns two large German Shepherds and cites them as the reason for her health.

“I’ve had big dogs since I was 20 and that’s definitely been part of the reason I’ve always been fit,” she said. “They certainly keep you honest about walking. Those big brown eyes make it impossible to say no.”

Matthew Mazzotta, armed with a $4,000 grant from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created the ingenious Park Spark converter system that uses dog poop to power a gas lantern that illuminates a corner of the Pacific Street Dog Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pictured: A local resident admires Mazzotta's handiwork . (Media credit/Luke Ryan via Flickr)

Dear EarthTalk: Is there a way to utilize the energy in my dogs’ poop? I have three dogs and lots of poop and would like to dispose of it in a “greener” manner. — Mary C., Wallace, ID

No doubt creating a way to do so is possible, as large systems called anaerobic digesters (or biogas digesters) are often used in landfills to wring energy out of trash, as well as on some big farms and ranches where large amounts of cow manure provide plenty of feedstock. In such systems microbes generate methane gas—which can be captured and used for power—once they are set free on manure or trash. The economics of putting biogas digesters in landfills or big cattle operations can make the up-front expense tolerable—money can be made or saved by selling or utilizing the resulting power—but doing so in one’s back yard might be a different story.

Not to say it can’t be done: This past September artist Matthew Mazzotta, armed with a $4,000 grant from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—where he earned a master’s degree in visual studies last year—created the ingenious Park Spark poop converter system that uses dog poop to power a gas lantern that illuminates a corner of the Pacific Street Dog Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The system uses two steel, 500-gallon oil tanks, connected by diagonal black piping and attached to an old gaslight-style street lantern. “After the dogs do their business, signs on the tanks instruct owners to use biodegradable bags supplied on site to pick up the poop and deposit it into the left tank,” reports Jay Lindsay on the Huffington Post. “People then turn a wheel to stir its insides, which contain waste and water. Microbes in the waste give off methane, an odorless gas that is fed through the tanks to the lamp and burned off.” Although the park is small, neighborhood dog owners have provided enough waste for a steady supply of fuel.

The 33-year old Mazzotta got the idea after travelling in India and seeing people there using poop in small “methane digesters” to cook food. When he visited Pacific Street Park with a friend in 2009 and saw the park’s trash can filled with bags of dog poop, the Park Spark idea was born. He hopes the installation, which was dismantled after its one-month run, has helped point out to people that there are potential energy sources all around us, and that we must consider every option at our disposal, so to speak, as we wean ourselves off oil in the face of impending climate change.

Besides reducing waste going to landfills, another environmental benefit of utilizing dog poop for energy is reducing one’s carbon footprint. Burning methane derived from dog poop or other biodegradable waste material in an anaerobic digester is carbon neutral, meaning it doesn’t contribute any new greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that could exacerbate global warming.

While it might not be worth $4,000 or a degree from MIT for you to create your own version of the Park Spark in your backyard, it’s good to know that such technology exists, and will no doubt someday be available and affordable for the rest of us as long as we continue to show find ways to reduce, reuse and recycle everything we possibly can.

CONTACTS: The Park Spark Project, www.parksparkproject.com; The Huffington Post, www.huffingtonpost.com.

Dear EarthTalk: Are there efforts to increase bike lanes and paths around the nation? I’d like to be able to bike more instead of drive, but I’m concerned about safety. — John Shields, Minneapolis, MN

Around the U.S. new bike lanes and paths are all the rage, helping cash-strapped cities simultaneously green operations and trim budgets—adding bike lanes is far less costly (to taxpayers and the environment) than building new roads. Also, the nonprofit League of American Bicyclists reports that real estate values increase with proximity to bike paths. “People enjoy living close to bike paths and are willing to pay more for an otherwise comparable house to be closer to one,” the group reports, citing examples from Indiana, California and elsewhere showing that homes near bike trails command a premium upwards of 10 percent.

In New York City, bicycling is the fastest growing mode of transportation. A 2006 citywide mandate has led to the laying down of some 200 miles of new bike paths recently. Also, the area around Madison Square in midtown is now bike-friendly; seven blocks of Broadway now feature green-painted bike lanes between the curb and the parking lane to provide cyclists with a buffer against rushing motorized traffic.

In September, central Tennessee (Nashville and environs) adopted an ambitious plan to add upwards of 1,000 miles of bike paths (also 750 miles of sidewalks) across seven counties, a scheme that won the “best project” award from the Institute of Transportation Engineers. Nashville itself will increase alternative transportation spending from 0.5 percent to 15 percent of its transportation budget, and hopes to reduce traffic congestion and obesity—Tennessee has the nation’s second highest rate of obesity—in the process.

Portland, Oregon, long a leading U.S. city on environmental policy, has allocated over $20 million over the last few years for bicycle infrastructure improvements, and plans to spend another $24 million upgrading the city’s network of bike paths and trails. One of the city’s latest innovations has been to convert two parking spaces on city streets to bike corrals capable of holding two dozen bicycles. In addition the Bike Portland blog reports that the city now supports some 125 bike related businesses, mostly small and locally owned, covering everything from custom bike building to accessories and repair.

In Davis, California, named America’s top cycling city by the League of American Bicyclists, bikes outnumber cars and bike paths occupy 95 percent of arterial and collector roads there. Some 14 percent of all commuters in Davis commute to work by bike, which is 35 times the national average. Other cities in the League’s Top 10 include Palo Alto and San Francisco in California; Corvallis, Portland and Eugene in Oregon; Boulder, Colorado; Madison, Wisconsin; Tucson, Arizona; and Seattle, Washington.

Some cities—New York, Los Angeles, Seattle—make available maps of bicycle routes. The inclusion of bike routes on Google Maps has also been a boon to cyclists across the country looking for the safest and most direct routes. Users can click on a bicycle icon after hitting “Get Directions.” Local bicycle clubs are a good place to turn to find the best bike-friendly routes though your region; The A1 Trails website provides a comprehensive list of bike clubs and other resources around the U.S. and Canada. With so many tools and new infrastructure, it might be high time to leave the car parked and hop on your bicycle.

CONTACTS: League of America Bicyclists, www.bikeleague.org; Institute of Transportation Engineers, www.ite.org; Bike Portland, www.bikeportland.org; A1 Trails, www.a1trails.com.

Nick is a cat person. (Media credit/Evil Erin via Flickr)

"Oh My God! Your dog is sooooo cuuute!!!" packs of girls would squeal at me as I dragged Gidget to a spot of grass.

"Want her?" I’d respond.

I guess it’s my own fault for taking on this job. But what can I say; I was desperate. I’d been in the city a month already and I still was jobless. Two hundred resumes on Craigslist didn’t help. There was zero scholarship money coming from my graduate school. (Thanks a lot, Emerson College.) I had a BA in English. So basically I was fucked.

I’d never waited tables before. I’d worked two summers as a cashier for a grocery store and spent my entire undergraduate career working various campus jobs. Sorry, knowing how to walk backwards and give tours wasn’t going to help me find employment in the city in the grips of an economic recession.

So when the opportunity presented itself I jumped on it. No questions asked. Idiot.

I met my future boss at the home of one of my soon-to-be dogs. Let’s call him Bob and let’s call his company "Honey, Did You Walk the Dog?" Bob was 32, married, and going back to school to become a chef.

"This dog walking thing is just a side-gig," he tells me.

I could tell. His dad had to drive us around in his Chrysler La Baron to the homes of Ripley, a Weimaraner; Stella, a beagle mix; and Sadie, a brown Mutt.

"I’m in kind of a bind. My last dog walker quit. I need someone for tomorrow. Can you do it?"

I should have heeded those words, but I was desperate. So like an idiot, I agreed to walk 3 dogs in Jamaica Plain and then 4 dogs downtown. I figured that I’d make maybe $10 an hour. Scratch that. How about $7.50 per dog? Fucked yet again.

Aside from Gidget, the dogs themselves weren’t all that bad. It was the time going from dog house to dog house which killed it. Ripley lived on my street, but the other 2 dogs lived on the other side of Jamaica Plain. It was summer. I walked. Then I remembered Bob’s words.

"Oh you need to walk all the dogs between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m."

No problem, I thought. I can handle that. I couldn’t handle my boss though. Every day, instead of a set schedule, I would receive a text from him.

"I need you to walk Ripley, but not Stella today."

I wouldn’t say that I’m a Type A person, but I still like to have my dogs slightly structured. But I thought, "maybe this will change."

Well, it took probably 2 hours time to walk myself and all the JP dogs. Then I hopped on the T to walk the two twin girl terriers, Mia and Malea from their apartment in China Town to the Commons. They chased squirrels and dragged me along with them. But then it was time for purse dog.

"Don’t forget, Gidget needs to be walked between 2:00 p.m. and 2:30 p.m."

Gidget spent her days sleeping on a satin dog bed on the 12th floor of a Penthouse. Her owner looked like a slightly irritated Shirley MacLaine who had nothing else to do with her day except criticize the way I put on her dog’s leash.

"You’re not putting it on right. Now, don’t let other people touch her. Don’t let her get tangled in her leash. And for heaven’s sake, don’t forget to pick up after her! The last one of your people didn’t and a police man solicited a ticket to him. Do you know how bad that makes my poor angel look?"

But Gidget wasn’t the only problem. After one week I knew I couldn’t handle the constant running back and forth. I didn’t care about the dogs. I didn’t care about the owners. I cared about the money. And I wasn’t getting any.

So one day after I had to coax Jack, a skittish black Mutt out from under a bed, I called Bob and quit. There had to be something better out there.

So I agreed to meet him, deliver the checks the owners had left him for me to pick up and then we’d exchange the keys for my check. But unfortunately, he wasn’t there at our meeting place, the Mandarin Hotel, but he had left my check.

I had estimated that I would receive close to $220 for 2 weeks work. I got about 1/3 of that. And like an idiot, I didn’t sign anything. I was never an official employee. So I left him the keys for the dogs, but kept the checks for him with a note saying I would be happy to return them once I received my compensation.

An hour later I received a text message saying that if I didn’t pick up my phone the police would be contacted.

My experience with the police could basically be summed up in the one speeding ticket I got when I was 18 and the 20 minutes of crying that henceforth occurred. So suffice to say, I was a little jumpy.

My mother advised that I just count it as a loss. He really couldn’t do anything to me legally wise. I had never signed anything. It would technically only be a "he said/ she said" kind of situation. So I made sure to cash my check and then mailed him back his checks.

It may not have been a total defeat though. I happened to call one of the other new dog walkers and explained what happened to her. Let’s just say "Honey, Did You Walk the Dog?" is going to need some new help very soon.

About a week later I got a job at the local Goodwill. I’ve never been so happy to in retail in my life. During the interview process, they asked me why I wanted to work with people? I answered:

"I’m interested in less harrier clientele."

10-year veteran Surry County investigator Bill Brinkman lost his job over the Michael Vick case. Did he botch something? Did he tamper with evidence? Did he try to protect Vick and let the superstar athlete walk? Nope, he lost his job because he pursued the case and wanted an inhumane criminal brought to justice. Something stinks in Surry County, VA and we think it rhymes with Derald Coindexter.

Brinkman says he knew he’d get fired the day he executed the search warrant. We find this to be utterly absurd, especially now looking back on how badly Surry County prosecutor Gerald Poindexter handled the case. Poindexter and Sheriff Harold Brown wanted the case to go away and if not for Brinkman, it may have.

If not for Brinkman, Vick is still free and a Falcon. Glenn Dorsey probably is too. Matt Ryan is a Raven. And most importantly, dogs at 1915 Moonlight road are still being tortured and killed.

"While I was on site for three days, Mr. Poindexter and the sheriff came on site and saw the physical evidence in place, but yet, during the election process they’re saying they never saw nothing, that they never got nothing. Well, I’m here to say they saw it in place," said Brinkman. "They saw the blood spatters, the training apparatuses. They saw the areas of the dogs being kept in."

Brinkman is most likely the reason that the Feds ever got involved at all.

He told them, "I think we are going to see the case go away."

Vick still faces local charges that could keep him locked up for even longer. Luckily, Brinkman can’t lose his job this time. The U.S. Attorney’s office gave Brinkman an award for his work on the case, while Surry County told him to get lost.

This case and this story are still long from over. Stay tuned.

(ARA) – It was early November, and Dr. Gregory S. Hammer, a veterinarian in Dover, Del., was treating a miniature poodle that was very sick. So sick, in fact, that it was suffering seizures. After a detailed examination of the pet and a conversation with the owners, Dr. Hammer determined that the cause of the animal’s problem was chocolate poisoning.

This case occurred a few days after Halloween, and the pet had been left at home all day with ready access to Halloween candy. Dr. Hammer estimated that the dog consumed the candy that morning, and, by the time the pet owners returned home, it was already too sick to recover. The dog died a short time later. This isn’t the only patient that Dr. Hammer has lost due to chocolate poisoning, especially after Halloween. Sadly, it’s relatively common.

That’s why Dr. Hammer, president of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), advises all his clients to take caution during holidays when there may be sweets around the house, particularly Halloween. Holidays are a lot of fun for families, but may be dangerous and stressful for animals, particularly dogs.

Dr. Hammer says that Halloween candy is unhealthy for dogs in two ways: chocolate toxicity and bowel obstructions. Chocolate is poisonous to dogs. The darker the chocolate, the more deadly it is. That’s because it’s the cocoa — which some researchers say is beneficial for people to consume — that is the deadly ingredient for dogs. Baker’s chocolate is the most dangerous because it has the highest cocoa content. But even if candy isn’t chocolate, it can still be potentially deadly for dogs. For instance, an over excited dog may swallow a candy whole, resulting in a bowel obstruction a few days later.

“Obviously, the solution for that is to put the candy up,” Dr. Hammer said. “Many children like to come home after going house to house on Halloween and dump their bags out on a coffee table or on the floor to see what they’ve got. Put the candy away in a cabinet. Don’t leave it unattended.”

Dr. Hammer noted that among his clients he’s noticed that dogs most commonly suffer unduly with stress on Halloween. Naturally protective of their home, dogs are sensitive to having many strangers stop by for a short visit on the front stoop and ring the doorbell.

Cats, alternatively, may be a little scared on this holiday, but they generally deal with it by hiding until it’s over, Dr. Hammer said.

For dogs that do find Halloween overwhelming, Dr. Hammer said that there are medications available.

“Sometimes I advise clients that an anti-anxiety medication is a good idea for a dog that is having troubles on Halloween, and sometimes a tranquilizer can help the animal deal with it,” Dr. Hammer said. “If you know your pet is prone to problems on Halloween, speak to your veterinarian now and make plans to help relieve the stress on your pet, or, if necessary, to remove your pet from this stressful environment for a day.”

The AVMA website offers a great deal of information on this and other health issues for pets.