Take the dog out

3. There is nothing so pressing that you can’t take the dog for a walk. I have a Labrador who likes to go for walks. Lots of walks. I have lived with him for eight years, which means that at four outings a day I have been on approximately 11,680 walks. I don’t always feel like taking Roger on walks. Sometimes I even try explaining to him that I’m far too busy with deadlines to go anywhere. But inevitably he doesn’t listen, and whines until I am forced to abandon what I’m doing so that he can drag me down the street to the park. When I do, and I see how happy it makes him, I feel better myself and I find that my writing is much more enjoyable when I go back to it. So take your dog out a lot. If you don’t have a dog, I feel sorry for you. Everyone should have a dog.

Michael Thomas Ford, “Scraps,” in James L. Harmon, ed., Take My Advice: Letters to the Next Generation from People Who Know a Thing or Two 79, 81 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002).