{"id":6438,"date":"2026-05-05T07:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6438"},"modified":"2026-05-05T07:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:00:24","slug":"works-out-with-shih-tzus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6438","title":{"rendered":"Works Out with Shih Tzus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The shortest and longest successive parts of my day are the period following the moment I put on my workout shorts and the workout itself. Once I put on my shorts and the could-stand-by-itself T-shirt, time shoots by like a city bus on the way to the garage. Once I start the workout, time moves with the speed and dexterity of a raging arctic glacier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have heard this time perception is an age thing. As we barrel towards out great reward (which I hope consists of tacos) time moves faster or slower in a situation based on factors such as newness of experience, cognitive speed, and how badly you need to go to the bathroom.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any event, for about 30 minutes a day, I try to convince the gods of the rapidly aging that I am living responsibly. Same goes to some degree when I try to convince the gods of cholesterol that I am living healthy by eating salad-colored candy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean I won\u2019t hem and haw. In my workout clothes, I have written full emails, a partial story, edited 20 pages of text, cooked a chicken, and cleaned the entire apartment (windows included). There is virtually nothing I won\u2019t do to try and delay the inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I do this pre-workout regimen, Burke works and the dog sleeps or lounges, her bangs acting as a curtain to her current mood or actual state of awareness. I pull out the workout mat and can hear my downstairs neighbor groan aloud. I assume she is worried about my health and the sounds I make \u2013 something between a seal jumping out of the water for treats and a seal being bludgeoned by a polar bear \u2013 upset her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dogs are smart. Or are they? Is it that dogs are smart or do they just become aware of routine? When I take the leash off the door, the dog hops out of a deep sleep to play the game where she runs away from her leash. It\u2019s very similar for when anyone goes into the kitchen. When I take out my exercise mat, she gets up and goes to her box of toys. She pulls the lid off of it and drags a few toys out onto my mat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

She thinks it\u2019s play time. I get it. I am jumping, rolling, getting on my face. And surely someone could hear joyous laughter of a child from the shrieking pants of a middle-aged lapdog owner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I begin. She begins. Push-ups are done with a dog trying to bite my ear. Sit-ups are done while wrestling a growling shih-tzu. Squats are her favorite, probably because I put a dangling doll in my pockets and she goes after it on my down-go. Throughout history, men have exercised and fought among animals. The gladiators battled tigers and lions; dogs and hunters made a unique bond and worked towards a common food-based, care-based goal; the symbiotic relationship between a man and a dolphin; pigeons carrying messages. This is part of that tradition: shih tzus and push-ups: the oldest sport.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my cool-down, my shih tzu licks the sweat off my face and then lies back down and falls back to sleep. For me, it\u2019s a long 30 sweaty minutes. To her, it\u2019s 30 minutes of fun playtime plus a salty drink! Maybe my life would be better if I thought about time the way a shih tzu does. As long as I don\u2019t have to go to the bathroom that badly.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The shortest and longest successive parts of my day are the period following the moment I put on my workout shorts and the workout itself. Once I put on my shorts and the could-stand-by-itself T-shirt, time shoots by like a city bus on the way to the garage. Once I start the workout, time moves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/qwSAB99J.jpg?fit=1536%2C2048&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1FQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6440,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6438\/revisions\/6440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}