I’m the type of person who likes to live by a schedule. Whatever the next day holds, you can bet that I have my schedule down pact – wakeup, walk dogs, eat, train clients, workout, train clients, eat, take dogs out, Kittle House, then home for the night.
When something new gets thrown into my schedule, it’s usually pretty easy for me to adapt and figure out how I will keep up my healthy regime. In 2016, John and I both took on a life changing new addition into our family – Murphy, the Guiding Eyes Puppy.
Murphy was in training at Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Yorktown Heights, New York, to become a guide dog to a blind or visually impaired person.
Murphy’s 16 month journey from a squirmy newborn to graduated guide dog, was followed by People Magazine’s People Pets. Along with plenty of snuggling, Murphy was featured on their website as well as making regular visits to the PEOPLE offices to show off his training, and answer reader questions.
This was a BIG task. In addition to John’s and my busy lifestyle of being personal trainers, working at our respective companies and returning to school, we were taking on a new 8-week year old puppy to tend to, train, and socialize.
For those of you who have had a new puppy before, then you know what comes along with it – peeing and pooping every 20 minutes, waking up various times throughout the night to go to the bathroom, and teething – oh the teething of those sharp little teeth. I have to say whatever difficult task that comes with a puppy, there are plenty of great reasons that make up for it. Like puppy kisses, snuggling, watching them experience something for the first time, and the unconditional love they develop for their family.
When we first got Murphy – it was definitely a life changer for us, especially having been newly moved into our apartment. So, to eliminate the chance of us fighting and wanting to kill each other, every week we got out our schedules and calendars and wrote out our daily commitments and times FOR EVERY HOUR OF THE DAY! This might seem tedious, but man did it help.
When you have a new puppy that’s not crate trained yet, you can never leave them alone. For the most part, John and I had everything worked out and even called up my Dad to babysit from time to time (yes this included a morning shift at 6am).
And even though on certain days when our schedules were jam packed with work, we were both able to find the time to workout – sometimes it was painful and sometimes it was like pulling teeth, but we did it.
Even on a day where I had 30 minutes between clients, I was able to get in a 30 minute circuit – granted I was sweating and huffing like crazy when I greeted them directly after I was done, but hey, it’s a gym – we’re all on the same page. Even on days where I was stuck home with the two pups, I would do a HIIT workout right there in my apartment – yes, sometimes I would have a puppy crawling under me while doing a push-up, but all it did was make me laugh and make the workout a little harder.
So whenever your feeling a lack of motivation or dragging your feet to get that workout done, remember that you are not alone. But pushing yourself to get it done will always make you feel so much better in the end, both physically and mentally.
Written by Maddy Swertfager
The Wolfpack
Terry, Chunk, and little Murphy