Walking the dog(s)

Our dog situation is pretty feeble at the moment. Una, pictured here, is now about a hundred and thirty in human years and is walking v e r y slowly. The runty dog, having only three legs walks at a pace which is just slightly behind my own, so I have to be careful not to garrote him as we perambulate up the road. When we get back to our mostly car free road, I let him off the lead and walk ahead of them both at the brisk pace required to keep fit. The old dog hobbles along occasionally stopping to smell something unspeakable, and runty runs about until he suddenly freezes for no apparent reason, and you have to walk all the way back to a small quaking dog heap on the verge. When I was back at mum's recently I joined a gym: I never thought I would do this, but it was actually quite good to be able to walk very fast on one of those moving belt machines. with no distractions and having to yell 'Vien ici' every two minutes. Of course the manufacturers could replicate the dog walk experience. It could alleviate the boredom of the 'tread-tread-tread. You could have a program that would incorporate a tangent of running at super high speed to stop your dog pooping on someones doorstep, eating a pigeon carcass, or smelling a ferocious Doberman's backside. The room could be filled with new exciting sounds, 'Rover, you bastard, drop it, or get away you filthy hounds, she's not interested, whack whack of large stick hitting tarmac etc, rather than occasional grunts as someone overdoes the rowing machine, or the hiss hiss of an I pod.