Regular physical activity (PA) among adults has an enormous number of health benefits , but very low participation rates (e.g., ). Consequently, PA promotion initiatives are of high importance to public health. Regular walking is one of the most preferred PAs and thus a key target for intervention . One correlate of regular walking that has seen considerable attention in public health is dog ownership. Specifically, dog owners report more walking during leisure-time than non-owners [4–6]. While this is an interesting descriptive finding, its direct application to PA promotion is less practical, as dog ownership is an enormous responsibility with cost implications. Still, approximately 30% of the population in developed countries own dogs , and it is estimated that half of all dog owners do not walk their dogs regularly . While dog walking is merely one of many types of PAs that dog owners could potentially enact, it seems a logical way to engender both human and canine health benefits simultaneously among this large potential target population [8, 9]. Understanding the correlates of walking would thus help identify key intervention targets to promote owners to walk their dogs more.