2025 Steps With Pets Program: April 28 - June 22
What is Steps With Pets?
Steps With Pets is a free, fun and simple program hosted by Iowa Falls Veterinary Care designed to encourage people to get out and walk with their dogs (or adventurous cats!). It's simple: register as an individual or family, take a dog for a walk, log your mileage, and win prizes.
Walking your dog is good for you and great for your dog. If you need a little extra motivation to lace up your kicks and put a leash on your pup, here it is. Get steppin'!
Who Can Participate?
Anyone of any age who can walk or wheelchair with a dog is welcome to participate. Children and grandparents alike should sign up! You do not have to be a client of Iowa Falls Veterinary Care. You don't even have to live nearby, though prizes will be available for pick-up only at the clinics.
Don't have a dog? Talk to your friends and neighbors (especially elderly ones) - it could be that a nearby dog could use a walking companion. Or check in with shelters to see if they have a program for taking shelter dogs out for a walk.
How it Works
Follow these simple steps:
1. Register as an individual or family
2. Go walk your dog and keep track of your mileage
3. Every week, submit your mileage report
4. Win prizes when you hit mileage milestones.
5. Participate in weekly social challenges to win more prizes! We'll be posting these every weekend on Facebook.
5. Get healthier, get your dog healthier, have a great time, enjoy the outdoors, and win some prizes!
Will There Be Prizes? How Can I Win?
Yes, there will be prizes! Prizes will include things like tennis balls, poop bag dispensers, t-shirts, gift-certificates, gift baskets and more!
This year we are partnering with several local business for the weekly participation challenges. If a free pizza from the historic Princess Cafe or a treat from the Small Town Girl Boutique interests you, stay tuned! Prizes will be awarded weekly for the weekly participation challenges (posted the weekend before the week starts on our Facebook pages) and as your miles rack up for mileage prizes. These are the levels for the mileage prizes:
25 miles (Golden Biscuit level) -- win a tennis ball and leash
50 miles (Silver Leash level) -- win a zippered poop bag dispenser
75 miles: (Golden Biscuit level -- win a collapsible pet bowl on a clip
100 miles: (Platinum Paw level) -- win a rechargeable dog collar light
At the end of the 8-week challenge we will post overall mileage winners, and they will earn a $50 gift certificate to the clinic! So have some fun, pound some pavement (or dirt or sand), and get rewarded!
Prizes or not, we are certain that you'll feel like a winner so long as you can increase your time in the great outdoors with your favorite dog.
What are the Benefits of Participation?
Just one of the many benefits of owning a dog is having an extra excuse to exercise. Of course walking is great for your cardiovascular health, and also helps build muscle and maintain lean body weight. But the real benefits of walking for dogs (and people?) are mental and emotional. Getting out in new environments is mentally stimulating. Exposure to new environments, smells, textures, people and animals (in a safe way) helps to make life more intersting, reduce anxiety and, simply, wears dogs out. A tired dog is usually a well-behaved dog.
Walking with your dog can also help improve your bond with your pup. Who couldn't use a little more love in their life?
Safety Tips and Rules of Common Sense
- Be smart! If you or your dog isn't used to walking, start with short distances and work up to longer ones. If you walk a quarter mile 4 times/day or 1 mile once/day, it's still a mile. Pace yourself!
- Be courteous! Leash your dog if there's a chance they'll be exposed to wildlife or other dogs or people. Use a good quality, non-retractable leash. Leave no trace - be prepared with waste bags.
- Mind the weather. 12pm on a sunny, 90-degree day is not the time to be taking a bulldog for a walk. Make sure your dog doesn't get overheated by avoiding sunny walks on hot days - walk in the morning or evenings when it's cooler.
- We loves cats too, and you are more than welcome to partake in this challenge with a cat. What you may lose in mileage you can always make up for in participation points!
- Don't worry if you need to take a few days or even weeks off from the challenge. So long as you submit weekly Mileage Reports when you have them to submit, we'll keep a running total for you.