When I first decided to challenge my dog to this six week challenge using Personal Trainer: Walking for the Nintendo DS, I really didn’t know what to expect.

If you listened to the “Guess Who’s Back” Wii Mommies radio show last week, you heard me talk about my reasoning behind this challenge.  As the first week comes to a close, I’ve learned quite a bit about both myself and my dog, Tribute.

Every day, at random times throughout the day, I measure how many steps each of us has taken while wearing our Personal Trainer: Walking activity meters.  I’ll tweet it (@Momspective) and I’ve added the hashtag #MeVDog so everyone can see how the race to good health is going.

I’m currently in Syracuse, NY, and my dog is at home with my husband in Fort Mill, SC for the next three weeks.  Every time I travel, I miss my pup.  After all, I had Tribute long before I had my children so he is in essence my first baby.

I’m finding that doing this challenge with him is a great way for me to keep updated on both my recovery following my hysterectomy and subsequent triple pneumonia from my hospital stay and it’s also a way to keep a healthy connection going with my dog while I’m gone.

The question I get asked most is how challenging a dog to a walking contest really fair, given the fact that he has four legs and I only have two.  This is actually the coolest part of this game, it KNOWS I have my dog involved!

Personal Trainer: Walking has the option to add Tribute to my system, I even have a little dog standing next to the Mii I downloaded from my Wii (Yep, you get to use your own Mii!) and if you put it on your dog, you’ll see that the activity meters takes into consideration that I’m competing against my four legged friend.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that my dog is LAZY!  I had him beat by a mile on day one!  I was tweeting our progress throughout the day and it was suggested to me that I take him outside to toss a ball around so I did.  We walked out together, I threw the ball and he watched it land.  He didn’t even pretend to be amused.

My next thought was to get a bowl of Froot Loops.  I took him back outside and tossed them one at a time in different parts of the yard.  THOSE he went after.  He wasn’t exactly running, but at least he was moving.

Tribute took the lead the second day though.  Being that he is terrified of everything, my 70 pound lab/chow mix paced like crazy during the Fourth of July. fireworks.   Meanwhile, I was enjoying my holiday outside with my neighbors and Tribute took the lead by almost 2000 total steps.

Sunday found me recovering from over-extending myself on Saturday, so I spent much of my time in bed.  I just went to the doctor and I was told that my lower right quadrant of my lung is in bad shape, so even though there are days I might feel good, combining that with a full hysterectomy means I really need to remind myself to take it easy.

That said, I had to take a plane Wednesday to NY (with a connection through Detroit) with my mother and two children (ages 4 & 1).  Talk about over-extending.  We had a bag to check, 2 purses and 2 carry-ons.  Combine all that with the children (who are missing naps) and you have yourself one miserable mommy.  I do have to say all that  upped my steps though, and I’m slowly catching up to my dog.

You can learn more about this awesome challenge by listening to me each week on the Wii Mommies blog talk radio show on the Role Mommy network.  If you can’t listen to us live, you can listen to any of the archived shows at any time on our website at www.WiiMommies.com.  If you’re on twitter, you can search #MeVDog and see what we’re up to.  I welcome your comments and support and I’m super excited to see what happens in the next few weeks!