How did ‘Blues Walkies’ come about?

Depression, anxiety, and a dog named ‘Blue.’

The past few years have provoked insane levels of anxiety and uncertainty in my life due to family estrangement, removal of uterine tumours, and the existence of COVID. The latter in particular has had a huge effect on everyone due to its and its impact on: illness, employment, policy change, regional borders and travel, testing, treatment, immunization protocols…etc.

Prior to and during COVID I was a primary school teacher covering a number of MidWest Schools, but I no longer felt endeared to teaching - something that I had been doing for the past twenty years. Schools and staff were constantly receiving new updates of what was needed to be done to accommodate COVID changes for social distancing, hygiene requirements, and lesson delivery.  We’d just get our head around a new policy or protocol, or lesson system, for it to be changed in record time.

The amount of time we wasted on changes that never came to fruition WAS OBSCENE… but I appreciate it was an unprecedented time. No one really knew what the heck was going on. In addition to these exhausting employment changes and emotional upheaval, a neighbour thought it was quite acceptable to play the drums at 2am in the morning hours at a time many times a week. The vibration went right through my little fibro plank house, waking me up severely disrupting my down time. Surely, I should be able to rest and rejuvenate in my own home? This really made me see red as they wouldn’t return my message pleading with them to shut up and go to bed, and they wouldn’t answer the door when I knocked to ask them to stop. Numerous calls to the cops and letters to the local shire seemed to achieve nothing. I felt so helpless to this insolent intrusion to my house, my life, my sanity!

Looking back at it, the neighbour was probably dealing with their own mental health issues.

All these factors combined increased my anxiety and reduced my confidence tremendously. I couldn’t concentrate and had difficulty making decisions about anything. I couldn’t remember things that I had just been told. I found that I now had an incredibly short-fuse, and I HATED being in the company of people – bit tricky when you’re a school teacher.

I began overeating and I just wanted to zone out with a delicious alcoholic beverage (or 6) in the evening and wait and see if I felt better tomorrow. Of course you can guess how that turned out!

My physical health began to suffer. I picked up every single bug that was going around town. I constantly had some type of cold, headache, eye twitch, chest pains…etc. I was taking more time of work than I actually had sick leave for.

The biggest sign that indicated I really needed help was when I found myself frequently lining up the trees on the side of the road while driving at 110km per hour from Perenjori to Three Springs on the way to work; fantasizing about how nice it would be to just pummel my 2005 Ford ute straight into one and not have to worry about anything anymore.

I confessed this to my partner at the time and my GP who were both adamant that IT WAS TIME TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

And so, I did the typical and important things like organise a mental health treatment plan with my GP, started seeing a wonderful psychologist, and commenced taking anti-anxiety medication. (Oh, and the mutha-pupping neighbour moved house. Halleluiah!) This helped steer me back to a clearer ability to make decisions and reduced my desire to pummel trees.

But, I still lacked a sense of joy, playfulness, and spontaneity that really is crucial to live a great life.

That all changed when I hopped on Gumtree and saw a big, scruffy, dog named Blue.

Blue needed rehoming from Kalbarri. His family were relocating down to Perth and their rental agreement did not support the residence of pets. To be honest, I actually had my heart set on getting a Blue Heeler, but this ‘Blue’ was a Labrador crossed with a Blue Heeler so that was close enough.

Well, it must have been ‘meant to be’ as his presence in my world happened pretty quickly.

I saw the Gumtree advert on Saturday.

I rang Blue’s family on Sunday.

They dropped him off on Monday!

Since then, Blue’s company has been an absolute game changer for both my mental and physical health.

• I smile more. When Blue looks at me with those ‘soft eyes’ my heart just melts.

• I laugh more as we play tug-of-war and hide and seek around the yard.

• The wonderful little zoomies Blue displays and the affectionate licks slathered upon me when I return from work each day pumps huge amounts of oxytocin into my system. (This wonderful hormone provides feelings of calm and safety.)

• The thought of taking Blue for a 6km evening walk is waaaaay more motivating than knocking back a six pack.

• Blue has also helped me feel more capable socially. You can’t just stand in silence when your dog is sniffing another dog’s butt: light hearted banter is compulsory. This small amount of humorous chit-chat started to thaw-out the resentment I had previously felt toward social interactions.

 After just 8 weeks of Blue in my life I was:

• more agile than I had been in a looooong time.

• sleeping better.

• able to reduce my anxiety medication by 50mg.

• feeling more positive about social interactions with others.

• drinking waaaaay less alcohol.

The positive outcomes Blue brings to my life has turned it around tremendously.

Look, I still have weeks where I feel overwhelmed, and uncertain. And sometimes I still cry a dozen times in-secret throughout the day, but for the most part, the motivation to get up and ‘do stuff’ and take Blue for a walk creates an optimistic headspace. I always feel better during and after a walk with Blue.

Funny that a ‘black dog’ is helping to chase away my ‘black dog’ of depression and anxiety. It’s even more uncanny that that this dog was named Blue even before he came into my life. I had been suffering the blues for an extended period of time and they had really gotten a hold of me, but by walking my ‘pet Blue’, its really helping to walk my blues away.

If you’re still reading this, thanks for hearing me out. I’ve found it really cathartic sharing this with you.

And now, it’s time for me to go take my Blue for a walk!

Take care & safe walkies,  

Herby and Blue xx

Let us know about other great dog walks you’ve gone in the MidWest at blueswalkies@gmail.com