The Long Walk
Random thoughts on long walks. Considered pieces on dogs, dog parents, and the life around us.
Briton Rivière, Argos and Odysseus, c. 1873. Oil on canvas.
Latest · Issue 3…loves me… loves me not
On daisies, oxytocin, and three thousand years of loyal dogs — what psychology and neuroscience actually tell us about whether your puppy loves you back.
Boris Kustodiev, Portrait of Irina Kustodiev with the Dog Shumka, 1907
Issue 2The Secret of Puppy Love
On sneaky facial muscles, a brave Soviet scientist, and the neurochemistry behind why we completely lose our minds the moment a dog enters the room.
Thérèse Schwartze, Portrait of a Young Woman, with Puck the Dog, 1879
Issue 1How did dogs become our friends?
Forty thousand years of friendship, beginning with a wolf at the edge of a fire. A short history of how dogs ended up in our homes — and on our beds.
What The Long Walk is for
The Long Walk is what we make of the thoughts that surface on a long walk with your dog. The questions you didn’t know you had until the road went quiet. The thing you noticed about how she moves that you’ve been meaning to look into. The half-formed idea about why he reads you the way he does.
Pieces here are sourced, named, and edited. We name our experts and we cite our studies. We don’t make therapeutic claims. We don’t recommend what we wouldn’t try with Napoleon. We publish when we have something to say, not on a schedule.
This is the editorial standard we hold ourselves to — and the one we’d argue is missing from most of what’s written about dogs online.
Got a thought from your long walk?
If there’s a question you’d like us to look into — something you noticed, something you can’t stop thinking about, something you’d like a sourced answer to — send it to hello@pawternity.uk.
We read everything that comes in. Your ideas help us bring The Long Walk to life.