The Yoga of Dogs
Mary Taylor
Listening to others, especially the animals who’ve entered our lives, is where learning and insight begin.
Our beloved dog, Ruby was one of our gurus. She lived in the middle zone between being part human and thoroughly a dog. She’d cock her head to the side and sigh at just the right moments when looking into those deep brown eyes, you’d talk to her about troubles in life or puzzles that needed solving. She was amazed by, but mostly devoted to, her humans. The ease with which we could summon water from the hose on hot summer days or open the refrigerator to retrieve food dumbfounded her till the end though she did learn how to open the fence gate in no time at all.
Ruby took it to be part of her practice in keeping us happy to sit on one of our feet to hold us in place if we became too up-regulated, and she never ceased to greet us with glee when we came in the door. But her dog nature was what kept her sane. Ruby was inspired by her sense of smell, would chase anything from a squirrel in the yard to a hot air balloon overhead and she was definitely the alpha of the neighborhood from an early age. She was methodical in burying her bones (and later retrieving them) but most of all she lived for her walks. As she got older her walks transformed more into sniffs, yet nonetheless, they were what kept her going.
In time, when her hearing had diminished and her legs were sore and stiff, walks became less comfortable, but she had a stubborn streak and still longed for the routine. Toward the very end, we realized that the sense of calm and completion her daily strolls provided her with could be achieved without even leaving the house. We’d learned to take off her collar when she was indoors, just to keep her comfortable. So, when she’d hear the jingle of the tags as we lifted the collar from the table by the door, she’d show up to get dressed and go out. In her last few months, the unspoken agreement between us was that we’d jingle the collar and she’d hobble over. We’d rub her hears and stroke her back and she’d smile, then head back over to her bed for a nap.
What a profound teaching that was! The residue from a lifetime of walks, her daily practice that allowed her to stay in the middle zone between the local canines and bipeds, was so deeply ingrained in her nervous system and mind that she just had to imagine taking a walk, in order to feel balanced.
“Do yoga all day every day, all night every night.”
During this pandemic year, tragedy and turmoil have been so palpable that sometimes they’ve felt all-consuming. We’ve also been prompted to look closely at things we might normally not notice, and sometimes in those moments of pause opportunities and potential for transformation have presented themselves. There’ve been times of insight and many times too it’s felt exhausting and overwhelming. Reflecting back to last March when the unimaginable step of worldwide lockdowns occurred, when most of us thought that life would likely return to normal after a few months the lesson from those last “walks” with Ruby have often come to mind. As a longtime practitioner, it’s been the practice that has gotten me through tough times—the deaths of loved ones, illness, stress, alienation, disappointment, depression, confusion, and so on.
So naturally, practice is what I’ve turned to this year as well; getting up early to sit, do āsana, and prāṇāyāma before plunging into the day. It’s helped immeasurably to keep me feeling balanced and optimistic. But recently, roundabout dinnertime when I’m working my hands and engaging my aesthetic sensibilities to pull together a meal, on more than one occasion I’ve become completely overwhelmed. The first couple of times I tried to soldier through, but then one day, it all became too much. The scales had tipped. Residue from the morning practice had worn off and there seemed to be nothing I could do about it.
Then one night while rummaging around in a kitchen drawer looking for a zester, I noticed the dreaded feeling of overwhelm creeping into my awareness. As fortune would have it my hand glanced off a couple of buried tools and a familiar sound brought me to a standstill. Was I hearing the sound of Ruby’s collar being shaken? Had Richard gone mad? Was he standing by the front door summoning our deceased dog for a walk? (Welcome to my world—always trying to make sense of the nonsensical). The sound brought me out of my runaway mind into the memory of what those last walks, from her bed to the front door and back, did for our treasured dog. They tapped into her embodied experience of taking a walk—her daily practice that kept her sane—so she could rest more easily in the uncomfortable moments at hand.
From that evening on, I’ve started “double-dipping.” Putting the soup on to simmer and then dashing upstairs to do a bit more practice. Usually doing Ekam, Dve, Trini a few times, a Pinca Mayurasana or two or just some time swirling around in circles while hanging upside down on the pelvic swing. Nothing fancy, no rigid routine or formal sequence of poses or chants.
And every time I do this second round of practice for the day, the threads of stillness, stability, and groundedness that are part of my physical make up now due to years of practice, those threads come to life. I feel better. The dinner tastes better and doing the dishes is relaxing.
This double-dipping approach is a reminder of how I got into yoga back in the ’70s. It wasn’t a daily thing. It wasn’t even a formal routine. I’d feel rattled and occasionally I’d remember that doing a shoulder stand for a few minutes seemed to make things better (I shudder to imagine my untrained alignment, but regardless it worked!). I hadn’t developed preconceptions about what yoga was or how it could offer a foundation for so much. I just knew I liked it. Practicing with so little “attachment to the fruits of my actions” that I didn’t even know that it could be a good thing.
Evening re-sets wake up in me the memory of calm and stability that years of practice have left imprinted in my embodied experience, just as did shaking the collar for Ruby. Once more I’ve learned to trust in the unspoken process of yoga as the practice helps me through difficult days bringing to life the depth of what Richard means when he says, “Do yoga all day every day, all night every night.”
