January 8, 25
This is your uninvited health advice for the coming year: In addition to being beneficial to humans, breathwork also benefits the nearby animals. If you’re not thinking, I’m good at work and I’m good at breath. Is that breathwork? I know you’d agree it’s fantastic news.
Not precisely. In its most fundamental form, breathwork is deliberate breathing. I refer to it as active meditation, which is ideal for people who are herding dogs and need to remain busy even when they should be unwinding. (As accused, I guess.) A mindfulness technique called breathwork can help you feel more grounded, have more energy, recognize and control your emotions, decompress, and think more clearly. It can go on for two or forty-five minutes.
The quality of your breathing is more important than its quantity. You know, that stuff that keeps us alive and happens all the time, whether we notice it or not?
Before we go further on the explain-train, could you do me a favor? Close your eyes and sit beside your dog. Oh, you forgot that you can’t read with your eyes closed. Get your eyes open. However, if it is comfortable, inhale slowly and deeply with your nose, then release all of the air through your mouth. Repeat. Again? Congratulations! You have saved both your life and the life of your dog.
Actually. That may be sufficient to focus you and may qualify as breathwork. I understand that it may sound a little woo-woo. Admittedly, I’m a little woo-woo. Here’s why, though: I’m better for the dogs in my life—both my own and the dogs I foster—when I’m more conscious and awake and have taken care of my own needs. Although breathwork is technically a self-care technique, we can also use it to benefit our dogs and our relationship with them.
Your dog will benefit from breathwork.
Being present with someone can be a loving gesture. Setting up a candlelit supper or serenading pets might not be enough, but practicing breathwork together is like “dropping in” to meet them where they are at that very moment. Puppies typically don’t have a past they obsess over or a future they fear. Unlike humans, they do not disappear into a past that does not exist today. Isn’t the presence of our dogs what we value most about them? A portal to join them there is provided by Breathwork.
Having someone physically present in the room with you is reassuring. Dogs are able to detect our presence and whether or not we are paying attention to them. Ask any dog walker how checking text messages on their phone affects the person on the other end of the leash. Dogs are able to make eye contact. They know when we are talking to them,” explains Laura London, a certified canine massage therapist, qualified Family Paws educator, and professional dog trainer. London continues, “When we look at someone, they have identity.”
According to London, dogs nowadays are not as interested in scent as their predecessors were. Their noses no longer serve the purpose for which they were designed because they are no longer need to seek for food or a place to sleep. She believes that this is one of the reasons why behavioral issues are becoming more prevalent. Dogs’ olfactory systems are built with significantly more sophisticated functionality than human ones. Dogs breathe more as they use their noses more, and as they breathe more, they absorb more information that may aid in their relaxation. That explains the potency of nosework. For humans, breathwork is similar to nosework, London notes.
Breathwork, in my experience, enables people to slow down and become aware of their thoughts and physical sensations. We tell ourselves that we matter when we notice this. And if we understand how to treat ourselves with this degree of respect, we can treat our pets with it more readily, increasing our sense of intrinsic value. In addition to sharing the moment and offering our dogs loving attention when we breathe mindfully next to them, we also acknowledge their reciprocation, acknowledging the importance of our dogs in our lives.
Is there another reason why breathwork is beneficial for dogs?
Being balanced rather than stressed creates the conditions for better behavior from our dogs and makes training more likely to be retained. Dogs are more willing to interact with us and follow our example when we are calm. Dogs learn by context and association, so if you alter your conduct, the dog will also alter its affiliation with you, potentially leading to a different relationship with different outcomes. London explains to me that this is the reason a dog gets along with one person’s speed, energy, and breathing but not with another. Dogs typically like more subdued energy. It is not about the dog, I tell my clients.
It is not about the dog, I tell my clients. My actual clientele are people, and I have to teach them the art of doing nothing most of the time. demonstrating relaxation to their dog. That’s the problem.
You may relax with your dog by doing breathwork with them. It enables a person to associate tranquility with their dog and a dog with their human. The benefits to our dogs’ general behavior (and our ourselves) can be enormous.