BLOG 3 – Dog Needs
Dog needs. This has been a guiding principle for me for the last few years. Here’s how it works.
At any point, but especially during times where you are feeling down, make sure you’ve met your dog needs. If you haven’t had pets this may seem foreign but I think even if you’ve seen people with dogs you know that often times, people take good care of their dogs. Sometimes better than they care for themselves. Theres 6 things that I deem as “dog needs”.
1. Routine
2. Food
3. Play
4. Exercise
5. Social Time
6. Sleep
As humans (part of the animal kingdom) theres a lot we can learn from animals. We know these things are good for us, and we know that our dogs need them, and often times we can get trapped in our own narratives of our lives that we don’t give ourselves the love and care we need. For whatever reason we don’t want to do what we know is good for us, and we don’t ask ourselves to do the small basic mundane things that would help us start off on the right foot. I say “start off on the right food” because it’s pretty important that we are meeting these needs for ourselves just do have an enjoyable and functional day. Not to say we can’t have good days without everything, but to have a sustainable life where we can show up to whatever it is we have going, its imperative that we are hitting these 6 things at least 75% of the time.
Routine for dogs is often time, when they eat and when they go on a walk. There can be more to it, but the stability of consistency of just one or two things is a game changer (especially in the human existence). One or two non negotiable that happen every day. For me, it’s breath work. Every day (usually when I wake up before I do anything else) I do 3 rounds of Wim Hof style breathing, 30 deep breaths followed by a breath hold on the exhale, one inhale, breath hold, and then onto the next round and I follow that up with Kundalini breath of fire. On some of my more extended days, I do a meditation, some pushups and stretching, and read. More often than not, I have about 13 minutes of attention span while I’m still groggy and I just do the 2 styles of breath work and start checking my notifications on my phone. Thats not where I want to be, but hey, I got the first part of my routine in and I always feel better after doing it. I don’t even wake up at a given time either, but I do the breath work every day. Sometimes at 5am and sometimes at noon. The consistency helps center me.
Food is one of those things where it can be hit or miss for me. I used to eat too much, then I didn’t eat enough, then I only ate junk and now I’d say its a healthyish balance of enough food with about 10-20% junk so I can enjoy what I’m eating but also get my proper nutrition. When people feed their pets, it’s calculated. The right amount of food, the right amount of times/day and within the health limits suggested as best as they know how and can pay for. Oh, and maybe a few treats moderately thrown in throughout the week. It’s a great formula for success. We also avoid giving dogs food that isn’t good for them (chocolate, grapes, any other things we’ve seen they’re allergic to). When this formula is applied to humans, not only is life a little bit more enjoyable, but we feel better too because we are hitting both the caloric intake, enjoyment/funtionality ratio, and getting the nutrients that are most important for us to thrive in how we live. Put that together with avoiding foods that make you feel like shit and you’re on top of the world already. Sure it takes some trial and error but the payoff is huge.
Play is not only essential to enjoying the life we have, but it helps us understand who we are, what are limits are and opens up our creative juices (yes everyone has them). Play connects humans to themselves and others by bringing enjoyment of things to the forefront. Maybe your thing is sports, or dancing, painting, throwing toilet paper on your neighbor’s tree, video games, chess, maybe play for you is more about trying new things or learning or putting yourself in an environment you’re not used to push your limits. Whatever it is, play is the act of doing something that enjoyably gets you out of stagnancy or familiarity. It can even be a part of a routine too. Every Tuesday is country swing dancing night could be a new routine that adds play to your life, especially when you learn new moves and try things out. The goal here is to find an edge of comfortable and familiar and push past it. For animals they’re no judging themselves when they don’t catch the ball or the frisbee, they pick up and go again because they’re enjoying the moment of something they like doing regardless.
Funny enough, play can be your exercise too. Sand volleyball is one of my play/exercise crossover episodes in my life. I get to be competitive, creative, focused, in a flow, with people I enjoy spending time with and out of my norm while getting my cardio in for the day. I could play for 4 hours, probably even longer honestly. In college I would play about 30 hrs/week. It was amazing. For dogs, it’s usually a daily walk. Which honestly for humans is also a great habit to get into. Even if just for 10 minutes on a phone call or listening to music or hours for a podcast or with a friend. I’m not here to get you to go to the gym. Exercise (in my opinion) should be primarily to keep your brain and body functional and able to do the things you want. If that calls for a 10 minute walk a day, awesome, just do it. If that calls for you to do a triathlon or body building competition or hold a handstand for 20 seconds, just do what gets you there. We all have functionality goals. It’s all personal. I would say aim for 30 minutes/day and that will be a huge difference.
Social time is sometimes a tricky one. I find a good chunk of my social time is on the phone catching up with my friends. Community is huge and so important. Like dogs, we need other entities in our lives. For some people that may be a dog, or a cat or a very limited amount of friends. Thats ok, as long as you get social time to the capacity you need. I find that my friend group is where my healing comes from most. They help me reframe my place in the world, how I see myself, and give me a sense of belonging which is scientifically mandatory for good mental health haha. If you don’t like your friends, get new ones, if you know what you want out of life, there will always be people who match that, and I will say one of my hardest lessons is knowing when I’ve outgrown someone or they’ve outgrown me. It can be painful and frustrating and obnoxious because no one did anything wrong, but sometimes we’re aligned for a time and a season and accepting that helps us grow and recognize in truth the people we’re becoming.
Sleep... Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve bragged about how well I’ve functioned off an insufficient amount of sleep. I’m not actually proud of it though. In 2021 I had 11 hall nighters, predominantly for work (2 of them back to back where I was awake for 52 hours straight). I was no healthier, happier, or more excited about life because of any of that. In fact I was more functional the more I slept. Dog sleep and rest so much. And while yes, they aren’t the ones paying the bills to keep a roof over their head, they know how to get down and knock out. As humans, and maybe this is more of a personal thing, I think good sleep is one of the first things to go when it comes to self care and making sure we can show up how we need to. My sleep cycle gets thrown off regularly. I’ll stay up late eating food, watching tv, doom scrolling, etc. I’ll get trash sleep because I drank the night before or I couldn’t sleep and had to get up early. Its a pain in the ass to be tired and one of the biggest reasons I complain about anything. I’m usually grumpy when I’m tires. This is one of the most important metrics I think. So please make sure you rest.
Well, other than sleeping, the rest of the things getting accomplished can be done pretty effectively for little money and time.
30 minutes exercise, 13 minutes routine, 10-45 minutes for food (smoothies count yeah?) each day, and the social time and play happening a couple times/week, and you’ve got a balanced life for maybe… MAYBE 2 hours/day. That is only 8% of the time you’re alive being dedicated to this self care. And by all means do more, but I promise if you give yourself your dog needs, you’ll be happier and healthier and more whole inside and out no matter where you are in life.
I love you.