Have you watched the movie “The Art of Racing in the Rain“? Since I can’t read words, the best I can do is watch movies with my family. I love that movie! Enzo is my hero – there’s a dog who understands how things work. I, like Enzo, really only have gestures, so I do the best I can to communicate.
In watching the movie and applying what I’ve learned to my life, I think that for us dogs, our bodies are just like performance cars – like what Enzo rode in. The better the fuel we put in, the better we run. The more tuned the body and engine care, the better the car will perform.
Let’s put this into practice. When I was eating nasty kibble with multiple colors, my car drove like a clunker – and it back fired a lot! Now that I eat real food, I purr like a McLaren. (That’s a fancy performance car – Enzo would be proud to ride in!) Sometimes, I notice that I walk/trot with a hitch in my step. It’s subtle, but it’s like a head bob, or a hip hike. In car speak, that’s like a flat spot on the wheel rim. Sometimes I walk sideways just a little in my rear – like my front wheels and rear wheels aren’t tracking. You know, like I need an alignment. Honestly, my body feels crooked and it makes me a little on edge. Then I get body work done and I’m straight on the road again. Body work feels like an oil change, tire rotation and balancing all in one. It turns me back into that sports car I aspire to be.
Sometimes accidents happen and if we return the body to good motion, the car will drive for many years to come. We dogs work in gravity. We tumble and flip like a car on the track. If we’re allowed to stay out of balance, the car will drive crooked and have increasing problems. Like my dog friends with that thing called hip dysplasia. A great mechanic makes it all better. (I’m lucky, my furever mom is a fantastic mechanic.) Since all we dogs have is gestures, we hope our people see our moves. When our gestures are off, something is off. Time to go to the mechanic.