How to Integrate Your Dog’s Care with Nature
Loving a dog comes easily, yet ensuring they receive everything they need (mind, body, and spirit) can be challenging at times. While it’s 100% worth it, it’s still a big responsibility – one that doesn’t have to be so overwhelming. A little ancient knowledge often inspires the shift in perspective that’s needed to bring about balance (or “sama” as in Sama Dog) to you both. And that’s the foundation of living healthy, fulfilling, purposeful lives together.
We Are All Connected
Ayurveda’s healing wisdom reminds us that the world is interconnected. We are all a part of nature. Sit with that sentence for just a moment and consider how intricately woven you and your pup are into the natural world. Can you feel the connection between you, and that with the earth, birds, and ocean? Reflect on how much you enjoy walking together along the beach, in the woods, or even down the street.
When we honor this connection and live in harmony with nature, it works with and for us. It’s a lifestyle that promotes homeostasis and a healthy, happy mind and body. Dogs in the wild live by this natural intelligent order on instinct, but our modern lifestyles and well-intended interference can lead our companion animals astray. The result is a very loved, but often imbalanced pup with emotional and physical health challenges that can seem impossible to resolve.
Ayurveda is a Custom Approach to Wellness
We are our dogs’ first line of defense, and it’s important to remember that canines live in a sensory-oriented world. Like us, they continually consume information through their five senses or gateways. Everything they touch, smell, hear, see, or taste integrates into their mind-body system and can easily throw them off-kilter. Ayurveda acknowledges the significance of each input and guides us toward the balancing choices that improve every aspect of their life.
It is a custom approach to wellness based on the principle that we are all comprised of a combination of the five great elements of space, fire, earth, water, and air. As individuals, we possess different ratios of each element – those ratios determine our predominant mind-body type or dosha. The doshas are Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, and all beings (dogs included) have a unique combination of all three operating within them.
Through studying your dog’s dosha, you can better support their natural tendencies, like what area of their body and mind is strong and resilient, versus weak and potentially problematic. Critical information that’s easily revealed when you understand their dosha type. Learn your dog’s dosha by taking Sama Dog’s Dog Dosha Quiz.
With just a little information, Ayurvedic principles come to life and help us maintain our loved one’s unique dosha type using food and herbs, incremental lifestyle changes, and other natural treatments. It’s often small and easy adjustments to a dog’s environment that help restore equilibrium and help them thrive. Through Ayurveda we learn to support our dog’s mind and body via their five gateways while addressing specific behavioral and health issues, as well as improving and extending their overall quality of life.
Become Your Dog’s Health Advocate
I can personally testify and will share that Ayurveda has given me the internal tools and resources to support my physical, emotional, and spiritual health, knowing just what to do when I get off balance. Which inevitably happens — it’s life, right?! I’ve now seen very clearly how the same Ayurvedic principles can be a huge help in our animal’s lives too.
What I have learned is when a dog’s body and mind return to a place of balance, their natural & innate healing machine can take over. With their inherent healing system back in check, their body can fight illness, digest normally, detox naturally, and fortify against invaders, like fleas and ticks, or harmful bacteria.
When in balance, your dog’s inherent healing system can also restore behaviors, like release past trauma, overcome separation anxiety, improve impulse control, and even find more comfort through the aging process.
It’s simple yet profound and will empower you to be your best friend’s #1 health advocate. After years of research, study, application, and reflection on how Ayurveda can be the missing link to getting your dog rebalanced, I’ve created an introductory course for you to keep learning how to share your dog’s care with nature.
By Amanda Ree, founder of Sama Dog