Forever Love.

Conversations go both ways. I express, you acknowledge, we exchange and repeat maintaining a semblance of subject matter continuity. Mutually understood energy in form, the word, and in motion, the expression. But what if one of us couldn't speak or we didn't share language. Could we still communicate? Would it be a conversation? I had a pair of roommates in Los Angeles, a couple, male and female. When they met, he spoke zero English, she the same amount of Spanish. Yet they've been together almost every day after that first time walking by each other in a Las Vegas shopping mall. We need very little to understand each other deeply. Sometimes less is more.

Yogi has never seen an episode of Hanna-Barbera’s two legged, two armed, anthropomorphized bear. “Yogi, like Yogi Bear!?” No. I'll share later how we picked his name together. Unlike Jellystone National Park’s pic-a-nic basket snatcher, my Yogi has no arms. Front legs. Hind legs. No arms. A fact which I discovered hilarious one day in the formative months of our new relationship. Still do. Yogi hasn’t expressed he shares my humor on the subject. Not exactly. But he has run to get a toy when I’ve joked with him about it.

Most mornings we (Yogi and me) have a ritual of greeting the day. I kneel on the bed and turn him on his back with his butt towards me, his head away, all four legs up in the air. I softly pet the insides of his hind legs and belly. Throughout the duration, we have a conversation. I ask Yogi how he slept and if he had good dreams. I tell him how we’re going to have a great day together and all the good foods and treats and smells he’ll get to enjoy and of the people and other dogs we’ll meet and love on. He replies by slowing his breathing at first to barely perceptible so as to listen in between. Then when he’s gotten into the conversation a bit and is really tuned into my voice, he will make audible inhales and exhales which sound a little like Darth Vader though more subtle.

In the yoga classes and practices I’ve done, we call this kind of breathing ujjayi. It results from a slight constriction of the glottis muscle in the back of the throat so that when the air passes through the canal there is less of an opening to go through, the same normal volume of air now squeezed through a smaller opening. For Yogi the result is a slight combined rhythmic whistle and whimper sound. But while yogis practicing yoga do this on purpose, my Yogi’s ujjayi breathing appears involuntary as a secondary response. The primary response is an attunement to soaking up and being in a state of love with these changes in breathing and corresponding sounds a sign thereof. Sometimes he squints his eyes. Other times he will intermittently make eye contact and I can see his pupils dilate with bliss. When we are finished conversing, I lean down to lay on top of him and kiss his face repeatedly in rapid succession before we head downstairs to make my morning coffee.

Due I’m sure to preference as much as proximity, Yogi is often the first one I greet in the morning and the last I speak to before bed at night. We have multiple ‘conversations’ throughout the day which give him a great deal of good information. He likes to feel in the loop on things. If I am leaving without him for any significant length of time, he doesn’t need chill pills typically if I talk to him a bit first. I tell him about where I’m going, what I need to do there, why he can’t join this time, when I’ll be back, and what we’ll do together upon my return. The voice I choose is soothing and he likely doesn’t have association with the words I’m speaking to him in full sentences. And yet there is magic in the focused attention that directs energy, his and mine, to bathe his neurons in feel good transmitters that last. No more anxiety he may otherwise experience at times of separation. He feels connected and loved.

Loving Yogi is the easiest thing I do for myself each day. When I speak sweetly to him and all of my body energy is made gentle for his reception, I get to experience that same tenderness as if it were being given to me. For this reason I have considered Yogi one of my greatest spiritual teachers; at minimum, a most wonderful opportunity to practice loving kindness. When I picked him up after his thirteenth week being a puppy, we were together for another eight before choosing his name together. It was clear by then the impact our relationship would likely continue having on my body-mind connection. When we have conversations, Yogi shows me immediately if how I am being feels good to him. So while he may not have associative memory for every word I use, what I say often changes my how. How I approach, how I emote, how I touch, and how I behave in every way.

Most every evening for some time before turning on a show I flip my now seven-year-old, 80 pound. apricot highlighted, and often otherwise regal looking golden doodle puppy upside down and hold him in my arms like a baby with his head on my chest. We talk about our day together and in a few moments he breathes a great big inhale and sighs as you would having really relaxed after being embraced by a loved one and allowing a rush of oxytocin. We talk about our walks outside. How we played tug with squeaky toys and chased each other around the coffee table.

I tell him he’s my sweet baby boy and I’m going to love him forever. I will love Yogi for his forever. And for mine.