Hong Kong's pampered canines may have their own spas
complete with jacuzzis and massage, but it can still be difficult
for a dog to find inner peace. Help is now at hand in the shape of
yoga instructor Suzette Ackermann and her yoga class -- for
dogs.
Each Saturday morning in the city's Sheung Wan district, owners
massage their pets before bringing them into postures such as the
cobra pose, in which the hind legs are stretched out to the rear,
as soothing music plays.
"You want to try and calm the dog down, so just touch along
either side of the spine, then the rib cage, then the belly,"
Ackermann -- a South African dance and yoga teacher who started the
sessions a year ago -- tells the class.
She leads the class in tandem with her seven-year-old Pekinese,
Snowball, who, Ackermann told AFP, has been her inspiration.
The one-eyed, utterly relaxed animal with fluffy white fur has
become a local celebrity through dog yoga, and is often recognised
in the street from her TV appearances.
"Snowball's like a Zen Buddha," Ackermann says. "She goes into
all the poses... She just doesn't care, which is perfect in the
yoga sense that she has no ego, no attachment, she's just
present.
"When I practise (yoga) at home, she will just come up to the
mat with me. She does it naturally.
"You can lie her down on her back to do shavasana (corpse pose),
and she'll stay there."
Ackermann and Snowball have been doing yoga together at home for
years, but the idea of teaching classes in dog yoga, or "doga", was
suggested by a Japanese groomer at Pawette, the "deluxe pet
boutique, salon and spa" that organises the classes with
Ackermann.
Doga has made inroads in pet-loving Japan, as well as in the
United States, where teachers Suzi Teitelman and Amy Stevens have
both issued doga DVDs. But Ackermann has developed her own routine
to suit her clients and their canine friends.
"I think for owners to bring their dogs in, they have to really
love them," Ackermann said. "It's spending extra money to
bond."
The class is sometimes interrupted by dogs getting into a fight,
yapping loudly or running off into a corner. One Yorkshire
terrier/Pomeranian cross, Kopi -- aged one -- seems as though he
would rather be running around a field than working to align his
chakras.
But other dogs are keener to take part, and lie calmly as their
paws are moved into different positions by owners who are
themselves in seated yoga poses. Both can adopt a twisting pose in
unison for shared spine stretches.
The downward dog is, of course, also included.
In standing stances such as the warrior pose, the owner holds
the dog with one arm. "The smaller the dog, the easier," says
Ackermann, whose class is aimed mainly at the toy dogs popular in
overcrowded Hong Kong.
For other poses the dog is placed on top of the human: for
instance, the "cat-cow flow", in which the owner is on all fours
and arches their back first upwards, then downwards, is performed
with the dog on its owner’s back, provided it is prepared to stay
there.
"Place the belly of the dog on your spine, so it’s a two-in-one
belly massage," instructs Ackermann.
"Now, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale," she tells her students,
human and canine.
Some of the dogs even yap obediently when Ackermann concludes
the class by saying, "Let’s all say 'Namaste'."
The owner of rebellious Kopi, Malaysian chemical company
employee Pauline Kang, says he has become more peaceful since
starting the classes. "He's made progress from the very beginning,"
she said.
"He was just like a kangaroo the first time, bouncing, jumping
everywhere," Ackermann recalled.
In addition to its calming properties, doga can benefit dogs
with hip and knee problems, Ackermann says, and help those with
asthma -- one canine participant is regularly brought along with
his own inhaler.
The classes have attracted poodles, corgis, Yorkshire terriers,
Chihuahuas and dachshunds, among others.
"Sausage dogs are good to work with because they have long
bodies, so you can really stretch them out," Ackermann said.
She was originally trained in the more vigorous form of ashtanga
yoga, but keeps her doga routines gentle.
"You can’t do ashtanga with the dogs, because it's all vinyasa
(dynamic), so I just do basic, I just do hatha (slower yoga)," she
said. "Otherwise it would be up, down, down, up, dog in the way,
everything in the way."
Ackermann has sought advice from a dog acupuncturist and is
taking classes in dog massage, while a friend has been inspired by
doga to work towards the launch of a dog physiotherapy
programme.
Meanwhile, on the suggestion of her brother, a writer, Ackermann
is putting together a book about Snowball and doga -- an
illustrated children's story with basic postures for the family and
their dog to try at home.
There are no immediate plans to extend the concept of doga to
other animals, but she said that cats might be a possibility.
"Cats have minds of their own, so they're not very sociable, but
they could probably do it," she said.
Of her clients, she says: "I think half the time, they just want
to bond with the animals.
"I've had responses from people going, 'Are you serious, dogs
doing yoga?'" she added. "I said, 'Well, it's more the owner doing
it. But we do the massage and stretching with the dogs and I think
that helps them, calms them down.'
"In one class I ended up with a client's baby in one hand and a
dog in the other. I'm like, 'What am I doing?' It’s good fun. We
have a lot of laughs," she said.