Massage by the pond
Posted by lisa on Jun 4, 2008
After work I pulled some weeds then relaxed in a chair by the pond. I practiced massage on Smitty, who sat in my lap, and shared a ginger ale with John. The Smit was cooperative and let me do most anything. I could see his back muscles in the lumbar region shiver as I performed deep pressure down the sides of his spine.
Apparently many dogs hold tension in the lumbar, just as many humans do in our traps. It makes sense, I suppose, since the canine spine is horizontal. The sacral vertebrae are interlocked with the pelvis, and the thoracic vertebra get some support from the ribs, costal cartilage and the intercostal muscles. The lumbar vertebrae are just hanging there with just fascia, cartilage, and muscles to hold them in place.
As I worked on Smitty we watched Fergus fishing in our small pond. He is “friends” with out two year old fish Napolean, who we hatched from an egg stuck to a water plant. He looks like a comet, orange and white. We just replaced our missing second fish with Josephine, a shubunkin. 
God knows what she thinks about Fergus swatting at her, but Napolean and his erstwhile brother would taunt him, pulling on his paw fur and darting away, hiding under his belly and laughing at him. He will stare at the water for 45 minutes, hunting for fish. It must be good intellectual exercise, all that concentration and aiming. And pouncing.
Massage by the pond watching Fergus’ tail wag at merely the thought of fish… it doesn’t get much better, does it?
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