Make Your Dog’s Day a Happy Healthy One with This Quick & Easy Technique – The Good Morning Spinal Wakeup!!

By Elizabeth Anne Johnson EEBW, CBW.

I like to do this gentle but powerful technique – the Good Morning Spinal Wake-up – first thing in the morning for all my dogs. This technique literally “wakes up” three important systems in their body and only takes 45-60 seconds of your time.

Particularly in older dogs, working dogs, recovering dogs and hard-playing dogs this technique turns on systems that lie dormant through the nighttime as our dogs are sleeping. When used regularly all dogs will benefit from this simple technique.

#1 – First, the Good Morning Spinal Wakeup stimulates the neuro-lymphatic points along the spine and gets sludgy lymph fluid moving after a night’s rest. This helps with stiffness and overall body health as the lymph system clears accumulated toxins.

#2 – This technique also wakes up the “Shu” acupressure points all along the spine that connect with every one of your dog’s acupuncture meridians and stimulate the nerve roots to every organ in the body. Shu points are like circuit breaker switches that gently “turn on and talk to” everything in the body.

#3 – Lastly, we bring blood flow into the spinal muscles and nerve roots that surround the dog’s spinal column. This helps tremendously with flexibility and pain. This technique is great for dogs of all ages, but especially for geriatric dogs and dogs in recovery. 

 This technique starts a big but gentle cascade of circulation amongst these three systems and only takes 30-45 seconds!

The Good Morning Spinal Wakeup is best done first thing in the morning when the dog is standing or sitting. My dogs line up for it every morning! 

**Be gentle and focused with your finger pressure as these points may be tender at first.

How?…

First… Breathe, feel your feet on the floor and breathe again…deeply.

Continue this as you work with your pup. You just co-regulated both your nervous systems.

• Begin just behind the shoulder blades.
  Hold your thumb and forefinger 1 to 2 inches apart and position each finger along opposite sides of the spine. The size of your dog will determine the width of your fingers.
  Sink in with gentle pressure and while in place, wiggle your fingers front to back 3x’s. Think “wiggle wiggle wiggle”.
• Next slide back approx. 1/2” – 1 inch (less for small dogs) and you will naturally fall into a little divot along the sides of the vertebrae.
  Wiggle a few times again and slide back and repeat until you reach the pelvis area where you will not feel any more vertebrae.
• Repeat 3 times and watch your dog limber up and smile! 

You can use this technique 1-3 times per week or daily for balance and harmony. 

Use it with joy! 

Please remember!Do not use acupressure points on pregnant animals without professional advice.

Stay Tuned for our mini acupressure series with “easy to find” points that support your Five Element dog. This is just the beginning of a vast amount of information about each Dog Element that you will find in the chapters of my book Know Your Dog’s True Nature, Understanding Canine Personality through the Five Elements – on sale wherever books are sold – Each chapter on the individual Dog Elements includes in-depth information and real-life stories. Human Elementchapters follow.

Elizabeth Anne Johnson has over 30 years of experience as an animal empath, and healer, is the author of Know Your Dog’s True Nature, a TEDx Speaker, and a former veterinary technician and wildlife biologist. She lives on an island in the Pacific Northwest and happily walks the beaches and waves at the whales with Pretzel and Finnegan. ElizabethAnneJohnson.com