Doggy Yoga

Ever since Seb moved in, I kept hearing giggling coming from his room in the mornings. Not every day, but often enough to be kinda odd. However—and I don’t know if you’ve noticed this—I am not a Morning Person™, so I’d just hear it, think who finds anything funny this early? and fall asleep again, and when I was properly awake I’d forget about it.

Which is how it wound up that at the beginning of April, I still had no idea what it was about. Until I had to be out of bed at the asscrack of dawn myself one day for a really early recording session (it was the last timeslot available at the studio), and I heard him at it again. Laughter rang down the hallway. Curious, I went and poked my nose around his doorframe.

He had his yoga mat laid out and was doing the pose I’m pretty sure is called “downward dog”, only with his head lifted, facing away from me. And nose-to-nose with him was Jagger, also with his butt stuck high in the air and his chest to the floor.

Seb snorted with giggles as he brought his right foot forward into a kind of low lunge and Jagger apparently decided the best way to mimic that was to get down completely on his belly, all four legs stretched out. “Your form needs more attention there,” I heard Seb say through his laughter. “Have you been practicing like I told you?”

Jagger rolled onto his back and went “Woof!”

“You’re making it hard for me to practice, too,” Seb said. “I’m not breathing properly.”

I spoke up then. “If he’s bugging you, you can kick him out and shut the door, y’know.”

He looked around, smiled, and shook his head. “I don’t really mind. It’s cute.”

It was, and not just Jagger. I pretended to be a little put-out, though, as I said, “So I see you continue to be his favorite. He never comes to wake me up with tricks.”

“He doesn’t do it every morning for me, either,” Seb replied. “Usually he’s out running with Quint while I do my routine. I woke up later today. You can stay and watch, if you want.”

“Sure,” I said, grinning. “Mind if I sit on your bed?”

“Go ahead,” he told me, standing. “I’ll start over so you can see what he does when I go into cobra pose.”

We were both cracking up by the end of the routine.