Taking a breath is the first thing you do when you are born, and it is the last thing you do before you die.  We need food and water to survive, but we need to breathe more than anything else.  The body can survive days without water and weeks without food, but only a few minutes without the breath.

We tend to forget about the breath, especially as we mature and get caught up in everyday living and routines.  In my yoga classes, I teach that the breath is the most important part of the yoga.

The great spiritual leader Paramahansa Yogananda taught that through Kriya Yoga Meditation (based on breathing techniques), a person’s soul can transcend a million years in one lifetime.  That is some pretty powerful breathing!

When was the last time you enjoyed taking a deep, rejuvenating breath—letting your lungs expand completely, all the way down to the lowest lobes?

The following five breathing techniques offer simple ways for you to connect with your breath.  Returning to your breath is a basic thing, something that grounds you, connects you with your inner-self and with the universe.

The brain is smart, it learns, remembers, and is influenced by a multitude of internal and external forces.  The brain is the control center of your body and so long as you are getting enough oxygen for normal body functions, the brain will not ask you to breathe deeper, using the full capacity of your lungs.  The following breathing techniques require you to put the brain in the background, slowing or silencing the chatter of the mind, so that you focus only on the breath. Listening to your breath is the basis of most meditation practices.

Taking a few minutes each day to connect with your breath will create positive changes in your life, making you healthier, giving you a richer perspective of your world and the universe.

Technique 1 – Deep-Breathing 7’s

a)        Sit up straight in a chair—no slouching or unnatural curving in your spine.

b)        Close your eyes and rest your hands on your thighs or knees.

c)         Relax your shoulders and hips, visualize any tension in your body draining down your body out through the bottoms of your feet into the floor or ground.

d)        Relax your jaw, but keep your lips closed, exhale completely though your nose.

e)        Inhale through your nose to your own personal count of 7, breathing from the bottom of the lungs up.  Put your hand right below your sternum.  You should be able to feel your ribs expanding as your breathe in.  Relax the back of the throat and let it open as you breath in.

f)         Exhale slowly through your nose to your own personal count of 7.

g)        Focus on the sound and rhythm of your breath with your eyes closed.  Try not to let your mind wander; keep retuning to the breath.  Repeat at your own pace for 7 minutes.

h)        I recommend setting a kitchen timer.  When the time is up, slowly open your eyes, smile, and thank yourself for taking the time to do this breathing technique.

Technique 2 – Deep-Breathing 7’s with Pauses

 This technique is performed exactly as above, except that you pause for 7 counts between each inhale and exhale.  If this is a challenge at first, just pause for a count of 2 or 3 and build up as you relax and gain more confidence experiencing a ‘breathless’ state.

This technique helps your brain move from the beta state (fully awake and alert) into the alpha state (relaxed, more right brain activity) that is a key requirement to reach meditative states.

Technique 3 – Alternate Nostril Breathing

a)        Get comfortable in a chair, sitting up straight or sit on the floor Indian style, or in lotus position.

b)        Close your eyes, breathing in and out through your nose, focusing on the breath.  Take normal, relaxing breaths.

c)         Use your right thumb to close off your right nostril as you breathe in through your left nostril.

d)        When you have breathed in a full, deep breath, immediately release your right nostril and close off your left nostril with your right index finger and exhale completely through the right nostril.

e)        Once you have exhaled completely through the right nostril, inhale deeply through the right nostril, with the left nostril still shut using your right index finger.

f)         Once you have inhaled completely use your right thumb to shut off the right nostril, release the right index finger from the left nostril and exhale completely through the left nostril.

g)        Inhale through the left nostril and repeat the cycles.

The alternate sequence can sometimes at first be confusing.  Relax and start with three minutes.  Before long you’ll be able to do five to ten minutes easily.

Technique 4 – Favorite Place in Nature Breathing

Almost everyone has a special place outside, a place that warms your heart, makes you smile when you think about it, a place where you feel safe, secure, and special, and a place where you long to go, time and again.  I use this technique a lot in my yoga classes.
We usually do it in corpse pose (savasana).

a)        Get comfortable in a chair, sitting up straight or sit on the floor Indian style, or in lotus position.

b)        Close your eyes, breathing in and out through your nose, focusing on the       breath.  Take normal, relaxing breaths.

c)         As you breathe normally, let your mind visualize your favorite place:  focus on the sights, the sounds, the smells, the feeling of the place you know and love so well.

d)        As your mind carries you to your favorite place, relax your body and begin to slow and lengthen your inhales and exhales.  Continue to breath in and out through the nose with the lips shut, the jaw relaxed.

e)        After three to five minutes of deep breathing focusing on your favorite place, allow your mind to focus more on the breath and less on the favorite place.

f)         Continue in this manner for ten to twenty minutes.

g)        You will probably be in a fairly deep meditative state by the end of this exercise.  To come out of it, begin to wiggle your toes and fingers as you  slowly open your eyes.  Smile, knowing you can be instantly transported to your favorite place through the mind and the breath.

Technique 5 – White Light Breathing

a)        Get comfortable in a chair, sitting up straight or sit on the floor Indian style, or in lotus position.

b)        Close your eyes, breathing in and out through your nose, focusing on the breath.  Take normal, relaxing breaths.

c)         Imagine that your spine is a hollow tube and that as you breath in, your breath starts at the base of your spine, climbs up the hollow tube, through your throat and head and out the crown of your head.  As you breath out, the breath travels from the crown of the head, down to the base of the spine.

d)        Now imagine that your breath is a pulsing, bright white light originating at the base of your spine.  As you breath in, the ball of white light rises up through the hollow tube of your spine and through the crown of your head.

e)        This white energy emerging from your head mixes with all the energy in the universe gaining strength, power, and intensity.  As you exhale, fresh, new white energy is drawn into the crown of your head, flowing back down through your hollow spine and into every cell of your body with healing, refreshing energy.

f)         Continue focusing on this image as you breath in and out through your nose. The white ball of energy increases in size with each inhalation and exhalation until it expands beyond your body, filling up the room, filling up the building, filling up your town, your state, your country, the world, the solar system, the galaxy, until it fills the entire universe and you become one with the energy of the universe.

g)        You will be in a deep meditative state by the end of this exercise.  To come out of it, begin to wiggle your toes and fingers as you slowly open your eyes.

Remember, the breath is the basis of our lives.  Without it, we do not live.  Be kind to yourself, honor yourself, and take a few minutes every day to focus on your breath.  After all, without the breath, nothing else really matters. 

I attended Clemson University during the late 1970s and earned extra money exercising hunter-jumper horses on a farm in nearby Anderson.  One autumn day as I galloped through the fields, two sleek, muscular, grey dogs suddenly appeared, ran alongside my horse for a bit, then vanished into the woods.  Enthralled by their elegance and power, I vowed to someday own one of those dogs with the striking faces and unusual name—Weimaraner.

Ten years later I was settled in Louisville, KY disentangling myself from a failing relationship and managing a rapidly growing environmental consulting company.  A Weimaraner puppy was just what I needed in my life, I thought.

One Saturday morning in June of 1990, my friend Glenn and I journeyed to Paducah, KY where a breeder from Illinois presented five adorable grey puppies, their eyes vivid blue.  One small female—the pups were just five weeks old—paid particular attention to me.  And so it was, I chose her and gave her a good Germanic name—Hedda.

I never thought to interview Weimaraner owners or to visit the library to glean specifics of the breed.  It didn’t really matter; destiny prevailed.

Weimaraners are companion dogs—in other words, they are genetically predisposed to find a way into your bed.

That first night, I put Hedda in a crate in my den, snuggling her against a large, stuffed teddy bear on a thick, fleece pad.  She curled up, falling fast asleep.  Such a sweet, well-behaved puppy, I mused, crawling into bed.  As I drifted off to sleep, Hedda started a whimper that escalated into crying, then into a high-pitched, yapping scream.  Patience, I thought.  Don’t run to her; you’ll spoil her.  Wait it out; she’ll calm down in a few minutes.

Thirty minutes later, my pillow pressed over my ears, I caved in, went to the den, picked her up, brought her to my bed, placed her on my chest, stroked her back, and she quickly fell asleep.  Oh well, so much for the crate at night.  At least this way I would housebreak her because I will know exactly when she needs to pee or poop—probably only twice a night.

I misjudged.  Hedda woke up every two hours, like clockwork, from ten o’clock until six in the morning for the next six weeks.  Dutifully, I carried her outside each time her telltale whine awakened me.  During the day, tired and irritable, my co-workers with infants and I would exchange supportive, knowing glances with our bloodshot eyes.

But it was all worth it:  Hedda was completely housebroken and had attained permanent stature in my bed.

Weimaraners are food-motivated—a genteel description of pigs disguised as aristocratic canines. 

I constantly removed things from her mouth.  One night I found a blue plastic razor handle on the bathroom floor—she’d swallowed the razor part.  I rushed her to an emergency animal clinic.  The attending veterinarian, a small Asian man I could barely understand, took an x-ray of her stomach, clipped the x-ray to a light box in the exam room, pointed to several white blobs and said, “Here is stomach; these no good.”

Certain he’d want to cut her open, I panicked, but he took a small white pill, pulled out her lower right eyelid and inserted the pill.

“Now go here,” he said, directing us to a back room.  “Put her there,” he said pointing to a metal grate on top of a large stainless steel utility sink.

“We wait,” he said.

Hedda emitted a shallow cough that morphed into heaves, then full-scale vomiting.  Out came her two cups of kibble, three twist ties, four pieces of cypress mulch, several small rocks, two pieces of aluminum foil, a dime, two pennies, and the razor.  The veterinarian grimaced, demanding, “Damn!  Why you let her eat all that shit for?”  I was speechless.

Hedda grew into the consummate kitchen counter predator.   Any food left unattended, for even a millisecond, was fair game.  She indiscriminately scarfed down anything from raw strip steaks to sliced cantaloupe.  She advanced to opening kitchen cabinets with her nose, consuming entire loaves of bread, five-pound bags of sugar, boxes of cereal, and plastic jars of peanut butter.  I installed child locks on the cabinets.  Once, while staying with my friend Glenn while I traveled for business, she managed to jump high enough to grab a box of Godiva chocolates from a top closet shelf and consumed every piece, wrappers included.

She continually honed her skills in this area throughout her long life, proudly passing them down to Max, a male Weimaraner pup who joined our family when Hedda was six years old.  She took him under her wing, and they bonded for life.

Weimaraners require constant engagement, as in doing something extremely physical, like hunting birds all day.  Otherwise, they may develop small behavioral problems.  

Glenn and I worked during the day, so when we moved in together to a different house, Hedda got her own bedroom—no longer would she endure hours in a crate.

One Friday after work, I ran upstairs to get Hedda.  I opened her bedroom door and gazed upon devastation.  She had shredded the queen size mattress and box springs, chewed off both windowsills and several mullions, and had destroyed the wooden mission-style bed—a beaver could not have more completely decimated the four bedposts.  How could one dog do so much damage in four hours?  I had walked her at lunch that day.

Separation anxiety was a new term to us.  Fortunately, we befriended our next-door neighbor, Karen, a dog lover.  Her husband was the opposite, and he forbade canines in his house, well, at least while he was home.  Each morning after he left for work, Karen came over, got Hedda, and they spent much of the day together.  I’m not certain what they did during the day, but often I’d arrive home to find Hedda’s toenails painted bright red or pink.  Hedda’s separation anxiety ceased.

I was a runner and Hedda was my running companion.  She loved long marathon-training runs, some twenty miles or more.  In the mid 1990s most road race organizers in Louisville permitted dogs.  We competed in several races together.  I was careful to keep her on a short lead—her competitive nature compelled her to snap at any runners passing us.

Weimaraners mature late—they exhibit puppy behavior until age five, but it’s worth the wait.

Hedda’s boundless energy was matched by her intense curiosity.  With eyes wide open, she would stick her head completely underwater in Beargrass Creek searching for sticks, cans, or plastic food wrappers.  She loved to ride shotgun in cars, sitting up tall, her eyes scanning the surroundings, her nose quivering.  Even with her daily visits with Karen and all the miles of running, she demanded a great deal of our attention and time until she turned five years old.

At that point, a general calmness descended upon her, and though she became stronger and smarter than ever, she attained a state of canine nirvana.  Friends sought out her regal presence, yearning to touch her.

Hedda became the matriarch of our family, welcoming other dogs and cats into our fold over the years, always loving, proud, and content.  And when we finally had to let her go on a warm April day, just shy of her sixteenth birthday, she passed peacefully on her favorite rattan chair on the back porch, surrounded by many friends.

Hedda taught me so much, and I feel so blessed to have had such a wonderful companion on my journey to middle age.

Sometimes a story is best told succinctly.

When I first visited St. Barts in 1994, I was there for a relatively short time, ten days surrounding Valentines.  My good friend Shannon Westerman enticed Glenn and me with stories of beautiful villas, fabulous French cuisine, amazing beaches, and a laissez-faire attitude perfect for relaxation.  Shannon was dead-on in every aspect, and we have journeyed back several times since then.

During that first trip, I was exposed to such an explosion of sights, sounds, smells, contrasts, and sensations, that I got up before dawn one morning and composed a poem—a distillation of my experience.

Shannon, his partner, Tim Ancona, Glenn, and I rented a beautiful villa and had the time of our lives.  Here’s the poem.

St. Barts

by Jody Zimmerman

Dusty, fire-rock, earth-smell isle.

Dotted green, carved down

To sand-lipped bays with turquoise tongues.

A traveler’s passion.

Sun-braised, saline dryness,

Splattered by windy rain.

Colors explode.

Hummingbirds dart.

Cocks crow.

Cats cry.

Begging, bleating goats resound.

Spider-strung cacti comb

The wind sculpting scrubby trees.

The legacy stands amid

Cool, fresh-water promises.

Cliff climbing villas

Cling to something exquisite.

I hope you enjoyed the poem.   Please feel free to give me your feedback.

I have posted a few photographs from that trip.  They are old and faded, but the memories are not.

Our villa, Les Petits Pois, in the village of Colombier

The view from our villa

A tree sculpted by the trade winds

The elegant port city, Gustavia

Beautiful Beach

Shannon, Jody, & Glenn at Grande Saline Beach

Tim & Shannon near our villa

I woke up this morning feeling thankful for many things in my life, and since Thanksgiving is tomorrow, it seems appropriate that my feelings coincide with the holiday.

It is difficult, and I think pointless, to prioritize all the wonderful things in my life:  good friends, great pets, good health, peace of mind, two good jobs (commercial real estate and yoga instructor), a deep, spiritual faith, and a good family.  However, one special thing, like a deep steady current, runs beneath all my blessings:  my yoga practice.

I am so thankful for my practice, even though I have now arrived back to the starting point that initially led me to yoga over ten years ago:  an injury—a torn medial meniscus in my knee.  I think it is appropriate to call this my Thanksgiving Paradox.

Back then, I ran marathons and worked out incessantly in the gym.

Here is a photograph of me completing the Indianapolis Marathon in 2000.

I was so happy.  I qualified for Boston that year with a time of 3 hours 15 minutes and 51 seconds:  that translates to a 7 minute 29 second pace per mile.  I was forty-one years old and was the 41^st finisher out of 437 who competed that year.

One day while doing a lunge with a barbell, my left ankle twisted, and I tore the medial meniscus in my left knee.  I told myself, no problem, a little orthoscopic surgery, a little rest, a little physical therapy, and I’ll be running marathons again in no time.

Six months after the operation, I couldn’t run more than five miles without pain in my left knee.  I was frantic; I didn’t know where to turn.  Someone, and I cannot remember who, suggested I try Bikram yoga.  I read Bikram’s testimonial about how he healed his crushed knee (also from a weight-lifting accident) with yoga.  It sounded like a good plan to me.

I was so fortunate to have walked, albeit with much apprehension, into Bikram Yoga of Louisville on Frankfort Avenue and into Shawna Spellman’s Bikram class.  The physicality and challenge of the class overwhelmed me and enticed me:  this was much harder than running a marathon.  I was hooked, stifling heat and all.

Shawna smiled when I told her about my knee injury and told me to come to class for sixty days in a row; it would change my life.  I didn’t believe her, and I didn’t attend for sixty days in a row, but I did attend four to five times a week, and, to my complete surprise and satisfaction, after about three months of this, I could run ten miles with no pain.

Over the next several years, I became a dedicated student of Shawna’s and her other great Bikram instructors like Jennifer Farmer.  They taught me so much about yoga, about my mind, about my breath, about my body.  I convinced my good friend Thom Blincoe to try the yoga.  He did and began his own practice.  Thom and I, along with another friend, Jamie Haworth, accompanied Shawna and her husband Rob to Pura Vida yoga retreat outside of San Juan, Costa Rica, on two separate occasions.

Pura Vida is an amazing place:  lush setting, nice rooms, healthy food, a staff of excellent massage therapists, and nice yoga facilities.  I highly recommend it.  The second year we traveled to Pura Vida, Shawna invited a talented and lovely Bikram teacher from Chicago, Miryana Pahmier, to join us to teach some of the classes.

Here are some photographs from our two memorable trips.

Shawna, Jamie, and me in toe stand.

Shawna in a beautiful bow pose.

Thom and Miryana

As the years passed, I continued diligently practicing yoga.  I even gave up running, and, to my amazement, the yoga itself became an instructor, and I began to learn and to understand things about myself I had never known, or perhaps, had never let myself know, simply by going to my mat and performing the breathing methods (pranayama) and the poses (asanas) several times a week.

By 2009 and my fiftieth birthday, I felt an increasing urge to extend my yoga journey, but I wasn’t sure how to accomplish this.  Shawna encouraged me to go to teacher training, and I was surprised that she didn’t push Bikram training—she even suggested Jimmy Barkan.  Just as I was growing, so was my teacher, and she began allowing different types of yoga into her domain.

I decided on New Years Day 2010 to participate in a worldwide challenge of doing Bikram yoga for 101 days in a row.  I completed that on April 11, 2010, and when I saw this sign placed on the door of our yoga studio, I knew I had to become a yoga teacher.

I was not the only person in Louisville on such a path.  Kelly Robinson, a lovely young woman, with whom I had practiced, was also following a yogic path.  And so it was, Kelly and I enrolled in Jimmy Barkan’s Level I Hot Yoga Teacher Training, and we travelled together to Fort Lauderdale for a month of intensive training in June 2010, a life-changing experience for both of us.

Jimmy Barkan is an amazing teacher and a beautiful person.

Here is a photo of Jimmy teaching pada-hastasana using Masumi Ishii as a model. Look at her form—beautiful!

Jimmy introduced me to Pantanjali’s Eight-limb path, an ancient doctrine which I consider a “User’s Guide” to being a kind and loving person and contributing to the world in a positive way.  He also introduced me to Paramahansa Yogananda, the esteemed Indian yogi and guru, sent to the United States in 1920 to introduce the ancient Indian teachings of yoga and meditation to the west.

Jimmy’s Level I Training co-teacher is a woman named Lisa Goodwin, who I like to describe as a true angel on earth.  Lisa is one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met and her immense desire to help others through yoga and life coaching is a beautiful, spiritual thing to witness.  Lisa taught me how to make a vision board—another thing that has changed my life in a very positive way.

Through the vision board, I arrived at the understanding that my true calling is to be a writer.  This gave me the strength to finish my first novel, Blood Brothers, which I will begin marketing next year.  I have been working on the book for ten years.  It is time to finish it and begin others.

Kelly and I got so much out of Level I, that we traveled back together to Jimmy’s Level II/III Hot Vinyasa Training the following October. For the advanced training, Jimmy’s co-teacher is another remarkable woman named Kelly Green.  Kelly can seemingly defy gravity in amazing ways with her ability to float into a variety of arm balances, headstands, and hand stands.  She is also a woman of deep spirituality and a wonderful teacher.

After my training, I began teaching at Shawna’s new studio Heat Yoga & Wellness at The Vogue.  The Vogue is a shopping center I lease and manage in the heart of St. Matthews in Louisville.

In 2011, Shawna added Lauren Eirk to her roster of yoga instructors, so I began taking classes from Lauren.  Lauren is undoubtedly one of the best yoga instructors I’ve ever had, so when she announced that she would be conducting her own yoga training based on her own methods called Yoga Integrated Science, Yoga I.S., I enrolled.  Lauren’s teachings are based on the anatomy of the body and the ranges of motion through which an individual’s particular joint can safely travel during a yoga pose.

This past October, after teaching regularly (4 to 5 classes most weeks) for over two years, I ventured back to Jimmy’s for another Level II/III teacher training.  This time, though, I let my ego get in the way of my practice.  Perhaps that occurred because I am having trouble resolving how my life seems to march on relentlessly the older I get.

There were many younger people there, and I tried to keep up with them.  We attended two 90-minute hot yoga classes daily, and I was having trouble keeping well hydrated.  Somehow, and I didn’t feel it when it happened, but I suspect it was in a deep Lotus position, the medial meniscus in my right knee tore.  The subsequent pain and loss of mobility were so familiar that I self diagnosed correctly—the MRI was an after thought.

Now I’m facing orthoscopic surgery on December 7^th.  I’m not worried about it, and I know I will heal quickly.  I also know that I will conduct my own physical therapy (yoga).

I believe deeply this was a lesson I needed to learn and for this I am thankful.   I can only hope that ten years out from this knee injury, my yogic path will have continued to blossom.

Namaste y’all.

UPDATE:

A year has passed since I posted this weblog.  I constantly use my vision board as a guide.  I finished Blood Brothers, self published it, and began marketing the pschological thriller through social marketing.  I have made so many new and wonderful friends on Twitter, and I just wanted to repost this so that I can share a little bit about myself with all of you.  I went through the sugery just fine, was teaching yoga in one week, and practicing again in three weeks.  2013 has been a year of transition for me: a good one. 

My yoga practice is stronger than ever and evolving, I'm focusing on writing, and as I approach the end of the year, I feel so grateful that I am able to feel so much love in my self and in most other people.  Happy Thanksgiving.

My psychological thriller novel, Blood Brothers, is now available.  It is a mystery book dealing with the themes of childhood sexual abuse, pedophelia, and betrayal.  You can read 15% of the novel for free.  I hope you like it. Click on Blood Brothers to go to the book’s page on Smashwords.

My second blog on dog rescue is a bittersweet story about Clark.

One cold, grey, drizzly January morning seven years ago, a wet, emaciated, rust colored dog approached me, apprehensively, with his head lowered, in the parking lot of my downtown Louisville office.  He was clearly starving, and he looked up into my eyes seeming to ask for help.  I said to him, “If you’re still hanging around when I get out of my meeting, I’ll help you out, buddy.  I promise.”

An hour and a half later, I walked back out in the parking lot, fully expecting him to have vanished, but there he sat, patiently waiting.   I coached him into my car with a leftover piece of some taffy-like Christmas candy I found in the door compartment.  He devoured the candy, licking his lips.  When I started the car, he began to tremble violently, and he climbed into my lap as I steered the car out of the parking lot.  I drove straight to my veterinarian.  On the way I called Glenn.  He immediately agreed that we would get this dog the treatment he needed and would then foster him and introduce him into our family that consisted of two Weimaraners, Hedda and Max, fifteen years old and ten years old, respectively, and a twelve year old cat we rescued named Lucky.

The City of Louisville had recently demolished Kentucky’s first public housing project built in 1939 called Clarksdale that was located just a few blocks from my office.  I realized as I saw all the horrible scars on this frightened creature that he was a pit bull—a pit bull that had been in some nasty fights.  Surmising that he must have been abandoned as Clarkdale was depopulated, I named him Clark.

Ten days later, neutered, fleas and lice gone, and a bad hernia on his stomach repaired, Clark arrived home from the vet.  We introduced him to the other dogs and cat and began a serious crate-training program with him.

Here is a photo of Clark when he first came home.  Notice how his right ear flops over.  The cartilage must have been torn in a brutal dogfight and the ear was permanently damaged.  Clark also had a chunk the size of a lima bean missing from the tip of his tongue—another cruel badge from his past.

Hedda clearly despised him, Max seemed to like him, and Lucky, clawless and blind in one eye, bit him in the face to establish the clear fact that the cat ruled the household.  I’ll never forget the first time Glenn and I took Clark with the other dogs to run freely behind the tennis courts at chauffeurs’ rest in Cherokee park. The little guy smelled the earth and ran with pure joy, jumping high into the air in mid-stride during his gallop.  My heart melted, and I was so glad we saved him from certain death at the dog pound.

Here is a photograph of Clark joyfully running at the tennis courts in Cherokee park.

Clark was probably the smartest dog I’ve ever had.  I only had to tell him once to do or not do something and he would understand.  It seemed as if we had found a special creature, a wonderful addition to our family.

And then one day, about a year later, after Clark had graduated from the crate, and was left alone in the den with the other dogs when we were out, we arrived home to find Max with bites all over his beautiful face, head, neck and ears.  It was clear Clark had bitten him badly.  Max was fine, wagging his tail, so glad to see us, but his puncture wounds were numerous and required a visit to the veterinarian and treatment with antibiotics.  We thought this incidence was just a fluke, but we were wrong.  It happened again a couple of months later, so back to the crate Clark went.

And then, to our horror, it began to happen even when we were supervising the dogs.  For no reason, Clark would violently attack Max.  We wondered why he never attacked Hedda, and then, one night, I witnessed the answer.

I had attended a dinner party at Jack Ruby’s Restaurant and brought home a large bone-in rib eye that I had barely eaten.  I split the meat with all the dogs and Lucky, but gave the bone to Hedda as a special treat because of her advanced age.  Clark tried to take the bone from Hedda, and to my amazement, she turned into something nearly as scary as Ridley Scott’s Alien.  Growling madly, she drew her lips back, completely revealing her formidable canines, opened her jaws, struck at Clark’s neck, grabbed him, picked him up, shook him violently, then threw him down.  Whimpering, Clark scurried away.  Hedda licked her lips, picked up her bone, and walked to her favorite chair to enjoy her bone.

Hedda, who had been my running companion for years and could easily accompany me on a fifteen mile run, was gradually losing the use of her hind legs and was clearly approaching the end of her life.

Here’s a photograph of Hedda and me running through the tunnel at Churchill Downs.  This was during a 15 kilometer Vencor race sometime during the mid-1990s, back when most local road races still let canines compete.  Hedda was the first canine finisher that day.  She was extremely competitive.  I had to keep her on a short lead because she would snap at any runners passing us.

The following April, it became clear to us that it was time for Hedda to go.  Glenn and I had to support her with a towel underneath her belly every time she had to go outside to relieve herself.  Her quality of life had deteriorated greatly, and she seemed to be losing her dignity.

We arranged for our veterinarian to euthanize her at home.  It was a beautiful, spring day.  Hedda spent the day on the back porch stretched out in her favorite chaise lounge.  Many of our friends came over throughout the day to say goodbye.  I had beautiful flower arrangements on the porch, and I played relaxing music on the stereo.  Hedda had been on morphine since the previous day and seemed at peace.  Clark paid particular attention to Hedda that day, remaining by her side.  To everyone’s amazement, when Dr. Gregg Hill tried to insert the needle into a vein in Hedda’s back leg, Clark used his nose to push the needle away.  This happened twice.  Finally, I had to hold Clark, as I watched, through curtains of tears, my baby girl, my first Weimaraner, peacefully pass.

Glenn and I really missed having the peculiar, sweet, sassy, headstrong attitude of a female Weimaraner, so we decided to get a female puppy from Richard Selby, DVM and Teresa Evans.  Little Sophie, an eight-week-old bundle of energy, arrived in September of that year.  Fearing that Clark would attack her, I kept Sophie tethered to my side when she and Clark were not in their crates.

To our amazement, Clark fell in love with Sophie.  Except for two small bites when she tried to eat his food, he was as gentle as a lamb with her.  Sophie adored Clark and was always by his side.  The two dogs played constantly, and even in play fighting, Clark was gentle.

You can see the bond between 12-week old Sophie and Clark in this photograph.

In the next two photographs, you can see the pair remaining bonded as Sophie grew.

I was determined to establish myself as the alpha ruler of the house, so much so that Clark would never dare cross me or harm Max again.  I enrolled Clark, Max, and little Sophie in an extensive and expensive canine boot camp run by a guy who trains police dogs.  After three weeks of this, there seemed to be a calming order established in our household.

And then, it happened again.  Glenn took all three dogs to the park and Clark viciously attacked Max, and we had to take Max to the emergency animal hospital.

We were devastated.  We didn’t know what to do.  I joined pit bull and bully breeds dog forums on the Internet, but, other than keeping Clark crated most of the time, I found little advice.  I purchased all of Cesar Milan’s videos and watched them over and over.  We tried to find someone experienced in bully breeds to take Clark, perhaps someone who didn’t have any other dogs.  We even put Clark on Prozac.

Days would pass and everything would be normal.  Here’s a photograph of Glenn reading in bed with the dogs, everyone so peaceful and calm.

And then, without warning, Clark would snap, transforming from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde, capable of inflicting mortal wounds.

The episodes begin to occur more frequently.  One day in my bedroom, I reprimanded Clark for snapping at Sophie.  His eyes glazed over, he started to growl, showing his fangs, and he lunged for me.  I separated myself from him with his metal crate, managed to open the door and get him in the crate.  He stood inside in a wild rage, striking at me through the crate.  Then, as suddenly as it came over him, it subsided.  He eyes were no longer glazed over, and he began wagging his tail, panting, wanting to come out to play.

I prayed for guidance.  I thought about having his canines removed.  I thought about having him put down.  I feared someone would secretly report him to our insurance company and we would lose coverage.  What if he attacked a child in our neighborhood?

I needed to get away.  I went to Atlanta to visit my dear friend Frances Eaves for a long weekend.  That Saturday, Glenn phoned me.  I could hear the distress in his voice, my heart raced.  He had all three dogs in the park and Clark attacked Max without warning.  Clark had locked his jaws onto Max’s throat and wouldn’t let go.  Glenn tried to separate them.  Clark let go, turned around, viciously attacking Glenn, biting into his right wrist several times, ripping open the tissue, exposing muscle and fat.

That was it for me.  Right then I knew Clark had to be put down.  I would do it when I returned home that Monday.  No longer would I be held hostage by something I loved so much.

Glenn’s arm looked terrible.  The doctors would not sew it up because of the puncture wounds.  I could barely look at it.  To my complete surprise, Glenn forbade me to have Clark euthanized—he was not ready to give up.  We had a heated argument, and I relented, determined to refocus my efforts to rehabilitate Clark.

Early one morning about four months later, right after the dogs had finished eating breakfast, Clark attacked Max in front of me.  Max was such a sweet dog, but he was twelve years old at this point and no match for Clark.  Clark bit into Max’s throat and Max let out what sounded to me to be a death wail.  I grabbed my biggest butcher knife, but I just couldn’t stab Clark, so I grabbed a heavy saucepan and slammed it into Clark’s spine as hard as I could.  The handle snapped off and Clark continued his death grip on Max.  Frantic, I grabbed Clark’s back legs and lifted him up.  He let go, and I dragged him, still firmly holding onto his hind legs, and shoved him into a crate.

I saved Max, but he was bitten badly.  As Glenn and I comforted Max, we looked at each other, and without saying a word, we knew what had to be done.  I called my friend and Sophie’s breeder, Teresa Evans.  Teresa told me she would take care of everything.

About ten o’clock that morning, I calmly took Clark out of his crate and put his leash on.  He was his gentle, happy self.  I walked him around the block and let him poop in our front yard.  I didn’t even bother to pick up the poop.  He loved to ride shotgun in my car.  I put on sunglasses with the darkest lenses I could find, put Clark in the front seat, and drove to Dr. Selby’s office.  Clark sat up straight the entire ride, smiling, looking out the window—the perfect little gentleman.  I cried the entire way, and I couldn’t even speak to Teresa as I gave Clark to her.  I did bend over, hugged him, and managed to tell him how much I loved him and that I was so very sorry I didn’t know how to help him.  Each time I walked Max and Sophie for the next two weeks, I looked at Clark’s final poop pile as it decomposed and shrank, while my grief grew and grew.

That was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.  Every time I think about it, I cry.  I take full responsibility for not having enough knowledge and skill to have rehabilitated Clark.  I truly regret that.  I do know I gave that little starving creature all the love that I had and three splendid years in a secure and comfortable home.

When I needed a pit bull character for my story line in Blood Brothers, I found my chance to create a life for Clark the way I wish it could have been.  In Blood Brothers, I portray all of Clark’s beautiful virtues, and he will live on forever in those pages.

I call this picture Happy Times.  It shows the way I prefer to remember Clark shown here basking in the summer sun with Max and Sophie.

My pit bull story is indeed a sad one.  I have nothing against pit bulls or any of the bully breeds.  The breeds are not bad.  But vile and ignorant owners who promote aggressive behavior in dogs for sport and monetary gain are bad.

When I think about the person or persons who took Clark as a little puppy, made him fight, and then abandoned him, I get so angry.  I realize this anger is wasteful negative energy.  Karma will catch up with those people.  In fact, I have a profound sense that it already has.

Rest in peace my dear little boy.

An indubitable truth I hold is that all living things have souls—the practice of yoga makes this clear to me.

Domesticated animals, especially ones humans keep as pets, have souls that seem to intertwine easily with human souls.  Some of my closest relationships have been with dogs.

I love purebred Weimaraners, and I have owned the breed for over twenty years.  Currently, I am president of the Weimaraner Club of Louisville.  I plan to own and promote the breed for the rest of my life.  There are so many wonderful things about this breed, but this blog is not about Weimaraners, specifically, it’s about rescuing dogs from the countless shelters in this country.

In the past fifteen years, my partner Glenn and I have rescued and given a forever home to two dogs, Clark and Ben, and a cat, Lucky.  Clark is a main character in my novel, Blood Brothers.  I would like to share these  rescue stories with you.  I’ll do it in three separate blogs beginning with our most recent rescue, Ben.

Glenn occasionally volunteers to drive a segment of a trip, usually about 70 miles, taking dogs from high kill shelters in the south to rescue organizations up north.  A wonderful group called Mobile Mutts organizes these trips by recruiting volunteers through the Internet.

One Saturday three years ago, Glenn volunteered to drive between Louisville and Seymour, Indiana.  He called me during the trip and said that he only had one dog and that it was a delightful male coonhound-beagle mix.  The dog, called Ben, just sat up in the front seat beside Glenn, staring at Glenn, wanting to be petted.

Ben was on the way to Wisconsin to Heavenly Hearts Rescue, a great organization that places homeless dogs with foster and forever homes.  Ben had been at the Bowling Green Warren County Humane Society for a while and was scheduled to be euthanized within a week because no one had adopted him.

We had just lost our thirteen-year-old Weimaraner, Max, about a month earlier to lung cancer.  Our one-year-old Weimaraner, Sophie, who had always had at least one other dog around the house, was having behavioral problems being alone.  Glenn and I had agreed to get another dog for Sophie.  Could Ben be the one?

Glenn phoned Heavenly Hearts on the way home after he exchanged Ben with another driver.  They told Glenn that Ben had already been placed.  I could tell when he arrived home that Glenn was really sad about Ben.

About a week later, Glenn received a call from Heavenly Hearts asking if he still wanted Ben.  Glenn called me and we both agreed that we would take him, provided Sophie got along with him.  It seems Ben’s forever home in Wisconsin had a chihuahua and the owners thought Ben was too big for the little dog.

The next Saturday we put Sophie in the car and drove up to Lafayette, Indiana, the half-way point between Louisville and Milwaukee.  We met Heavenly Hearts volunteer Stacey Balint Loebel, who had been fostering Ben in Wisconsin, in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.

I put Sophie on her lead and introduced her to Ben.  It was love at first sight—tails wagging, butt sniffing, muzzle licking—the two dogs bonded instantly.  Ben was a sight to behold, an incredibly beautiful black and rust dog, with striking rust colored irises, and black markings around his eyes like permanent eyeliner.

Here’s a photograph of Ben in the front seat as we drove home from Lafayette.

Here is a photograph of Ben showing his beautiful eye markings.

From day one, Ben has been nothing but a gentleman and a pleasure to have around.  Although I know he was someone’s hunting dog and he probably got lost on a coon hunt—he was found, lost and emaciated on a rural Warren County, Kentucky road—he was housebroken instantly.  He and Sophie are now inseparable.  Their favorite things to do are mole hunting and deer chasing in Cherokee park.   I try to discouraging the deer chasing, because I can not keep up with them, and I can only identify their whereabouts from Ben’s high pitched, frantic yapping.

Here is a shot of two happy dogs, Ben and Sophie.

It became clear to us why Ben’s Warren County owner probably didn’t care if he returned home or not—he’s gun shy.  During the first thunderstorm we had after Ben came to live with us, he scurried to the basement in terror.  Fourth of July fireworks leave him trembling and cowering.

Ben knows Glenn rescued him, and the two are closely connected.  Ben loves to ride in Glenn’s convertible, and Glenn takes him with him when he runs errands on Saturday mornings.

This photograph shows the two buddies:  Ben and Glenn.

When I look into Ben’s beautiful eyes I see his soul, I know he sees mine, and I know I am in the presence of a highly evolved spirit.

I love this photograph of a beautiful road extending up to the horizon, leading somewhere, most likely unknown by the majority of people viewing it.  I try to think of the rest of my life as a journey on a beautiful road.

I do not mean to romanticize my life: I know I’ll suffer losses, experience sickness, disappointment, even heartache and tragedy on the journey, but I’ll also experience many good and beautiful things.  I strive to keep moving in a positive direction, with concrete goals, trying to make my journey as meaningful as possible, which includes trying to stay on a beautiful road.

My hatha yoga practice is like a navigation system that directs my path.  Through daily practice of postures (asanas) and breathing techniques (pranayama), I have more success focusing my mind (cutting off the constant random noise and thoughts that are so distracting and often, annoying) and directing my thoughts to what I want to do and to where I want to go.

I was unsuccessful at meditating until after several years of practicing yoga.  Meditation is really the goal of yoga.  I like to describe it as the process of trying to connect myself back with the universe.  Only when I get close to such a state of calmness and oneness with the universe, do I truly feel safe, directed, and sure in my decisions.  Having the skill to do this is powerful.  This is what drives me to share yoga with others, and after, ten years of dedicated practice, it led me to obtain certification through The Barkan Method of Hot Yoga and to begin teaching at Heat Yoga and Wellness.

Hatha yoga (forceful yoga) suits me because I’ve always been athletic, and I like to work out.  Hot yoga simply adds another challenging dimension, but yoga does not have to be either forceful or hot to achieve healthful benefits and to achieve a meditative state.

My yoga practice is probably the main reason I remained focus enough over an eight year period to finish my novel, Blood Brothers.  It is also the main factor that gives me the courage to pursue the things I want most as I continue my journey.

I encourage everyone to try yoga.  If you live in Louisville, come by Heat Yoga and Wellness and take a class.  Yoga is one of the fastest growing leisure time activities today, and there are yoga studios everywhere.  There’s probably one near your home.

Thanks for reading.  Namaste