Meridians, Canine-style

I’ve been allergic to dogs all my life. When I was a child, my parents euthanized Danny, the family’s Westhighland White terrier because his dander caused me to suffer severe asthma, and told me the poor little guy had “gone to a farm upstate”. Before they figured out the problem, we also had Mickey, a Toy Manchester terrier, and Digo, a Chihuahua who left no square inch of carpet untainted. Unable to bear life without a dog, my mother soon replaced Danny with a series of large, prolific shedders, German shepherds all—Christopher, Bacchus, Porthos and more—and I endured their presence by living on steroids and antibiotics and antihistamines, going from one life-threatening asthmatic episode to the next. Asthma medications today are rife with dangers and side effects, but they were even worse back then, so in terms of my health my childhood was not pretty.

Despite all that, I shared my mom’s love of dogs and as I got older and my immune system grew a bit stronger, I tried some of my own, including: the bullmastiffs Lendl and Marlys, Elias the apricot toy poodle, Rafaelo the rescued mutt, Shayla and Galen the whippets (Galen a jet black beauty), Yuki the English bull terrier, Iago the toy Mexican hairless (his tongue always hanging from his mouth for lack of teeth), Karpfinger the Chinese Crested, and my prized Chihuahua, Napoleon Bonesapart the Wimperor of France, who was stolen from my front yard but was also the king of my days and my constant companion even though I had to wash up every time I touched him.

I tolerate the hairless breeds a bit better than the shedders, and powder puff Chinese Crested dogs (the breed’s non-shedding, haired variety) best of all. I have a pair now, Wallace and Wanda. There are days when I’m so sick or depleted that playing with them raises welts and fills my sinuses and irritates my lungs, but tai chi practice has bolstered my immune system so strongly, (I even re-grew my excised tonsils) that most days we all get along just fine. Recently I noticed something very interesting while playing with Wallace, a growing puppy with an aggressive mouth. He is teaching me about acupuncture meridians!

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) asserts the existence of a life force called qi, which nourishes our skin, organs, extremities and viscera by flowing through channels the way water flows through a garden sprinkler system. “Watered” by qi our systems flourish, but when the flow is reduced or blocked our body parts or systems sicken. The notion of meridians is an old one and not confined to TCM. Indeed Otzi, the 5300-year-old “Ice Man” found frozen in the European Alps some years ago, bore tattoos all over his body marking the very same meridians. You can read more about Otzi here:

http://wilderdom.com/evolution/OtziIcemanAlpsPictures.htm

My Daoist practices (tai chi and qigong) enhance the flow and keep my “hoses” open. As a result I am more aware of the meridians than is the average Joe. Many of these pathways end in the hand. Whether it is because Wallace’s jaws are getting stronger or because of my skin’s sensitivity to the allergenic proteins in his saliva, when the little puppy nips me I can feel the channels even more strongly than I do upon the introduction of an acupuncture needle. When he attacks one spot, I feel it in my groin; when he grabs another, I feel it in the back of my neck; when he chews on yet another point I can feel it down my leg or in the small of my back or in my stomach or even in my lungs.

Then again, maybe it’s just those atomic teeth of his. . . .