Your Pet’s Constitution

Questionnaire

Whether it’s your Kapha cat occasionally dealing with furballs or your Pitta pooch and his summertime hot spots, we can look at these patterns through the lens of Ayurveda to guide us in integrative pet care. Go through and circle which best represents your pet currently. Add the values in each column, and you have an insight into your pet’s tendencies or what areas may be out of balance:*

Physique lean, thin boned moderate build large boned

Body Weight low weight/lean moderate weight/size overweight

Eyes small, dark, active sharp, bright, red/yellow big, calm, beautiful

Coat Quality thin, dry, flaky, curly oily, warm, straight thick, cool, wavy

Nails dry, brittle, break easily sharp, flexible, pink thick, smooth, dark Belly thin, guarded moderate big, pot-bellied

Appetite varies, worries over food intense, guards food consistent, indifferent

Digestion gassy, bloating quick slow, sluggish

Water obsessed, seeks often moderate rarely seems thirsty

Bowel Activity constipation, inconsistent regular, loose or diarrhea thick, slow

Character hyperactive, restless impatient, competitive dull, slow, calm

Activity very active, high energy driven consistent steady, graceful

Stamina tires easily moderate good stamina

Sleep Patterns intermittent, sleepless light sleeper deep, heavy sleeper

Voice weak, hoarse strong, loud deep, even toned

Health Issues painful, anxious, depressed infections, inflammation weight/digestive issues

Temperature

Preference warm and humid; avoids cool/dry cool and dry; avoids warm/humid warm and dry; avoids cool/damp

Total in each:

*Questionnaires offer a snapshot into the life of your pet. Interpret with gentleness and curiosity rather than as an absolute, as pets can be affected by seasons, lunar events, weather of the day, or even the stress level of their pet parent!

Oh, sh*t.” I walked into the packed yoga shala, and a rainbow of yoga mats lined up edge to edge all the way up to the walls. I scanned the room for any spot in which I might wedge myself. I only saw an ocean of yogis from all over the globe that came, like I had, to practice under the tutelage of the father of Ashtanga yoga, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.

It was 4:50am. A fellow traveler the night before told me to make sure to, “arrive early, it fills up fast.” Apparently, ten minutes early was not early enough. Then, I saw two spots! One was in the front row, a little off the right, just in front of the platform from where Saraswathi, Pattabhi Jois’s daughter, would be teaching. The other was ON the platform itself, perpendicular to the rest of the class. I did not want to be in the front row on my first day, but I sure as heck wasn’t going to be on display up on that platform. I didn’t run, but I’ll use a good yoga term when I say, I walked with “intention.” With a slap-crack I unrolled my mat to stake my claim. I found child pose and took a few cleansing breaths, knowing this was exactly what I wanted and where I needed to be.