Are Our Furry Friends Ruining Our Posture?

    If you are anything like my family, the pets in your house run the show. We would do anything for them, including giving them a little nibble of your for now and then, spoiling them with toys, and contorting our bodies around our pets when it's time for a cuddle. 

    Pets make up a large part of our instrumental activities of daily living, and cuddling them is a significant activity, but are our pet cuddles affecting our posture?

    My parents are the prime example; we have three rather large dogs that demand the best seats in the house, leaving my mom and dad the role of adjusting around them. As a future OT, let's analyze my dogs' impact on my dad's posture in the picture below. 

    Now that we have analyzed his body positioning let's talk about his ability to be mobile from his current position. Because he is seated completely posteriorly on the couch with the footrests extended, I would classify this as a stable position; he would have to make several adjustments before being able to get up from his chair. He has a relatively large base of support even though his hips are uneven and one leg is up because of the contact with the chair in his back and gluteus region. To stand up from this position, he would have to lower his left leg and the footrest. He also would have to adduct both of his legs and flex his knees in front of him. To make standing up easier, he will also have to shift from sitting posteriorly in the chair to scooting towards an anterior edge. His upper extremities do not have a lot of room around the dogs to support him in these adjustments. Because of his awkward positioning, this posture places additional forces on the joints in his neck, spine, hips, and knees. Because of where the dogs are laying and the way he is curving around them, there are shear forces placed on his thoracic and lumbar spine, and the hip hike is causing rotation of the lumbar region of his spine. 

    Although my dad loves my dogs, I don't believe he can comfortably stay in this position for longer than 5 or 10 minutes without shifting to a more aligned posture with less shear force. While cuddling our dogs is an integral part of our daily occupations as pet owners, it is crucial to prioritize your posture when completing these activities. I would encourage my dad to prioritize his positioning first, with his hips even, spine straight, and legs extended on the leg rests or flexed on the floor for proper sitting posture. I would encourage the dogs to sit beside him instead of between his legs. Training your dogs to get off the couch when you sit or wait to jump on the sofa until signaled will help my parents prioritize their positioning. 

    It's important to consider our posture because remaining in this position for an extended time can lead to lower back pain due to the uneven pull of the muscles on the spine and shear forces placed on the lumbar and thoracic spine. Lower back pain can make participation in a variety of occupations extremely difficult.

Remember, your dogs will still cuddle you with good posture.