My dogs do that shake thing where their whole body shakes and rolls just like when they’re wet and are throwing off water. It looks like it would feel wonderful if we could do it, I imagine its equivalent to about an hour of yoga in a couple of seconds.
How do they do that? I suppose I could shake an arm or maybe a leg but no way my entire body. And is there some evolutionary reason that dogs have developed this ability? They are very predictable in that they will always do it after fully climbing out from under the covers.
All I know about the dog shake is that they start the shake with their head and finish with their tail. A good way to induce it is to wet the dog’s face.
You could probably do it if your skin was as loose as your dog’s. You may notice that you can pinch a little piece of your dog’s skin, and “move it around” quite a bit. Try that with your own skin, and you probably won’t get anywhere. If our skin was floppy and loose, I would think it would be a simple matter to shake enough to flop the skin around like that. The underlying physiology, though, is also different–human muscles are generally well-suited to applying great force, but are rather slow. I think dogs and other similar predators have more “fast-twitch” muscles well-suited for quickly changing directions, etc. That could explain why your dog may be able to shake his torso and rear end much faster than you could your own.