As the world went mad over Trump, I did the sanest thing I could – took my golden retriever for a doggy sound bath

Independent

02-03-2025

Look, I know how this sounds. You might be wondering if the poor woman is quite well, or whether someone should put in a call to NHS 111.
However, this being a week in which we have Trump's crackers AI video and his Oval Office blowout, I would argue that mine is the only sane response. (I suggested to my colleague John Rentoul that at some point in the news we all reach the stage of doggy sound baths. 'I'm not sure,' he said thoughtfully, 'although I have taken my son's dog to the groomers.')
This came about from my divine old neighbour Rosie, a vet whom I would quite happily follow into a fire. When she messaged about taking her jug (Jack Russell-pug cross, to me and you), Louis, to such an event at a pet shop in Battersea, I thought it the most dementedly camp thing I'd heard of in quite some time and immediately booked in my five-year-old golden retriever, Sybil, too.
I do enjoy a sound bath. They're very popular with the sobriety brigade, so I've been to quite a few. Charlotte Church has trained as a practitioner for her Welsh retreat, The Dreaming. Alison Hammond couldn't quite hold it together when Church did one on This Morning, and yes, on paper, they are absolute woo. Vibrations to heal your body and mind through music? Hmmm.
But music is healing – just ask anyone in a choir. And you can't argue with the execution. A sound bath has all the best bits of yoga – lying on a mat under a blanket – with none of the exercise: just a lovely lie-down that eases anxious feelings while someone plays gentle instruments at you. There's a huge one over in west Wimbledon filled with doughty women bringing goose-feather pillows, who need to be gently turned over when they start snoring.
Sybil and Louis are both rescues and, as neighbours, spent a lot of time shouting at each other through the fence, going, 'Who? Who's there!' like a pair of deaf colonels. Rosie and I have worked hard to help them each become balanced, happy pets and they get on well when they can see each other. We weren't worried about them being in a room with six other dogs.
A couple who liked sound baths had brought their little cockapoo. Two friends had come for a birthday treat with a panting pomeranian who looked like one of Studio Ghibli's soot sprites. There was another pom, named Gucci, whose owner said, rather shamefacedly: 'She came with the name – unfortunately, she suits it.' A lady and her cockapoo had travelled from Fulham (imagine there not being doggy sound baths in Fulham! West London is missing a trick from indulgent dog owners).
But once the initial giggles had receded, it was rather lovely. Making sure your dog is happy and comfortable means that any residual tension is one step removed. You focus on your dog's wellbeing. I also focused on Rosie's wellbeing by moving my mat further towards the wall to stop Sybil insistently thumping her with her paw to get her to stroke her ears.
My mind continued racing, as it always does, but the sound from the crystal bowls made me feel gloriously heavy: that distant feeling you get when coming round from a general anaesthetic. My thoughts whirled around until they became abstracts rather than pressing concerns. Sybil, who has never knowingly had a thought, clacked her chops agreeably.
There was a period in the autumn when I would live blog Strictly Come Dancing on Saturdays, and do the same for missile threats between Israel and Iran on a Tuesday. Whatever you do for work, the disconnection is significant if you engage with social media and 24-hour news, especially now when Terry Pratchett's Discworld curse, 'May you live in interesting times', appears to have cursed us all for several years.
There is the concern that you might rapidly become the embodiment of a headline from the US satirical site Reductress: ''Joy Is an Act of Resistance!' Says White Woman Who Engages in No Other Acts of Resistance'. An element of fiddling – or crystal bowling? Spooning your dog, certainly – while Rome burns. But goodness, as well as action, we need fun. We need silliness. Not in a bread-and-circuses way but in a 'remember why we're living' way.
All of this novelty wellness stuff, whether piglet yoga or baby raves, seems faintly deranged until you do it. Spending time with a loved one in a different way is wonderful. My husband would rather die than be within 500 yards of a crystal bowl, but Sybil took it in her stride, spreading out like a sheepskin Ikea rug while keeping one part of her glued to me at all times.
The dogs were fascinated and soothed by the sound. Even the panting soot sprite calmed down eventually. By the end, Louis was sitting at the front behind the crystal bowls, soaking up thanks as though he had been the one playing the music, and Sybil was curled up on my feet.
There is enough baffling stupidity occurring in politics. Remembering good, honest silliness is a joy that helps to anchor us in what it is to be human – and to be more dog.