Zoosomatics: Moving With Dogs and Other Animals Helps Us All

Marc and a youngster pretending to be dogs by performing a "bow" and inviting one another to play.

Source: Marc Bekoff

A few weeks ago, ethologist and dog trainer Marco Adda wrote to me about his new ideas of how to move and sense with other animals, a practice he calls zoosomatics. Marco has long been interested in dog-human relationships and how to improve them, and after reading through his brief note and outline, I asked if he could answer a few questions about this practice, one that will be of interest to a wide audience, including ethologists, comparative psychologists, therapists, and people interested in kinesiology and movement patterns. Marco agreed to do so, and here's what he had to say about his novel, forward-looking, and integrative ideas.

Marc Bekoff: What is zoosomatics?

Marco Adda: Zoosomatics is both a practice and a field of research that explores how humans can learn from other animals’ movement, perception, and presence. It is about awakening animal intelligence into the human body and awareness by observing, sensing, and moving with animal rhythms, somatic qualities, and ways of inhabiting space. It also invites us to learn—and engage with—the umwelt of species, their unique senses and ways of experiencing the world. In doing so, we can deepen empathy toward other beings while expanding our perception and rediscovering a more embodied connection with the world.

Theatre, martial arts, somatic practices, and anthropological backgrounds—among others—already carry those possibilities. Zoosomatics integrates these legacies with insights from ethology, philosophy, psychology, and related fields, while also generating new practices to study interspecies resonance, where meaning arises through embodied exploration, movement, ecological interaction, and shared presence. In this sense, zoosomatics is both a way of knowing and belonging. By reawakening our embodied kinship with other species, we can nurture empathy, embrace responsibility, and imagine more sustainable ways of coexisting.

MB: Why are you developing this area of research?

MA: Much of how we experience the world has been influenced by other animals. They have opened dimensions in our perception, shaped our imagination, and contributed to our evolution in many ways. Yet we struggle to recognize this contribution. Instead, we have distanced ourselves not only from other living beings but also from our own inner animality, cutting ourselves off from an essential dimension of experience.

Through zoosomatics, we can reestablish that connection—reintegrating the animal within us and allowing this awareness to reshape how we perceive, move, and relate. Integrating animality nurtures a deeper tie with ourselves and the environment, moving beyond a dualistic view of self and nature. Zoosomatics is a post-anthropocentric approach to restore continuity with the more-than-human world and dismantle the conception of human exceptionalism from within. This, I believe, is increasingly necessary today.

MB: How does it relate to zoosemiotics?

MA: Zoosemiotics examines animals’ signs, signals, and communication—how behaviors generate meaning within and across species. Zoosomatics integrates these foundations while adding an experiential, embodied dimension: It invites us to take elements of animal behavior into our own movement and perception. In this sense, it can be understood as a form of zoosemiotic participation. Rather than only decoding signs, zoosomatics asks us to inhabit rhythms, gestures, and modes of sensing the world that belong to other species. The two approaches, therefore, intertwine: Zoosemiotics offers an analytical framework of meaning, while zoosomatics provides the felt experience of connection. At their core lies a common recognition—that all meaning and understanding are relational, woven within the living network of beings.

MB: As a dog trainer, how can it be used to improve training or teaching? Are there other applications?

MA: If all dog trainers become more sensitive to how dogs think and feel—and help dog parents cultivate that same awareness—we are already in a far better place. Zoosomatics supports this shift by cultivating embodied empathy, encouraging us to sense the dog’s rhythms, emotions, and ways of inhabiting space. Training becomes less about control and more about a shared, responsive dialogue between human and dog.

Source: Yaroslav Shuraev/Pexels

One example is canine anthropology, a zoosomatic framework I began developing a few years ago with exciting results. In its Canine Participated Somatic Experiencing, a dog is included as a participant in somatic classes and is left free to act. Human participants learn by observing the dog and attuning their movements and perceptions to the animal’s presence and choices. There is much to be discovered when we allow a dog to teach us—ranging free dogs, in particular, are master teachers. This principle can also extend to other species, always within ethical guidelines that safeguard the well-being and agency of all animals involved, including humans.

Zoosomatics practice and research can occur indoors or outdoors, alone or in a community, with or without animal presence. It can be applied to many contexts, such as therapeutic settings, educational programs, performance, acting, counseling, wildlife observation and enrichment, human-animal interaction studies, ecological or conservation practices that enhance multispecies awareness and empathy, and beyond.

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MB: Why should ethologists and psychologists be interested in it?

MA: Zoosomatics is re-embodiment in action. Where ethologists and psychologists risk detachment, it brings the researcher’s body back into play—as a tool for insight. Ethologists gain sensitivity to the tiniest movements and rhythms; psychologists can trace shared patterns of emotion, play, and social connection across species. Even veterinary work benefits, restoring empathy to what can become purely mechanical. Science often sidelines personal experience for rigor, but the body is not interference; it’s knowledge. Zoosomatics deepens understanding, sharpens awareness, and grounds ethical responsibility. It’s challenging, but its rewards are profound.

MB: Is there anything else you would like readers to know?

MA: Incorporating animality into human movement is not an act of borrowing but a form of homecoming. With zoosomatics, animality is reformulated as an embodied technology that can redefine species identities. At its core lies a radical invitation: to see animals as teachers of perception, movement, and being. By integrating—or rediscovering—animal intelligence into our embodied experience, we grow empathy, creativity, and ecological awareness, while nurturing a deeper ethical responsibility toward all life.