Ever notice your dog swallow during calming touch? 👀 In the right context, like gentle ear slides, when your dog feels safe, that swallow isn’t random. It’s the vagus nerve activating. 🧠✨ Here’s why that matters ⬇️ The vagus nerve connects the brain, throat, chest, and gut. Swallowing activates it, which helps shift the nervous system out of fight-or-flight and into rest-and-digest. In this case with Bree, it showed her body was downshifting into safety. ⚠️ Context matters: dogs can also swall