Last week, I traveled down to Florida to celebrate my brother’s wedding.
An added bonus, it was also like a mini family reunion.
We shared laughs, oh my all the laughs and even planned a family trip in the coming year.
A highlight for me was my conversation with my Aunt about the dog training industry.
What she learned through her daughter’s (my cousin) experience working with me is that it isn’t teaching a dog to obey and operate like a robot.
My Aunt understood that living life with your dog is all about the relationship, the cooperation and the collaboration you do with your dog.
This understanding resonated with her so much because she values the heart centered connection of bringing family together and having strong ties with those she cares about including the dogs.
The dog-human relationship is the cornerstone of any skill building you want to do with your dog.
Without the connection, you won’t achieve the skills you want to teach your dog to offer.
At the heart of my work with those I serve, it all comes down to creating heart-centered and resilient relationships.
When you open to this new understanding and have an affinity in creating a life with your dog, I’m here to guide you.
I have one spot remaining in my Creating Resilient Relationships virtual workshop happening next week!
One of the greatest understandings I’ve gained in serving in the dog training and behavior industry is about the human-dog connection.
The emotional lives of ourselves and our dogs intersect at the relationship you enter into with your dog.
Dogs feel and they communicate those sensations and emotions through their body language and vocal expressions.
They don’t possess the words to describe those feelings.
They act on them.
The consequences of those actions then shape what they do again.
When you enter into a relationship with your dog, you may not be aware of how you feel or aware of how your feelings impact the choices you make in your life with work, family, friends and not just with your dog.
You are snapped into the here and now when your dog has an emotional eruption of barking, lunging and even growling and biting.
What you’ve been telling yourself is no longer working and you feel exposed.
Your fear of what others may think, what this says about you and what you tell yourself come flooding in.
Your body and mind are overcome with swirling thoughts and intense sensations running throughout your entire being.
You feel frozen in place.
You feel like running away.
You feel like mirroring your dog and exploding too.
Or you may feel timid, foolish or even dismissive of how serious the situation is with your dog leading you into blaming others, yourself or even your dog.
The beliefs you have about yourself keep you stuck.
Not only do these beliefs keep you swirling, you then these beliefs become the thoughts you tell yourself which bleed over into what words you describe yourself and your dog.
You tell yourself “you’re not good enough.” “You’re not smart enough.”
“You’re not enough.”
You then label your dog’s emotions as bad and irrational.
Which isn’t it just a reflection of what you’re already telling yourself?
Your thoughts lead to your actions.
Actions which are emotionally and even physically harmful to yourself and your dog.
When you deepen your awareness of how and what you feel and recognize you are not your feelings and you have a choice, the freedom that comes from flipping this switch can start shifting things in your life and in life with your dog.
Once you start opening your heart up to new possibilities with how you show up for yourself and see how it can be transformational in your relationship with your dog, you want everyone to experience the same!
For one of the women I serve, she shared how is now able to recognize when anger and frustration bubble up for her, she has the space to make a choice.
She chooses not to act on those feelings, but ask herself what’s really going on!
She recognizes the power she has to make different choices in her life which impacts herself, her dog Luna, but also sees how this can change other relationships in her life.
She wants everyone to experience this because sourced from her words, “life would be so much easier when we don’t blame others, but take ownership of ourselves.”
Maybe it’s time to see what’s really showing up for you and what you’re telling yourself about who you are.
If you desire to deepen your awareness of how your thoughts become your action and how this can impact your relationships with those around you, sign up for the Creating Resilient Relationship Workshop.
When you integrate the learning of how to apply modern dog behavior techniques, you’re able to draw on these skills and apply them into your day to day.
The knowledge becomes how you take action.
Hanna and her family continue to put the knowledge they gained into action even after 6 months of their program ending with me.
They value prioritizing Hanna’s emotional needs when they encourage her to experience new situations.
This choice of keeping Hanna safe and being the safe base she needs, she grows in her confidence and comfortability with how she perceives new situations like hanging out a Lowe’s with her family.
They took their time and allowed Hanna to guide them in their next steps.
On their first trip to Lowe’s in 6 months, Hanna made the choice to go in the first sliding glass doors, but then hesitated at the second set.
“Once we went outside, she saw another dog go in, Hanna turned around and walked through both doors and into the store. She walked through both doors and into the store. She walked around the garden center fine and went in the side doors into he store a few time, even through the active set of sliding doors.”
Hanna also is making the choice to go into a local pet store and is able to access her curiosity because she’s feeling more at ease with the situation.
“She will go into Mud Bay now and walk around the store. She will get on the scale there if we move it away from the wall.”
Hanna’s family recognized how they can modify the environment, so Hanna can be successful and see how to do this through the lens of understanding her emotional needs first and foremost.
If you’re desiring a connection with your dog where you also prioritize your dog’s wellbeing and his or her desire to experience trust, safety and love, you’ve come to the right place.
If you desire to understand how you can show up in your life with your dog that grounds you in how you can source your own solutions with what you want to achieve in life with your dog, register for the Creating Resilient Relationships workshop!
Four Paws & You Dog Training 