Breaking the Tension Loop: Mindful Awareness for You and Your Dog

Discover how automatic stress responses create feedback loops between you and your dog. Learn how to shift nervous system patterns through a simple breathing practice, so grooming, walking, and everyday life feel better for both of you.   

Mentioned in this episode: An Akita Overcomes Hip and Knee Pain - and Changes His Behavior Too

Resources:

Grab your FREE video training to help your dog. 🐕 https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

Want to help your dog move more easily and feel their best—at any age? Join the waitlist for my upcoming program, Easier Movement, Happier Dogs, and be the first to know when doors open. Spaces are limited. 

Get Mary’s bestselling, award-winning book, “Grow Young with Your Dog,” for a super low price at: https://tinyurl.com/growyoungwithyourdog. Demonstration videos are included at no extra cost. ⬅️⬅️⬅️

All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and doesn't constitute medical or veterinary advice or professional training advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you, your horse, or your dog are unwell or injured.  Always use extreme caution when interacting with horses and dogs.

About the Host:

Mary Debono is a pioneer in animal and human wellness, blending her expertise as an international clinician, best-selling author, and certified Feldenkrais Method® practitioner. With over three decades of experience, Mary developed Debono Moves, a groundbreaking approach that enhances the performance, well-being, and partnership of animals and their humans.

Mary's innovative approach draws from the Feldenkrais Method®, tailored specifically for horse and dog enthusiasts.  Her methods have helped animals and humans:

• Improve athletic ability and performance
• Enhance confidence and reduce anxiety
• Reduce physical limitations and discomfort
• Deepen the human-animal bond

Mary's flagship online programs, "Move with Your Horse" and "Easier Movement, Happier Dogs," provide animal enthusiasts with an innovative approach that combines the concepts of Feldenkrais® with her signature hands-on work for horses and dogs. Through this transformative method, both people and their animal companions discover greater harmony, ease, and connection.

As a sought-after speaker and educator, Mary has impacted animal enthusiasts worldwide, guiding them to enhance their relationships with their animals through mindful movement and deeper body awareness. Her work empowers individuals to unlock new levels of understanding and communication with their beloved companions.

Transcript

Hello. Today I want to talk about something that shows up in everyday moments with your dog on walks. You know, when you're grooming, you know, brushing their coat, brushing their teeth, clipping their nails or, you know, someone comes to the door or whatever it happens to be. And it's something that affects both you and your dog. And what I'm talking about is, are those automatic responses, the ones that seem to show up before anything even happens?

Maybe your dog tenses at a certain point on the walk, or maybe when you go to pick up the nail grinder, right, your dremel, you notice your dog's breathing change or the look in their eye changes, or maybe they just get up and leave, right? And you haven't even turned it on yet. Now those are pretty obvious. Or, you know, they know you take out the shampoo and all that, and they know they're going for a bath, and maybe they don't like that.

Oftentimes they'll be like, nope, no, thank you, and they're out of there. Those are obvious responses, but there are many others that are just like subtle shifts, subtle changes in their breathing. Maybe the. They get a little worried around their eyes. You know, their. The position of their ear changes their tail. You know, there are so many little things that often go unnoticed, like, little. I say little because they're subtle cues, subtle to some people, but they actually signify a lot.

So they signify that the dog is responding to what it thinks is going to happen next. And a lot of times it's. It's just an automatic response because they've had it happen before. And so now their nervous system is like, expects that. Because your nervous system, your dog's nervous system, your nervous system, we're prediction machines. So we predict that a certain thing is going to happen, whether that's true or not, and we prepare for it, right?

We want to be prepared. So they're not random reactions, right? They're learned associations. It's like they're habit loops and they're built from past experience. So remember, you have them too. Now, this is really important to remember this. Okay, so let's. Let's say you're taking your dog on a walk, right? And maybe everything seems fine. Your dog is happy and relaxed. You seem relaxed. But then as you get to that corner where your dog once lunged at another dog or a bicyclist or something, your breathing changes, your shoulders start to tense up, right?

Maybe you tighten your hand on the leash a little bit, you might not even realize you're doing this, but your dog picks up on all of it. I often say how you move, how you breathe, and how you direct your attention are all felt by your dog. And. And they all shape your dog's interactions with you. So your dog feels your attention and then they respond with tension of their own.

So suddenly, what started as this really nice, relaxed walk has become this feedback loop, right? Like you brace, your dog reacts to that, you brace more because now you sense your dog's tension, and your dog then ups their reaction. And again, this. This cycle can be so subtle that you don't even realize it's happening until it reaches a certain level where it becomes super obvious. So this is where awareness comes in.

There are things we can do to become more aware of our physical and emotional states in ourselves and in our dogs. So this is something I teach in my Easier Movement Happier Dogs program. But let me share with you just a simple awareness practice that you can do with your dog today. Right? And it's not a. A technique to, quote, unquote, fix your dog. It's just. It's a practice to bring you both into the present moment with curiosity, not correction.

So you can do this before walk or really at any time during the day. So, and it's going to be especially helpful if, like, you know, you're going to do something that might be stressful to either one of you. Right. Whether it's a particular walk or going to the vet or, you know, maybe your dog isn't yet into the grooming. Now, I would. That said, don't do anything that's over threshold.

I mean, there's a whole. That's a whole other. More than even one episode of a podcast to talk about how to help your dog be more than okay to actually enjoy grooming, getting, getting their nails done, getting their teeth brushed, you know, going on walks, all those things. There's so much to that. But we're not getting into that now. We're just talking about. This is a really good practice to do to become more aware of how you and your dog feel at any particular moment.

Okay, so it starts by you being comfortable. Maybe you're sitting on the floor or you're sitting on the sofa, but you just start to notice your own breath. Don't try to correct yourself or change it. Right? It's just you noticing what you're doing automatically. Where do you feel your breath? Do you feel it in your chest? In your belly? Is it shallow? Is it smooth? Do you feel the sides of your ribcage expanding?

Do you feel the back, your back expanding with your breath. And now just let your exhale soften. Don't force anything. Just invite your exhalation to lengthen a little bit and let your shoulders soften. Let your jaw relax. Let your eyes be soft. Maybe they're closed. Again, your belly is soft. You're not tensing, right? Your hands are soft. Maybe they're resting on your lap. And now hopefully your dog is somewhere where you can sit right near your dog.

If your dog can be on the couch next to you or on the floor next to you, whatever, but you just put your hands gently on your dog's rib cage. If you have a very small dog, maybe one hand on the rib cage, one hand on the hindquarter area, and you just, you just breathe together. Just breathe together. Maybe they prefer the other hand on the, on the shoulder.

That's fine. Just have your hands in. Maybe only one hand. Maybe your dog is only comfortable with one hand on them. That's fine, too. Just do whatever is comfortable for you. Make sure you're not straining and like reaching for your dog, but just breathe together. Now feel your dog's breath under your hands. You're not trying to change it or somehow judge it. You just sense it. You sense it.

And you're not trying to sync up your breath with your dogs. You're just noticing, feel the warmth from your dog, feel the rhythm, the movement of their ribs, feel the connection between you and your dog. Now even just a few, you know, just a few short minutes like this can begin to shift how you and your dog feel. And again, you're building awareness, right? You're developing the skill of awareness and connection between you and your dog.

And why this is so important is that this is also then a feeling that you can draw upon when you do go into more stressful situations. So you can, like maybe as you approach that corner, right, that we mentioned before, maybe the corner where your dog lunged at something, and you know, you check in with yourself, are you breathing in this way? How soft and, you know, is your body, can you let go of unnecessary tension?

And then you can kind of, even without touching your dog physically, you kind of get a clearer sense of if they're carrying tension. And again, we're, we're going to do our best not to over face the dog or yourself for that matter, but you can start to access this. And the more, the more you do this, like if you do it daily, even twice a day, it only takes a few minutes, you start to kind of build a bank of this connection and this relaxed way of being together.

And that can help rewire or regulate your nervous system and help your dog learn how to regulate their nervous system more effectively. So it's something simple and extremely profound. Now what if your dog doesn't want you to have their, to have your hands on them like that? You know what I'm going to advise, I've done this with so many over the years, is you don't put your hands on them, then don't put your hands on them.

They're not ready for it yet. That's fine. So I would start with maybe they can be in the same room while you focus on yourself. Right. Maybe your hands are in your lap, maybe they're not even in the same room. That's also fine. And then as maybe crazy as this sounds, you could imagine that you're putting your hands on your dog. And then little by little, what often happens is that as your state changes, you can start getting closer to your dog, like physically closer.

And I remember doing this with a dog who was actually quite aggressive. I don't recommend you working with aggressive dogs or anything like that, but however, I was in this situation and long story, and, and I'll actually link to the blog post I wrote about this particular dog, this Akita named Bruno, because it was quite fascinating. But I, you know, he didn't like to be touched. His own people couldn't touch him, all this stuff.

But I ended up, you know, kind of facing away from him but letting my leg touch, touch him a little bit. Not on his ribs at that point, but just starting contact that way. So there's a lot of ways you can do this. I've also done things where I've worked with dogs with my hands literally behind my back. Because you know, facing a dog is a form of pressure.

Certainly hovering over a dog is a form of pressure. So you need to be mindful of all these things like how you're using your body because that will affect whether your dog is comfortable or not. So yeah, I'm thinking of one dog in particular particular and I talk about her in my book grow young with your dog where she was so anxious when she first came to me for some hands on sessions.

You know, I do the Debono Moves work to improve movement and well being and all kinds of things. And you know, I just, she was, she, she did lie on the mat, you know, she was there with her person who was a wonderful person, really good trainer, Positive reinforcement, of course. And I just put my hands behind me and started touching her that way. And little by little, I was able to turn my body little at a time until I could actually face her.

So. So be patient, Be patient with yourself, be patient with your dog. And, and just remember, this is a process. This is part of the journey of being with your dog. And again, if we can, when we access this state of a relaxed, heartfelt connection, we can draw upon it in other moments and again, help rewire our nervous systems and our dog's nervous systems. Because how we move, how we breathe, how we direct our attention are all felt by our dog.

And they all shape our interactions with our dog. So the more, you know, compassionately curious you can be, the better. So see, so as you go on your walk, or you start to do your grooming or whatever activity you're going to do, maybe a training session with your dog, see if you can carry this awareness with you and then start to notice. Ah, maybe you start to notice a little earlier.

Oh, yes, my body does tense up a little bit at that spot or, you know, my breathing changed or something else you might notice. So see how this works for you. And remember, the goal isn't perfection, right? It's awareness. It's awareness. So remember, when you start to notice the pattern, when you notice the habit, you have the power to shift it, right? Not by bracing and trying to correct, but by softening, by being present, by breathing together with your dog.

So maybe the next time before you go out in your walk or do whatever activity, like I said, you just pause, you breathe, you feel that heartfelt connection with your dog, and then you step into new possibilities together. So try this with your dog. Let me know how it works for you. I love hearing from you and I so appreciate you listening, reviewing and subscribing to the podcast.

Thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye for now.