#174 - How to Calm Down a Hyper Dog

Y’all, we gotta give a little warning with this one, it may get a little spicy. To prep for this episode, we turned to the internet to see what advice pet parents are likely to find, and boy, oh, boy… We don’t even know how to end this sentence. 

In this episode, Emily and Tiffany are getting into why the things that come up when you search “How to calm down a hyper dog” aren’t bad, just… You know, overly simplistic, prescriptive management techniques that aren’t actually addressing the issue. We’re breaking down the small kernels of truth we can take away from this advice, why it isn’t working for you, and what it actually means to teach a lifelong skill, not shift the blame onto pet parents for not being “chill” enough. 

Calm isn't a personality trait. It's not breed destiny. It's a skill that can be built through repetition, in the right conditions, with the right feedback. We promise, and if you don’t believe us, you can ask our clients. 

TLDL (too long, didn’t listen): 3 Key Takeaways 

1️⃣ Down-regulation is a skill – Skills can be taught through repetition, in the right conditions, with the right feedback.

2️⃣ Rest and relaxation aren't the same thing – A dog can rest while totally wound up, and be completely relaxed while wide awake. Conflating the two sends us chasing the wrong metric. 

3️⃣ It’s not wrong, just incomplete – There’s a kernel of truth in the common advice, but there’s also a lot missing. If it hasn’t worked, it doesn’t mean it won’t; it means we need to tweak.

For the full episode show notes, including the resources mentioned in this episode, go here.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Emily: calm is not something that your dog either does or does not possess. It is a skill, and like any skill, it can be taught. And the reason the tips on the internet haven't worked isn't because you failed, or your dog is broken, or your dog is just again, salsa air quotes, the sarcasm's coming out, does not mean that your dog is just a high-drive dog The reason the tips haven't worked is because they are simplistic, prescriptive pieces of a much larger puzzle of teaching your dog how to move through physiological stages of existence.

[00:00:47] Allie: Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:00:57] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:00:58] Allie: ...and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let's get started.

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:01:18] Emily: It is rough pumpkins when your dog's energy level is a mismatch with your own. If you've been working really long hours at work and/or running around with the kids all day, if you're dealing with a chronic illness flare-up or, okay, let's just be real, sometimes you're just tired at the end of the day, right?

And your dog is like, "It is go time. Let's do this. Let's do things together," then this episode is for you because this is a, this is a thing that I definitely have experienced personally. Tiffany, you said that Petey is a, is a pretty low energy dude, but nevertheless, are there, do you have times where even the little bit that he's asking for, you're like, "It's too much. I can't do it"?

[00:02:06] Tiffany: Yeah, especially if it involves him just, like, breathing hot air onto my leg. That's my least favorite.

[00:02:13] Emily: You're like, "I don't have energy for this, my

man. 

[00:02:16] Tiffany: I am overstimulated

[00:02:18] Emily: when we were preparing for this episode, we went to Google. And by we, I mean Ellen, because let's be real, Ellen is the one, the systematic one of us. And she was like, "Why don't we look at what people are, are looking for?" and Ellen found how to h- calm down a hyper dog was like a cesspool of bad information.

The, like, the recommendations, there were some real doozies in there. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about some of the common recommendations and why we see them fail for our clients over and over and over again.

And by the end of this episode, you'll understand why we're so adamant that calm and relaxation are two different things, but they're both something that we teach because the answer is not just exhaust the dog into oblivion. That's, that's not it. I'm not gonna lie. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be a little spicy in this one, and a little salty.

Salsa will be made today. Tiffany, you are welcome to, to be the sweet to my salsa, or you are equally welcome to just add your salsa into my salsa, but I've got some feelings about this episode.

[00:03:32] Tiffany: I, I have no feelings

[00:03:34] Emily: At all, ever in any context?

[00:03:36] Tiffany: Nope

[00:03:37] Emily: You just exist as an emotionless robot

[00:03:39] Tiffany: That's right

[00:03:40] Emily: Yeah, that sounds believable. All right. So first let's talk about the, the context or the problem. Here's the list of things that the internet said. All of which, by the way, I... Okay, I'm gonna add a little bit of sugar to my salsa because all of them, there is a kernel of truth in each one of them, but on their own as a magic fix-it-all solution, just no, okay?

But here's the, here's the list of what the internet said. More exercise, puzzle feeders and mental stimulation, ignore the behavior, ignore your dog's physiological needs, it'll be fine. Be the calm energy in the room

[00:04:25] Tiffany: Whatever that means

[00:04:26] Emily: I mean, I could probably operationalize that. And again, there's a kernel of truth in all of these, and still just no, friends. No. And then teach basic manners. I, I'm using the q- air quotes around that 'cause I don't necessarily think these are basic manners, and I don't think most dogs need them. But anyway teach sit, stay, place, leave it, wait, that kind of stuff. Play classical music,

[00:04:52] Tiffany: What if your dog doesn't like classical music?

[00:04:55] Emily: Right, right, right. I mean, again, kernel of truth in all of these.

But as standalone recommendations, ouch. Ouchie, friends. Ouchie. Okay. So 'cause the thing is, like, like we've said, these aren't wrong, or at least they're not, they're n- they're not entirely wrong. There is a kernel of truth to all of them, but they're both super incomplete and totally ignoring what the dog actually needs and what the dog is communicating to you.

So we're ignoring the dog and trying to come up with solutions for the dog, and we're just throwing simplistic, prescriptive solutions at the wall and assuming that it's gonna work, and friends, it never works for our clients. That's... It doesn't. Or it works temporarily and then breaks down for very predictable reasons.

Have you encountered any of these in the wild, Tiffany?

[00:05:51] Tiffany: I mean, definitely the communication piece where the dog is just like, "I need you to be involved in whatever this thing is that I need you to be involved with right now." And you know, my client just doesn't have, doesn't have whatever that is right now.

[00:06:13] Emily: Right, right. They're asking for something that you just cannot provide

[00:06:17] Tiffany: Yeah, a- and also you don't have a good clue of what that thing might be

[00:06:22] Emily: let's, let's break these down and talk more about each of them.

First of all, let's reframe the whole entire conversation. We can't just expect a dog to just know how to sit or heel or whatever other skills people teach dogs. We teach those skills, right? Relaxation, down regulation, calm engagement, those three things are different things, and also there's a lot of overlap between them.

But all of those are also skills that we have to teach. It is... L- I think a lot of people think that because it's a physiological event, it can't be taught, but your body absolutely can learn physiological shifts. Physiological shifts, it is possible and . I would say necessary to teach those things. So when we have a dog who's all jacked up on Mountain Dew, these are learned physiological and behavioral states, not either/or. Both are happening at the same time. It's not a personality trait. It's not breed specific traits. I'm using heavy air quotes here. If air quotes could be sarcastic, my air quotes just were. It's not a byproduct of enough exercise. It is learned physiological and behavioral states. So when we're talking about skills- And teaching skills, we have to remember that all skills are built through repetition in the right conditions and with the right feedback. And some of that feedback is inserted by us in an attempt to help our learners learn things. And some of it is happening regardless of us. Some of it is happening inside their bodies, like relief happens inside their bodies. We're not giving them relief. They are just experiencing it.

Some of them are happening in the environment. If we teach them to walk away from a stressful situation and they move into a calmer environment, the environment is part of that process for them. But feedback is happening even for physiological states, not just overt behaviors, actions, Actions aren't the only things that can be influenced through antecedents and consequences through how we arrange the environment and what the learner gets as a result of doing the thing.

So when we're talking about relaxation, what that means is we need to create a predictable environment, we need to facilitate a body that has practiced down-regulating, and we know what the stages of down-regulation look like for that individual.

We call that ladders of de-escalation. We need to know what that ladder of de-escalation looks like for the individual, and we need to have a dog who has learned that stillness is both safe and rewarding

[00:09:42] Tiffany: Yeah. I mean, if you're having a hard time, say you're anxious, and somebody's like, "You should try yoga," yeah, sure, I should try yoga, and then you go to a yoga class, and it makes you feel like a maniac because you don't know kind of what to expect or look for in your, your own body. How helpful was that?

But if you are familiar with y- your own ladder of de-escalation and how that feels and what influences that, then you might know to stay away from, I don't know, some random bind pose that you can't breathe in or something.

[00:10:30] Emily: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a beautiful analogy. And you being a f- a current yoga teacher and me being a former yoga teacher, I, I, I experienced this so many times with humans who were in a class that was several approximations farther down their shaping journey than they actually were. And the... It felt overwhelming, it felt embarrassing, it felt hard.

I- the opposite of relaxing. And then those people were like, "Well, yoga doesn't work for me." And it's like, that might be true. Yoga's not for everybody. And also, is it that yoga didn't work for you, or did you jump into a fifth grade class when you're in yoga kindergarten, right? And that n- I'm not blaming the learner.

Like, I think that yoga studios should do a better job of indicating what level of difficulty these classes are so that people know which ones to go to, right? But learning in a safe place the skills to practice yoga then allows you to use yoga as a way to down-regulate. But if you just say, "Yoga will down-regulate you.

Yoga will relieve your anxiety," that's not true. Like, it's, in, in many contexts that's going to be patently false because it's going to elicit the opposite physiological trend that we're away from what we're, we're trying to achieve. Beautiful analogy, Tiffany. Love that

So why do some dogs seem naturally calm, I say in air quotes? There is a little, Kernel there is a little bit of truth. There are some breeds that have been selectively bred to be lower energy. Also, there are many members of that breed who did not get the memo, or they're, like, in their puppy and adolescent phase, and so they're still gonna be all jacked up on Mountain Dew because of the developmental period they're in.

There are some mixed breed dogs, or just casually bred dogs who don't have a lot of selective breeding pressures informing their nervous system, who just have a lower key nervous system, right?

[00:12:49] Tiffany: Yeah. I, I know of some Newfoundlands that do agility Like the lady has a sticker on her car that says like, "Newfie agility."

I talked to her about it. She's like, "They're not all made for it." I'm like, "I didn't know any of them were made for it

[00:13:04] Emily: I mean, okay, this is, this is a tangent away from the main point of this, but I need to give a shout-out to dogility because I don't think it's talked about nearly enough. But dogility is basically a slow-mo version of agility for dog bodies that can't handle regular agility. And it is so... It can, it...

Not, okay, I'm not gonna say it is because that's prescriptive, but it can be so good for some of our, like, lower energy friends because it's giving them the movement and the balance, the core work, all of the beautiful advantages, and plus, you know, the mental challenge of learning how to do all these kind of complex obstacles.

But it is so cute to watch a 

Saint Bernard. It's delightful. If you've never watched a dogility video, go out and watch it because I had the privilege of seeing, when I was in Utah, a Saint Bernard doing dogility and, like, lumbering. Like, just, like, super slow, casual, lumbering through the weave poles, sauntering over these, like, low set, oh my God, I'm blanking on the word. Not Catalina. The, the little bars.

Cavaletti. Thank you. My brain just straight took a union break.

Just sauntering over the cavalettis. He went through the tube and, like, I was like, "Did he stop and just lay down in there?" It took him so long to get through the tunnel because he was just taking his time, but he got all the benefit.

I mean, he didn't get the cardiovascular exercise probably, I don't know. But, like, he got so much benefit from doing that at a pace that actually worked for his body.

[00:14:59] Tiffany: Isn't the point to have fun?

[00:15:01] Emily: The point is to have fun, to learn new things, to navigate obstacles in a way that moves your body and gets your core activated, and he did all of that.

It was great. Okay, back on track. Thank you for letting me take my little tangent to love on dogility. So yes, it is true that some dogs are lower energy, and also even the dogs that are lower energy, they still have had practice and predictable environments and lower baseline arousal- Because of their learning history.

So yes, genetics are always a part of the equation. In every situation, genetics are there because all of the influences are happening at the same time. They don't exist in these, like, cute little vacuums that we create in our heads, right? But it's not just genetics because nothing is just genetics

[00:16:02] Tiffany: Throw that low energy basset hound into a pit of screaming children and

[00:16:08] Emily: I mean, I think people forgot what basset hounds were meant to do because my dad's from East Texas and um, his cousin had beagles, but a lot of the people that they would hunt with had basset hounds. And when those dogs know that they're about to go hunt They're a lot. They're extra. I, I, th- basset hounds can be extra.

[00:16:29] Tiffany: Laps are flying

[00:16:31] Emily: Let's not forget that they are hounds, friends. So yeah, it, it's not just luck that somebody has a dog who's, quote-unquote, "naturally calm." It can be accidental. I think a lot of people create calming environments for their dogs without knowing they're doing it because they've done that for themselves, and their dogs are also learning from that environment.

So I'm not saying that the people who have naturally calm dogs knew what they were doing, but they have done something about at least environmental arrangement, if not also how they're interacting with their dogs, that has facilitated the dog learning those skills. So remember that genetics gives us a predisposition towards something, but learning is what takes that and runs with it.

[00:17:22] Tiffany: Or doesn't run with

[00:17:23] Emily: Or doesn't run with it. Yeah. And also, I'm aware that what I just said is an oversimplification, but I think it helps people to remember that there aren't any behaviors that are attached to a single gene, and it's like if you have this gene, therefore you're gonna do this behavior. It's the... Okay, I'm not an all-the-way fan of Stephen Lindsay, but I think one of the most brilliant things that he said that I have utilized is that the genetics is like the biological substrate that learned behaviors grow in.

So I think that's a good way to think about it. All right, moving on. The flip side of that is that hi- this belief that high energy breeds can't be calm, it comes, stems from the same myth as dogs, some dogs are naturally calm, right?

Energy level and the capacity for re- relaxation and the skill to down regulate, those are not the same things. Those are all different things. So a, quote-unquote, "high drive dog," I take issue with the word drive, but that's not the point of today's episode. But a- again, in quotes, "A high drive dog absolutely can learn to down regulate and settle.

They just need more deliberate practice, not more exercise." Okay, so we have discussed this at, in some, to some degree way earlier on in the podcast back in the day. Deep Cuts, episode 29 was about breed typical enrichment. Episode 39 was a Q&A. We get a, we used to get a lot of questions about enrichment for herding dogs. And episode 60, an interview with a dear friend of Pet Harmony's, Kalyn Hall.

They work with both sled dogs and reindeer, so we got to talk about myths surrounding sled dogs and how much energy or how much exercise they actually need, 'cause spoiler alert, it's not as much as the internet tells you.

[00:19:25] Tiffany: We gonna pull them sleds

[00:19:27] Emily: they gotta pull them sleds, but they, they're not running eight hours a day all the time year-round for their whole lives, friends. That's a spoiler alert for that episode, but I still think you should listen to it because Kalyn had some really cool stuff to say about it So, let's talk about how to shift from how do I stop this, a- and by this we mean bouncing off the walls, super extra high octane chaos, to what am I actually building towards?

If you can make that mental shift, that perspective shift, sh- the shift in your goals from how do I stop this chaos to what am I building towards, what behaviors am I creating, sh- it will completely change how you interact with your dog

[00:20:19] Tiffany: Then it might also help you with, what am I actually looking at?

What is actually happening here? 

What is the unmet need

[00:20:27] Emily: Not just unmet needs, but what is this animal communicating to me? What are they saying, right? Which usually they're communicating their unmet needs, but yeah, beautiful. So what happens as a part of this shift is instead of either introducing a bunch of restrictions or just turning your dog into an Olympic athlete by just giving them increasing amounts of exercise,

run for eight hours straight, you don't get off this treadmill until you drop.

No pain, no gain.

Instead of that, you start building lifelong skills

So a part of that is learning how to capture what they're already doing, and I think that is a powerful, quick win that we can give to clients. I mean, it might not always be a quick win. Sometimes we really have to work to teach clients how to see what they're looking at. But in my experience, a lot of times it can be a really quick win to ask people to think about the last time their jo- their dog was genuinely, like, voluntarily calm or relaxed, not collapsing after a long hike, or being at dog daycare, or running on a treadmill, not when they're medicated, not when they're in a crate and physically can't bounce around, but when they, of their own volition, are going somewhere to either do something with a low energy level...

Oh, yeah, I guess we should define the difference between calm and relaxed maybe, 

right? 

Well, now that I'm, I'm realizing that, I'm realizing that the thing that people often confuse isn't calm and relaxation, it's rest and relaxation. That's the difference. A lot of people think that in order to be calm or relaxed, they have to be resting, and that's not the case. Rest is its own thing, and it is obviously most of the time when we're resting, we are relaxed.

Although if you have ever seen a dog who's really anxious sleep in a tightly curled up ball and every time there's a sound, their ears are twitching, even rest cannot be relaxed. You can have uncalm rest. So most of the time when they're resting, they're relaxed, but they don't have to b- be resting to be relaxed.

They can be cold chilling on the sofa, fully alert, looking out the window, watching the world go by, and they are relaxed. They're just not resting. That, I think, is a really important mindset shift because a lot of people, even behavior professionals, conflate rest and relaxation, and they think in order to get relaxation, they, they need to see the dog resting, and that's, those are two different things, right? 

[00:23:21] Tiffany: Petey is the king of like Um, resting but not relaxing. So I think the first time I was on the podcast, I talked about him having a Drac attack, where, like, he curls up in a really tight ball, and any time you move past him, his, you know, his, his nose is kinda tucked under his arm and his eyeballs are just, like, following you.

Or like you said, his ears are twitching at, like, any, any little movement or sound. But he can be staring out the window, you know, using his senses. I can see that he's sniffing. He's, like, processing probably a lot more information than I am aware of just sniffing out the window. And he's, he's relaxed, but he's alert

[00:24:11] Emily: And I think, just to not... I wanna m- be clear, like I'm not trying to freak people out. If a dog is curled up and resting, that doesn't mean that they're not relaxed. What I'm looking for is like the tight curl where their muscles are activated. For a lot of dogs, curling up to go to sleep is yet another w- rung on the ladder of de-escalation.

So like Miley's a good example of this. She wants to be my little spoon. Every night, we call her Bree incarnated because she, from the first day she came home, she did exactly what Bree did, used to do, which is she'll wait by my pillow for me to lift the blanket. She'll crawl under the blanket and curl up by my tummy, and that's how we fall asleep together.

But then once she is like ready to like deeply sleep, she will stretch out long and then completely line up with my ribcage and my hips and sometimes my thigh. So she gets long when she's like all the way deeply asleep. So it's not that her curling up at the beginning of her sleep phase means that she's not relaxed.

It's, it's a part of the down regulation process, right? It's a, it's a stage of sleep. But when they're really tightly curled up and their muscles are activated, and sometimes they're even like, the muscles are even like trembling a little bit, that's what I mean when I say that they can be resting and not relaxed, 

[00:25:47] Tiffany: That's where observation comes in too, right? Because, like, with, with Petey it's seasonal, so he curls up into a cute little cookies and cream donut when it's colder outside, because I don't keep my heat cranked in the winter. Put, like, curl up or put on some more clothes, y'all. But, like, he slept with me last night 'cause big man was out of town, and it's, it was warm, very warm.

I should have had the air on. Anyway, had the window open, and he just, like, like, sprawled out

[00:26:22] Emily: I, I just felt like it was important to differentiate between rest and relaxation so that everybody knows what we're talking about. But to bring this back to capturing what the dogs naturally do when, when people learn... Whoever is the guardian of that dog, right, whether it's the people who purchased or adopted the dog, or it's a boarding facility or foster care, or whoever is working with this animal what we're looking for is moments when they, of their own volition, are down-regulating and either doing s- a cold chillin' activity or resting an- in a relaxed way When we are able to see that, when we can notice that the dog is doing that, that moment is data.

It's good information. It tells you something about what that dog needs in order to access that state. What is the time of day? What activities preceded this? Where is the dog, in the house or in the yard or wherever wherever you see the dog doing this, what is, does the environment look like? What are the conditions of the environment?

If you can notice location, time of day, distant antecedents is the fancy word for it, but all of the activities of the day leading up to this moment, it can give you really good information about how to teach the dog to down-regulate in other contexts. You can take what they're already doing, capture that behavior, and generalize it to other contexts so how do we do this? Step one, stop trying to tire them out as your primary strategy. Exercise is a fundamental part of meeting an animal's needs and providing enrichment and all of that stuff. But if it's your only tool, you're just building an Olympic athlete who needs way more exercise than you can and should be giving them.

Like, it is... Exercising your dog should not be a full-time job,

[00:28:36] Tiffany: What is it? If your only tool is a hammer, everything needs 

hammering 

[00:28:41] Emily: Yeah, e- everything looks like a nailer. Yeah, everything needs hammering. Yeah. Exercise is the hammer in our toolbox. We have other tools in the toolbox, friends. And also, also, the outcome of exercising a dog into oblivion is exhaustion, not rest. And exhaustion, in and of itself, can be stressful.

So it's, just because it makes the dog stop moving doesn't mean it's actually achieving your goal of getting your dog to relax. And you're gonna need more and more exercise to get them to that point of exhaustion, and you just don't... That's not a cycle you wanna be in, friends, right? So we're shifting the goal from getting the dog exhausted to practicing settling so they become proficient at settling, down-regulating.

Shillin

Step two, create one intentional calm window daily. Not a training session with criteria and rewards necessarily. I don't think... That is, in my experience, is not even necessarily the easiest way to accomplish this. Just 10 to 15 minutes where the environment is low stimulation, your dog has a comfortable spot, and nothing is being asked of them.

You're not making them relax, you're just giving them the conditions to practice it. And I'm just gonna tell you now, a lot of people are like, "Well, I tried that, and my dog just bounced off the walls." I believe you. Also, it takes repetition. I- if you try it a couple times and your dog's bouncing off the walls, y- maybe didn't try it long enough.

[00:30:12] Tiffany: Or-

at the right time of day

[00:30:14] Emily: Or, right, or you're asking them, you're asking a crepuscular species to calm down during dawn or dusk, like the, the peak activity times for them. Or you're asking them to do it when they have some unmet needs. Miley gets amped when she's thirsty, and I could not... I would never be able to get her to relax if she's like, "I'm thirsty," and I'm like, "No, baby, it's nap time."

Like, that just wouldn't work. I get her w- water, she drinks water, and then she can come back and relax,

[00:30:48] Tiffany: Yeah. I mean, if it's many degrees below zero in the middle of winter and we haven't been outside to do sniffy, you know, looking around time in three days and I've got a Zoom meeting and I want Petey to settle and, like, look out the window and chill, seeing a leaf blow around on the snow might, like, "Oh, that's movement," and it might set him off.

Whereas, like, if his, if his needs had been met and it wasn't a million degrees below zero and we had been out and about a couple of times, looking out the window and seeing a leaf blow around is just chilling

[00:31:33] Emily: And I will say that, like, this is where the kernel of truth about classical music comes in, is that part of creating a low stimulation environment can be doing a sound preference test to figure out what sounds actually facilitate relaxation for your dog. And sometimes it is classical music, sometimes it isn't.

I've done sound preference tests with dogs where they like nature sounds, they like jazz, they like reggae. I've had a, a dog who relaxed to the sound of, like, wind chimes. I'm trying to think of all the different things, but the thing is there's so many of them, I c- just can't remember. Like, oh Tibetan singing bowls.

One, one of my client's dogs really... Like, like, you'd turn it on and their eyes would just get droopy. Like, there's something about it that was like, like opium. I don't know. I don't know. It was like a sedative for this dog. It was pretty cute

[00:32:35] Tiffany: Yeah, and you know, PD and I have practiced like that, that's one of the things I added in with, you know, long-term calming projects, being in a safe space is ' 80s new wave. And so now it's like the, the music goes on, it's time, it's time to chill. It also indicates like this is, this is what we're doing right now

[00:32:56] Emily: Yeah, yeah. This is also a step where the, like, your own calm energy thing, th- this is the other kind of kernel of truth because I created this what I called transpecies meditation protocol for some friends of mine who are scared of science. But all of them had dogs who were hyper-aroused, and they had a hard time settling.

And so I basically told them, I gave them instructions for how to create a spa-like environment that was soothing for them and their dog, and that include lowering the lights, doing a scent and sound preference test to figure out what scents and sounds were calming for both them and their dog finding a space that was comfortable for both them and their dog.

What kind of substrate does the dog like to relax on? If it's linoleum, then you're not going to get this dog to relax by giving them a warm, fluffy bed, 'cause they don't want a warm, fluffy bed.

They want a cold, a cool, smooth surface, right? So, then once we, we do all of that, I would have the people sit with their dogs and take deep, slow, even breathing. We would practice box breathing. I would have them put their hands on their dogs and just keep their hands still, and I would instruct them to melt their hands into their dog so that they could feel the dog's muscle tension, the, the breathing, the pace of breathing.

Feel the warmth, feel any kind of twitches or m- movement or anything like that. And over time, we could move our hands more. The goal wasn't massage, the goal was mindfulness, calm, connection. And they were like, "This is magical. How... My dog is relaxing for the first time ever." So yes, if you are amped up and expecting your dog to be calm, it's probably not gonna go over well.

So yes, m- also being calm is an important part of, or it c- it can often be an important part of that process. But again, you just having calm energy isn't going to teach your dog how to down-regulate. That's not how any of this works, friends, right? It, it has to be in this context of creating a low stimulation, safe, soothing environment that facilitates the dog's down-regulation, right?

[00:35:26] Tiffany: One of my favorite things in the world is that Petey will mirror me taking a deep breath if, like, we're having a snooze. I love it. It's so cute

[00:35:35] Emily: Yeah, it's darling. Miley does that too. When I take a deep breath, she'll take a deep breath when we're in, like, when we're spooning.

[00:35:42] Tiffany: Petey's not a spooner, but he'll take a deep breath and it's cute

[00:35:46] Emily: I am just so grateful for my little reincarnated puppy. She's, she's just the best. All right, back on track. Step three, notice and mark voluntary calm. When your dog chooses to lie down, breathe slowly, or disengages from stimulation on their own, pay attention to that. Notice it. You can gently mark it with a quiet yes, or a soft treat, or a soothing little pet, or something like that. Or you can simply let it happen without disruption. I would say don't make that decision for yourself. Try both and see which one your dog responds better to. 

[00:36:29] Tiffany: Yeah. 'Cause if they're getting up, like, and staring at you like, "Oh my God, you have food?" That's not the one

[00:36:35] Emily: That's not the one. Or if you try to pet them and they're like, "Oh my God, yay, I'm getting scratches." It's like, and then aw, womp womp. But I have seen some dogs who genuinely, like, if you speak soothingly and you put your hands on them... Again, just gave you the example of transspecies meditation. But it, it can facilitate for some dogs.

You just have to pay attention to what actually helps your dog without disrupting their, their relaxed time. And what happens when you do that is you are building a history of calm, of feeling safe, and you're making it unremarkable. It's just a part of your daily routine. This is just, we go up in our ladder of escalation, and then we come back down again. That's just what you do. You normalize it for your doggo. And this is a skill that we at Pet Harmony help families with every day. Like, literally every day.

[00:37:36] Tiffany: I'm working with somebody right now

[00:37:38] Emily: Almost every client. Because whether they're hiring us because their pet has excessive energy or they get into the trash or they can't settle or they're really stressed all the time, and st- this, their stress is causing behaviors that we don't really wanna see, teaching them how to relax is a core foundational skill.

That to me is what I consider a basic skill. Not sit, down, stay, heel. I mean, recall is another foundational skill. Okay, I'll give you that one. Recall is one of the only basic manners that I think is actually useful for, for all dogs. But I think that this is a basic life skill that every dog needs, and our team, our, our mission is to help all of our clients do this, clients and students, 'cause we help our folks in Pet Pro teach their clients how to do it as well.

[00:38:32] Tiffany: And it's not always a relaxation protocol at all

[00:38:37] Emily: I mean, we have our own relaxation protocol, and we just don't use it as often as I think people think we do. It, I mean, they have... They are helpful in specific contexts But that doesn't mean that you need a relaxation protocol to achieve relaxation

[00:38:54] Tiffany: Yeah. Depends on what your household needs. What your h- if what your household needs is the ability to go and do things and have the dog chill somewhere else, that's relaxation and independence in a safe space

[00:39:10] Emily: Across the board. Just meeting so many needs

[00:39:13] Tiffany: It's like there's a framework. I wonder what that is.

[00:39:17] Emily: That's wild. What are you talking about? Never heard of it okay, so let's recap. The big, the big take-home point is that calm is not something that your dog either does or does not possess. It is a skill, and like any skill, it can be taught. And the reason the tips on the internet haven't worked isn't because you failed, or your dog is broken, or your dog is just again, salsa air quotes, the sarcasm's coming out, does not mean that your dog is just a high-drive dog The reason the tips haven't worked is because they are simplistic, prescriptive pieces of a much larger puzzle of teaching your dog how to move through physiological stages of existence.

Managing arousal and building relaxation are two different things, and most of the advice on the internet is maybe possibly for some dogs in some contexts addressing one of them.

So to recap the steps that we discussed. Step one, stop ti- trying to tire them out. Exhaustion's not it. Step two, create one intentional calm window daily. Step three, notice and mark voluntary calm when it happens without your guidance And that's it. I, I don't know why I sounded like there was a step four. There's not.

Okay. So one actionable reflection to take away from this podcast. This week, look for one moment where your dog is relaxing, even briefly. Notice what the environment looks like. Notice what you were doing.

Notice the time of day. Reflect on what activities your dog had done leading up to this moment. That's gonna give you so much information about how you can teach your dog to down-regulate moving forward in other contexts

Now that we know that calm is a skill, next week we're getting into the three things that most commonly get in the way of dogs ever learning it, and a lot of them are things we're doing with our best intentions.

We're doing them because we love our dogs and we're trying to help them If you are a pet parent or a pet professional who needs a little support helping doggos to relax, our team are experts on this skill, and we are here to help you

[00:41:48] Allie: I hope you enjoy today's episode and if there's someone in your life who also needs to hear this, be sure to text it to them right now. If you're a pet parent looking for more tips on enrichment, behavior modification, and finding harmony with your pet, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Harmony training. If you're a behavior or training professional dedicated to enrichment for yourself, your clients, and their pets, check us out on TikTok and Instagram at Pet Harmony Pro.

As always, links to everything we discussed in this episode are in the show notes. Thank you to Ellen Yoakum for editing this episode and making us sound good. Our intro music is from Penguin Music on Pixa Bay. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps more pet lovers and professionals find us so they can bring enrichment into their world too.

Thank you for listening, and here's to harmony. 

[00:42:41] Emily: what kind of substrate does the dog like to relax on? If it's linoleum, linoleum, you're not going to... Sorry, I'm just gonna start that over. I threw myself off with how I said linoleum. It's a hard word If it's lin- oh my God, I got this. I can say this word. If it's linoleum,