#176 - My Dog's Barking Is Destroying Me

Does your dog barking make you jump out of your skin? Or send you down a shame spiral? Or have your dog’s triggers become your triggers? You are very much not alone. In this episode, we flip the script, and instead of asking, “How do I help my reactive dog?” we ask, “How can I help me, the reactive human?” 

Join Emily and Ellen for a chat about when your dog’s (or bird’s, or donkey’s, or cat’s) noises don’t just annoy you, but send a startling jolt straight to your lizard brain. Because yes, vocalizations are normal, but finding harmony with your pet isn’t about suffering while they thrive.

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

1️⃣ Stop the bleeding first – Start with your right-now plan. What’s one thing you can do to make barking less painful for you?

2️⃣ Barking doesn’t automatically mean “over threshold” – We have to look at the whole picture and learn to observe body language with all our senses. 

3️⃣ Find empathy for the reactivity – We can find tremendous empathy for reactive dogs. Let’s give ourselves the same grace.

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

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Ellen: there's two paths that I see clients often fall into. I'm sure there's more. These are just kind of the big ones. Pet parent gets dysregulated, responds inconsistently or reactively, hates self, beats themselves up because that's not how they want to interact with their pet.

That's not okay to them, even when we're coming from a place of pure reactivity, which we find a lot of empathy for for dogs who are experiencing that, but we have a really hard time finding empathy for ourselves when we are in the same predicament. Pet parent then says, "If I manage my dog's triggers, this won't happen to me."

We hyperfocus and sensitize to the triggers, and now not only are we triggered by our dogs barking, we're now triggered by everything that has always triggered our dog, because the dog's barking is preceded by all of these other triggers. So now every time you hear the neighbor dog bark, you get that stress shot.

Every time you hear a car door outside close, because your dog has screamed at that in the past, you are stressed. And neither of them are great, and they take a huge toll on the human

[00:01:08] 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...

[00:01:19] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:20] 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.

[00:01:40] Emily: All right. Let's, let's take a little mindfulness moment, friends. I want you to imagine that you're in the kitchen and your dog starts barking at something outside, or maybe nothing, 'cause sometimes it feels like dogs just bark for the joy of barking, and something in you just breaks a little bit. Not because you're a bad pet parent or any- anything like that.

We don't need to make any moral judgments about you as a human. It's not because you don't love your dog. It's just because your nervous system has nothing left, and that sound just took the last little bit of it. Let's pause and sit in that moment, not rush past it, and remember how that feels and all of the thoughts that arise as a result of that feeling. Today's episode is about something we don't talk about enough. What happens when your dog's behavior isn't just stressful, it's genuinely hard on your body and your nervous system? And as always, friends, I gotta advocate for other species, not just dogs. This is my lived experience with many of the parrots that I've lived with. Cats can sometimes go hard. S- you know, I've even ha- pigs and goats, oh my God, those can be loud friends.

[00:03:02] Ellen: Donkeys

[00:03:03] Emily: donkeys, even some horses. I've worked with some horses that have the most shrill whinny, and I'm just like, "I need you to stop talking." so we know that a large portion of our audience are neurospicy and/or managing chronic illness because those are our people. It us. Which means that sound sensitivities, sensory overload, emotional dysregulation, a lot of, a lot of y'all can relate to those things, and also it's us. And they're not just personality quirks.

They're not character flaws. They are real somatic and sensory experiences. It's, it's kind of, inextricably intertwined in how your brain is wired, and they shape the entire experience of what it's like to live with loud friends. Dogs who vocalize, or any other species, who vocalize in a way that just shreds your nervous system. And as much as I loved Bree and she was my heart dog, her shrill vocalizations definitely sucked my soul dry. There's a reason that I chose a Basenji after Bree. I was like, "I want a dog who makes fewer sounds." So, if you're in that boat, we see you. We support mentees and clients like y- like you. We are you. Poor Ellen's face right now.

[00:04:31] Ellen: When Nathan and I first got together, he had a, a, he had a German shepherd, golden retriever mix, a working-bred border collie, and a working-bred Australian shepherd, the border collie in particular had a bark that when he barked, which was, he didn't bark more than he should have, but when he did bark, it would ricochet off the pipes in the house.

Whatever was the quality of his bark, like, went through the walls, and you could hear it dinging off of the pipes and the heating, ventilation, and all of that, and it was- It was hard. It was very hard.

[00:05:10] Emily: I mean, Nathan basically is a border collie, but fortunately his vocalizations, at least the ones that I've heard, have not annoyed me.

[00:05:18] Ellen: No. It's more like a Saint Bernard at this point in his life

[00:05:21] Emily: But yeah, I, I feel those feels. And it's funny because for me a big part of the impact isn't necessarily the volume, but the quality of the tone. And so, like I, I spent most of my adulthood living with multiple species of parrots, and the louder birds like macaws that I lived with, I, I mean, they... It could get tiresome if they went on for a long time, but in general if they were just talking or l-

vocalizing, I was okay with it.

Like, if they were like blah, I'm like, "Okay, cute. Fine. You go, macaw. Make

your sounds." But I learned that I cannot live with conures or pionus

because those two genuses, their vocalizations, the quality of their

vocalizations just, it's like insta rage. Like, I don't know what it is about those sounds, but they just cut straight to the amygdala and turn me into The Hulk. So as much as I love conures and pies, I, I, won't live with them because their sounds do me dirty.

[00:06:30] Ellen: There's just some things that hurt, 

like, deep to your core. For me, it's the dogs. When they bark, and y'all can't see 'cause this is a podcast, I'm touching the base of my throat. When the bark is that bark where their mouth doesn't even move, and it just comes from deep in here, and it's that shrill, borderline shriek, chirp thing.

Ugh, I can't. I have to leave the room. Somebody has to leave the room. You can't follow me. I'm leaving. Or you gotta go. Somebody ... I need a minute to handle that. S- And I think that brings us to our problem, that most dog training plans are going to assume that the human is regulated, they are patient, they are endlessly available to be teaching and training, that they don't have to split their attention, that they don't have to concentrate on something and then constantly be shocked out of their focus and being able to do the rest of life.

And for those of us with sensory sensitivities, I did a whole podcast episode about how I am sensory avoidant and still try to use sound masking, and how to do that as a sensory avoidant individual. With those of us with anxiety or chronic pain or chronic illness or any of those things, sometimes that one little bark can, like, make you jump out of your skin

And that's just hard

[00:07:51] Emily: It is. I mean, Miley doesn't make a lot of vocalizations, and most of the ones she makes are pretty low-key. But she has this desire sound that's basically like, " Aw." And normally, I just think that is the cutest sound of my whole life. When I have a migraine, I cannot be in the same room as her because if she makes that sound, I will feel violent feelings. I would never hurt my dog, y'all. I would never do it, but, like, the feelings it elicits when I have a migraine.

So, like, sound sensitivities can, are definitely or can be contextual as well, so it- it's, I think it's important to remember that even if the plan works most of the time, we need to consider the fact that sometimes the plan's not going to work because if there are days when the aw sound makes you violent, the plan's not gonna work,

[00:08:47] Ellen: And I actually created this episode outline for clients that I am seeing. Like, this is very common in our clientele, and there's two paths that I see clients often fall into. I'm sure there's more. These are just kind of the big ones. The first one is this really unfortunate feedback loop where dog experiences something, pet parent is dysregulated, they're having a hard time.

Dog r- barks, person responds inconsistently or reactively. So like you just said, "When I have a migraine, I cannot handle this. I can handle it all of the rest of the time." That, unfortunately, for a dog, could send mixed signals. Why is it okay sometimes and why is it not okay others? Particularly if the context is more within us than something we can do in the environment.

It's not like q- you know, quiet voices after 9:00 PM type ru- rule. The dog then picks up on the pet parent's stress and is like, "Oh, no." And then the dog gets more dysregulated, which means the dog is more likely to react and bark, and then we get the feedback loop of the pet parent responds and reacts, and nobody's nervous system gets to just be okay at that point. We are just spiraling in and out, and it's really hard to break out of unless you do intentional intervention.

Pet parent gets dysregulated, responds inconsistently, inconsistently or reactively, hates self, beats per- beats themselves up because that's not how they want to interact with their pet.

That's not okay to them, even when we're coming from a place of pure reactivity, which we find a lot of empathy for for dogs who are experiencing that, but we have a really hard time finding empathy for ourselves when we are in the same predicament. Pet parent then says, "If I manage my dog's triggers, this won't happen to me."

We hyperfocus and sensitize to the triggers, and now not only are we triggered by our dogs barking, we're now triggered by everything that has always triggered our dog, because the dog's barking is preceded by all of these other triggers. So now every time you hear the neighbor dog bark, you get that stress shot.

Every time you hear a car door outside close, because your dog has screamed at that in the past, you are stressed. And neither of them are great, and they take a huge toll on the human

[00:11:07] Emily: Yeah. And what can compound this hot mess is when the animal themselves has some sensory sensitivities as well, which there is some research that looks at sen- correlations between s- highly sensitive people and highly sensitive non-humans. And so there, there does seem to be something to that, and I think we've all, at, at Pet Harmony, all of us have encountered many animals that seem to have this issue. So if you have a human and a non-human who both have a tendency towards sensory overwhelm, it... Those two paths can just get even more exaggerated because especially the feedback loop path, it's, it's just so much harder to kind of bring everybody back down to center when everybody's overwhelmed and, and over-processing, right?

[00:12:04] Ellen: And I'll ... There was a blog by Dr. Kelly Ballantyne that talked about the correlates between highly sensitive people and highly sensitive dogs, and I'll link that in the show notes if people are interested in that.

[00:12:15] Emily: beautiful. Yeah,

I would love to read that as well

[00:12:18] Ellen: I think as a, as a pet professional, it can be really easy to say, "Well, dogs bark."

And that, that is true. Dogs bark. And there are parameters under which this is very normal, reasonable barking, and we do have to learn to tolerate or live with, to some extent, normal, reasonable barking. And then there's a time and a place for a pet professional to say, "This is incredibly distressing to my client.

It does not matter whether this is normal for the dog." As of right now, if I was working with a dog that was experiencing the same level of distress as my client, I would not be okay saying we'll just deal with it. So we need to give them the tools or the strategies to be able to stop that distress. And one of my favorite things that I usually help clients do is not figure out how to stop the barking first, because for training to happen, it really is quite beneficial if you are in a regulated, okay place.

Like, it's just better for everybody. My first question is, how do we make this less impactful to you? And I'm not talking about how do we reduce the amount of barking, how do we do any of those things. Sometimes we will with management. But the question for me is, what is going to make it so that you can tolerate this, so that you can show up for your dog in a way that you wanna show up for your dog?

Because my clients want to teach their dog something else. They don't want to lose their mind. They don't want to have to vent frustration. They don't want any of those things. And for a lot of my clients, that might be something as simple as loop earplugs. So I am very commonly recommending loop earplugs, and they are in, available in our Amazon shop.

Shameless plug.

Because they do a really beautiful job of filtering the thing that is painful about that sound. So if someone can tolerate wearing those in their ears, and if they can't, then we explore other options that might be available. But I have worked in a lot of environments that are not great for sound, and those loop earplugs cut whatever is the most amygdala-piercing version.

And a lot of my clients have found the same thing. So if they are having a rough day and their dog is having a rough day, they put in the earplugs, and now they're not getting that jolt to their nervous system anymore, and we can actually work through it rather than just enter that shame spiral over and over again

[00:14:49] Emily: Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna join you on the Loop corporate shill bandwagon because I don't know what sorcery they

do with their earplugs. Because friends, if you have an auditory processing disorder like I do, and conversations are hard in general, but even harder when there's a lot of ambient noise, I don't know how they work, but I will put the Loop earplugs in and I can hear the person that I'm facing clearer and louder, and the ambient noise

is somehow gets muffled. And that is really helpful in any kind of like bars or crowded restaurants. But for me, working with animals, it's really helpful when I'm in a shelter with a bunch of barking dogs, or when I'm in an aviary with a bunch of squawking birds. I can look at the person who's trying to talk to me and I can actually hear them. So it ... Like shout out to Loop. I don't know how you do what you do, but thank you for existing because you have measurably improved my life.

[00:15:52] Ellen: And I used to use them when we were, like, managing playgroups and in day cares and things, and my number one concern, I knew that the barking was really hard on me. I knew that there were dogs that were doing totally developmentally and socially appropriate behavior, and I could not handle it. It's me.

I'm the problem. My number one concern is I wouldn't be able to hear those low tones, so I was terrified that if there was a growl or there was any indication that they actually needed me, I wouldn't be able to intervene appropriately, and I never found that to be true with the Loop. So noise-canceling absolutely was a problem, but for Loop, and there are some other technologies out there I'm sure at this point, but it always let through the things that I needed to come through.

It really just took those, like, deep, shrill... It's got, it's gotta be evolutionarily based. The amount of people who have a hard time with the same sound, it's gotta be tied to some sort of survival. I don't know. But they have been really effective, and I've had a lot of clients that have put those in and said things like, " I was actually able to keep my cool," and that made a huge difference

[00:16:57] Emily: Ellen, I wish I had known about that when I was, or had thought about... No, I mean, I don't think I knew about Loop earplugs when I was seeing clients, 'cause I just discovered them myself a couple years ago. But I wish I had known about them when I was seeing private clients, because that is such a brilliant way to manage this issue that never occurred to me when I was working with clients.

My management strategies were a lot more heavy-handed than, "Try these earplugs." But yeah, I mean, who knew this episode was gonna turn into a commercial for Loop? Sponsor us, Loop. We're giving you free advertisement.

All right. Sorry, we can move on. But yeah, what... That's brilliant, Ellen. I love that you do that with your clients. So good.

So I think a reframe that is really helpful f- for anybody who's experiencing this is wanting your dog or pet of any other species to be calm so that you can be okay is not selfish. It's not unreasonable. It's not a sign that you're in the wrong relationship with your dog, or you shouldn't have a dog. Th- it's just a completely human response to a genuine need, and it makes it easier to experience that when you name it, normalize it, and move on. So let's just, let's just acknowledge that, like, we live in meat sacks. Meat sacks are impacted by sensory stimuli. Sometimes that impact is distressing, not happy, fun, or calming. When you are in a state of distress, that is a valid state, and also, like, you deserve to be able to complete your stress response cycle

as a living sentient being. That is a fundamental right. So y- it's, you are okay. There's nothing wrong with you. Also, just sidebar, in general, if you share your life with any sentient being, and you share space with them, at some point you're going to be i- irritated by them.

And I don't know why people have higher expectations for themselves with having more patience with non-humans that they live with than the humans that they live with. Because a lot of people who are like, "Yeah, I've lived with this person for, for 20 years. We squabble sometimes," like beat themselves up because they got frustrated at their dog, and it's like you've been living with your dog for years too.

Like, you're, you live in the same household. You're going to have some friction sometimes. That's just how it is

[00:19:22] Ellen: Another thing that is important, there, there are two sides to the coin. If your dog's barking is indicating to your body, we're gonna remove the cognitive part, but your body, indicating to your body that it is not safe. Whether or not that is true or accurate, it does not matter. We need to not call your body a liar and just say, "Hmm.

Okay, but we are though, so let's figure out how to make you feel that way. Let's get you on the same board." But I think the second part that I have seen for a lot of clients is they've been on the side of the internet that tells them that all barking means your dog is over-threshold, which we could have a whole other separate, like, miniseries about what is threshold and what is over-threshold and what is everybody talking about, because nobody is gonna agree on anything, and I have so many soapboxes there.

But I have so many clients that come to me that for them, the story that has been given to them is if their dog barks, their dog is over-threshold, and because their dog is barking and they are over-threshold, that means they are distressed, and that means that they're a bad pet parent because they are not protecting their dog from something.

And that is just fundamentally untrue. There's breaks in logic in the entire thing, and it's such a common story for us to hold. So one of the other things is to make sure that we are building our observation and interpretation skills so that we are able to say, "Is this distressing or is this eustress?"

Because if your dog is having a great time, and they are playing, and they are frolicking, and you are so distressed just by the fact that there is sound

You're going to intervene on something that is a net positive to your dog's wellbeing and welfare because your interpretation is wrong, because the internet was mean to you.

It's always because the internet was mean to them

[00:21:16] Emily: It's always 'cause the internet was... I mean, it's not always because I've had a lot of clients who, like, their in-person trainer was mean to them. So, like, sometimes people are mean too IRL, but, like, usually it's usually the internet. The internet is always somewhere in the mix. I,

but I, to me it's wild to think that non-human vocalizations indicate arousal at all. I mean, again, we would have to talk about arousal is a spectrum, and if you are awake and alert, you, th- you are experiencing some level of arousal because truly no arousal is being unconscious, right? But

[00:21:56] Ellen: Truly no arousal is being dead 

[00:21:58] Emily: Right, right. But it's wild to me that, that so many people believe that non-humans only vocalize when they're in a state of heightened arousal. Because, like, that's not true for humans. We talk all the time at all levels of arousal. Like, some people talk in their sleep, friends. I mean, and, and how many animals have you encountered who m- make vocalizations for the joy of vocalizing, as a communication tool? I mean, the... I watch our dogs and the neighbor dogs. They love each other. They, they're play- playmate buddies. And they'll stand on either side of the fence, and they're not... I would- They all have very relaxed body language. Nobody's, like, really all jacked up on Mountain Dew. And they will take turns talking to each other.

The do- the dogs on the other side of the fence are both terriers, so they're a little bit louder and they're kinda like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." But you can look at their body and see that they're relaxed and happy. And Copper will do this like, like his deep old man growl, growly, grumbly... Not grumbly gravelly voice.

Yeah, gravelly voice. And then Miley's doing her, " Aww, aww." And they're just talking to each other. They're not... It, I wouldn't even characterize that as heightened eustress. They're just having a conversation. They're like, you know, sharing the neighborhood gossip.

[00:23:20] Ellen: Yeah. And that's where the loop comes in because if you heard that, if something about that tone, we talked about the quality of the sound is straight to lizard survival brain. If something about that was distressing to you and you could put in your loop earplugs or put on your sound canceling, whatever it was, and then just watch, your appraisal of that would be very different.

And I've done... The opposite is also true, where you watch something and you're like, "That body language seems great," and then you hear it and you're like, "Wow, no, wouldn't open a- wouldn't have opened that kennel."

So I think that's where dampening that sound so that you can get that appropriate appraisal of what is actually happening.

And then, of course, for some people it's enough to say, "Oh, no, I misinterpreted that. I can move on." And then there are gonna be others that need more help for that, what you see, that chatter to be appraised by their body as a safe thing.

[00:24:12] Emily: I, and I will say that one of the sort of recurring themes that I delight in in our behavior observation practice sessions is that I, I don't remember anybody coming to the session who had no body language skills at all. But there are so many times when we will be watching a video with the sound on at full speed at the beginning, the first pass, and everybody or most people in the group will, including myself, I, I'm not, I'm not separating myself from this, will a- assume that...

Or our, our immediate assessment is that there's some kind of heightened arousal going on. And then when we put the, the, the videos on mute and slow them down and just watch the body language and we're not listening to the sounds, we're like, " These animals are living their best lives," but it sounded distressing to

us, like our interpretation. So I think the, a- an important thing to remember is that if that is true for behavior professionals who are already quite skilled at reading body language and observing behavior, and we are still learning and refining our skills and getting better at the nuances, imagine how true that is for your clients who don't have the level of skill that you have. And imagine how distressing it can be if their animals are making scary sounds and they don't have the ability to go, " The body language does not sync up with my emotional response to this sound,"

right? 

[00:25:50] Ellen: Teaching puppy classes, that was the thing all the time, 'cause dogs will sound terrible. They will sound absolutely awful, and there will be no teeth. There will be laughs and play bows and loose, wiggly bodies, and like all the hallmarks of really wonderful play. Fortunately, live in puppy class you can't, like, mute the dog, just like shut it down entirely.

But it's interesting for a species that's so visual in a lot of ways how much we will trust that auditory over what we are visually seeing at any given time

[00:26:23] Emily: so how do we support ourselves and our pets through a situation like this? Step one, name what's happening without judgment. You can say something like, "My nervous system is dysregulated by my dog's behavior. That's a real thing, and it's affecting both of us."

[00:26:42] Ellen: For me, I think of, I think it was on one of these many podcast episodes where Emily said that humans are just electrified Jell-O in meat, meat suits And I just think, "Oh, my electrified Jello is not okay"

[00:26:55] Emily: My electrified jello is struggle busting right now. It's jiggling quite a bit. Yeah, so you can't work with what you won't name. When you name it, it is- feels less scary. And also, like we literally just did, you can kind of make light of it and be like, "Oh, yeah, I'm just, I'm just a bowl of electrified Jello walking around in a meat sack. Of course, I'm gonna have issues like this," right?

Making, making fun of it makes it easier somehow.

[00:27:24] Ellen: Step two is to separate your right now plan from your long-term plan. Just like for my clients, my focus is right now I need this to be less painful for you. I need to reduce the distress that you are feeling about this. That's the right now plan, and that sometimes is gonna be management for the pet.

So if we have reactive barking, for example, like car doors or, I don't know, you live in Chicago, and it's St. Patrick's Day, and you're gonna just have everybody on the street all of the time. We're gonna use some management, maybe some sound masking. For the human, we're also gonna have some management for them.

So would some noise-canceling headphones be a good option for you? Would sound dampening curtains? So are you also reactive to the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of people out on the streets right now having a great time, and, like, that's cool for you, and you're so loud? 

So maybe it's gonna work on both ways.

And then there's going to be a time and a place for that long-term plan. How do I teach my dog that, like, one bark is fine? Or instead of having the full meltdown, can I get that from you instead? Can I teach you to give a different response to that same thing that lets you be who you are and also means that my electrified Jello is

gonna be okay at the end of this day?

[00:28:41] Emily: Step three is reorient the goal. Instead of, "I need to make my dog stop," try, " I need to build my dog's capacity for calm." And part of that is making sure that the environment, including me, supports that. It's a slower goal, but also it's a real one. It's a realistic one. It's one that is aligned with the lived experience of both you and your pet. It's more pragmatic than the hard, impossible goal of making sure that your sentient being never vocalizes, or that you just have, like, monk-like calm no matter what's happening in your environment, which that's not real. That's not a thing, friends. 

[00:29:26] Ellen: I'm pretty sure people who achieve monk-like calm also live a monk-like calm life in a monk-like calm environment and don't have reactive dogs in the city

[00:29:37] Emily: Monks live in monasteries.

[00:29:38] Ellen: I'm sure there are monks who don't, but also

[00:29:41] Emily: and I will say friends, as somebody who spent a lot of time in monasteries and convents as a young person they're not always calm either. Just, just putting that out there. But anyway,

[00:29:52] Ellen: Step number 

four is to get support. So your nervous system may need somebody to help you build this plan with you and give you options. So just like Emily had not thought about using loop earplugs to just cut, cut the pain, it is entirely possible that there are very simple solutions that would make this a little bit more tolerable and a little bit more manageable for you.

So work with a behavior professional who helps a lot of people do this because not only are they thinking about ways to creatively help other families, they are gaining information from families who live a different experience than you do. So I've gotten some feedback that, like, in-ear things don't work for some people, so instead, what are some over-ear things that might work for some people?

Or what are some other sensory options that might work? And for some people it's not even about dampening the sound, it's giving an outlet that isn't the frustration. So give the frustration somewhere else to go other than yelling at my dog or pounding on a wall or stamping out, and that makes it tolerable for them

[00:30:59] Emily: And I will say as an even more immi- immediate, or I... This is like your emergency break glass strategy. You're not going to be perfect at this. Even when, you know, creating these management strategies for yourself you will probably have times where you still get frustrated and yell. Either that or I'm the only human on earth for whom that is true, and, and that seems less likely, right? But for me, my emergency break glass fallback plan is that I have paired my frustration yell with snacks and pets and love so that when I do get... When I lose my cool and I'm like, " "Why are you..." My dogs' and my birds' response to that is joy.

C- they c- they run up to me or fly up to me, depending on the species. They're like, "Oh, my God, she just yelled. It means that I'm gonna get snacks and lovings." And the fact that they are coming to me all wiggly and happy and loose and asking for affection and attention also helps me to down-regulate. So, you don't have to be perfect at your management strategy

either.

You can lose your cool. Just pair it with good things so that your animal isn't afraid of you having a human moment. Your animal is like, "Oh, this is a, a great time to, to cuddle with m- my f- my friend, my human friend," right?

[00:32:27] Ellen: I just had a session with a client, and their dog is reactive in the city, screams in the car. We did some ear protection for her. Made a huge difference. She's able to not lose her cool in the car and set the entire rest of the day up for catastrophe. The other one is he has a nemesis dog on his floor in his apartment, which of course he does, because everybody seems to have a nemesis dog on their 

floor in their apartment.

And we talked about the social pressures, too. So for humans, there's a lot of pressure, we've talked about this in other podcast episodes, too, to do something, to take action for the other human. And she's like, "I don't know. Like, I want my, I want my neighbors to know that I'm taking this seriously. I just get so frustrated because it's so loud, and he just doesn't stop.

So like, what do I, what do I, what do I say? What should I say when he is losing his mind at the door?" And like, sure, we could talk about management and how to prevent it, and also we're at the point where that plan is so restrictive and would be wild because it's just too much. So I said, "The good news is your dog doesn't speak English, so you can say whatever you want, and we can teach him to do what you want when you say whatever you need to say."

So we went through, like, what are ... What is ... When you're already there, what does your body wanna do? Do you wanna yell? Do you wanna slam on the table? Do you want to stomp your feet? Do you want to do something? ' Cause, like, I can teach your dog that means wonderful things for them. We don't have to worry about you being a human and that being scary for your dog.

W- we aren't inherently scary to dogs. They have to learn that we are scary to them, which means we can also teach them that us being loud and ridiculous is a time for wiggles and play. And that was a big relief for her.

[00:34:17] Emily: Yeah, it is. W- when you tell people that they don't have to be saints and they can have feelings, and they just have to harness their feelings to work for them instead of working against them, the relief, I mean, I, I, m- more often than not, tears,

right? Because the relief is so intense. Intense relief sounds like an oxymoron, but do you know what I mean? And the relief is so profound, let's put it that way

[00:34:45] Ellen: So we're teaching. Oi. A loud oi. Means come over here. And eventually the dog's gonna start tattling. "There's a dog. Didn't she hear that there's a dog?" And we can fade the oi the same way we would fade a recall or any of the other things. But instead of having to make sure that that client had their self-care on lock and all of that, we get to be real

[00:35:10] Emily: Yeah. We, we get to be human,

which is great

[00:35:14] Ellen: So if your dog barks and you have a meltdown, or I don't know, mine is actually to jump out of my skin. I will, I will j- have a jump. You're not alone

[00:35:24] Emily: You're not, you're not faulty, you're not defective, you're not failing as a pet parent or pet guardian, however you prefer to think about it. You're just a person with a nervous system standing in front of a dog asking them to love them. Asking them to please, for the love of all things good and pure in this world, stop shrieking.

And we're here to support you friends. We will link to a great pet parent support group in the show notes as well, so keep an eye out for that. But to recap, when calm or quiet feels like a survival necessity, the goal changes, and pretending that it doesn't, doesn't help anybody. Both you and your dog or parrot or goat or pig, whatever, or kitty cat both of you deserve a path to genuine relaxation in a way that supports each other rather than fighting each other or making each other worse. You don't... Neither of you deserves suppression or white-knuckling or super restrictive management for the rest of your lives. Real calm built deliberately for everybody involved is not only realistic, it is, it is the goal. It is what we should be doing in that situation. So this week notice one moment when your pet's behavior disregulates you.

Don't try to fix it, just notice it. Name it to yourself. Go ahead and make fun of it if that feels good to you. " Oh, my nervous system just responded to that. My electrified Jell-O is jiggling pretty hard right now." That awareness is the starting point.

Next week, what do you do when you genuinely can't give your dog what they want? Because it's getting hot, and while you know that it is dangerous for your dog to walk on pavement, they might have very different opinions

[00:37:18] 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.