"Dogs are very sensitive to body language, so the least little tense movement--a change of gait, a slight hunching of the shoulders--can be observed and interpreted as something being amiss. When we're upset, our voices can go up slightly in frequency as well. Dogs get these nuances in ways most people don't.
Masking strong feelings by acting like things are OK may not always work, either: It's quite likely that dogs can smell fear, anxiety, even sadness... The flight-or-fight hormone, adrenaline, is undetectable by our noses, but dogs can apparently smell it. In addition, fear or anxiety is often accompanied by increased heart rate and blood flow, which send telltale body chemicals more quickly to the skin surface.
It makes for a trifecta of revelations to a dog: a bouquet of visual, auditory, and olfactory cues that makes dogs incredibly tuned in to how we're feeling."
--Maria Goodavage, in Soldier Dogs
These paragraphs from Soldier Dogs really resonated with me. I’ve come to realize that I’m communicating far more to my dogs with my nervous system than with any amount of “training.” If I simply relax the muscles in my face or soften the tone of my voice, I can communicate more to them than months—or even years—of structured work.
I’ve found that the imprint of the training is already there, and now that I’ve learned to chill out a bit, the dogs can finally express all the positive things we’ve practiced. So I’m glad I put in the work—but even more so now that I can actually enjoy it.
I’ve also started to notice that when I have a continuous, unchanging problem with my dogs, it usually points to something in myself that I haven’t yet integrated. And that’s okay—as long as I can recognize it and manage the situation. At the same time, it invites a level of self-awareness around what might be going on for me—stress, fear, old patterns, even things like addiction and codependency.
Because I’ve definitely gotten caught in feedback loops with my dogs: I’m stressed, so they’re stressed. They act out, which makes me more stressed… and the cycle continues.
I’ve come to see dogs as something like perpetual children who haven’t yet developed full self-regulation, differentiation, or self-actualization (or perhaps even as non-dual beings who experience little separation between themselves and their owners). They are constantly attuning, always looking to us for the “answer.” Their nervous systems entrain with ours, and just like that—your dog becomes your mirror.
When my dogs look at me, they are analyzing my body language—especially what I’m communicating through my face, which is directly tied to the vagus nerve. So if I’m feeling stressed about their behavior, and then unintentionally stressing them with my own behavior, I have to interrupt that cycle of dysregulation.
I have to change my default settings.
And that’s not easy. It can take years of self-work, therapy, or even a willingness to trust in something deeper—what you might call the body’s innate capacity to heal, or a kind of networked intelligence of the human heart.
This is not to say that training isn’t necessary, or that we can magically “fix” our dogs by “fixing” ourselves. Absolutely not. But if you’ve put in the time, done the work, and practiced the Canine Core Method (somatic technology), and your dog is still struggling or not changing, then it’s worth asking what you are really communicating.
Are you unconsciously signaling that the world isn’t safe? Through subtle body cues, a heightened startle response, hypervigilance, or even the physiological scent of stress?
Does your dog training feel like serious work—like everything depends on you getting it right? Do you feel physically tired or emotionally fragile?
If so, it may be time to step back. Take a break. Get a massage. Learn how to calm your own system.
Because when you begin to self-regulate, your dog will often follow.
And from that place, training becomes something entirely different—something grounded, clear, and sustainable, rather than driven by stress.
Photo by Cassiano Psomas on Unsplash