Welcome to the Mindful Dog Parent, the podcast for overwhelmed and anxious dog owners who are doing their best but still feel like they're getting it all wrong.

I'm Sian, a trauma informed coach and ethical dog trainer.

I created this podcast because dog parenting isn't always cute reels and perfect walks.

Sometimes it's tears after training, guilt in the quiet moments, or just feeling like.

You'Re the only one struggling.

If you've ever said, I love my.

Dog, but this is really hard, you're in the right place.

Each week I'll bring you calm, compassionate guidance to help you build confidence, regulate your emotions and reconnect with your dog.

Even when things feel messy because you're not failing, you're just overwhelmed and you don't have to figure this out on your own.

Do you ever catch yourself saying, I'm just tired of trying to.

You've read the books, you've watched the videos, you've done the training and it feels like you are stuck in the same loop going over and over and over the same things.

Maybe your dog's behavior is not changing as fast as you'd hoped it would.

So that can come from a place of being a new puppy parent.

You are setting expectations in your mind of how it's going to look and how far your puppy's going to come with these things.

Whatever it is you're working on and it's just not working out that way.

It can be that you've bought a new rescue dog home and depending on their backgrounds and situations, you know you've got expectations and you've put time frame and timescale on how you think things are going to look and the way they're going to behave by XYZ kind of time.

And it's just not panning out that way.

You know, rescue dogs can take a year or more to settle into a home.

It's not just as simple as the three day, three week, three month kind of thing.

Thing that used to be very prevalent.

It can take a year or more for especially dogs from abroad to settle in.

So again, it's like having that expectations in your mind of actually I thought things were going to be different within three months, but it's just not working out that way.

Or it's just like life generally.

It's just like super chaotic with your dog and you know, your walks aren't looking how you were expecting them to by this point.

So you know they're two and you thought by now they would have calmed down and it's Just not happening in the same way.

So whatever that situation is, life outside of training might feel really heavy as well.

So especially with the time, time of year that we're in at the moment, at the time of recording this, it's November.

So, you know, we're coming in the run up to Christmas and we've got Christmas presents to buy and family to see and all of the pressure that that kind of brings to us what society tells us we should be doing right now.

And we've already got busy lives.

We live busy lives anyway.

So adding that extra pressure just, you know, makes things feel even more chaotic and heavy.

And then underneath all of that, there's that quiet, quiet voice that you've got that's just whispering.

I just need a break today.

I want to give you permission for exactly that.

Because sometimes the most productive thing that you can do for yourself and for your dog is to just stop trying for a minute and just to be.

I don't think we do it enough.

It's part of like grounding and kind of being in the present moment and rather than worrying about what's happened in the past or what we've got to do in the future, especially in the run up to Christmas, just, just pausing and being in the moment right now, not kind of, you know, 30 minutes of meditation, you know, twice a day or anything like that, just stopping for a minute and just being.

Because I think it really makes a difference.

So when you're always trying, whether that's to fix or to prove or to make progress, your body is living in a constant state of activation.

Now, I've mentioned this in previous episodes before.

It is really important to keep talking about and keep discussing and keep bringing it back to this because it really makes a difference.

This episode is the first of three in a relief miniseries.

So over the next three episodes I'm going to go into, into more detail about how you can start to reset and ground yourself and bring calm back into your life when it's not quite happening in really short sessions where we can go through this and just go into a bit more detail and you can understand where you're at and not be hard on yourself, add more pressure or try and do more, which is what a lot of us think that we have to do.

We, when we're feeling the pressure and we need to change things and we need to fix things.

So what's actually happening when you're always trying to fix and to prove and to make progress is you're in your sympathetic nervous system state it's doing its job.

It's doing what it needs to do to keep you alert, to keep you focused, to keep you ready to act, to keep you safe.

That is what it's designed to do.

But when that sympathetic nervous system doesn't get to switch off ever, you really do start to slip into survival fatigue.

This isn't about being lazy or giving up or whatever negative words that your brain's telling you it is or negative voices around you are telling you it is.

You're just out of that capacity.

So you don't have any capacity left to be able to do the things because your sympathetic nervous system is switched on.

And the irony about that is the harder that you try from that state, the less change you actually see.

Because learning and empathy and patience all live in the part of the brain that only works when you feel safe, when you're in survival mode, when your sympathetic nervous system state is switched on, this can be for your dog as well.

All of the other aspects of being creative and, and this is why the episode, last episode really, really kind of links to this.

So the episode about bringing fun into your life, because the creativity and the learning and all the things that kind of make.

Make us feel ourselves get switched off.

It's just part of how it works.

We can't have two nervous system states switched on at the same time.

It's just not how it works.

And it will never work.

So it's trying to keep you safe, but you can only switch all those things back on when you feel safe.

And if you don't feel safe, it's never going to work.

You will always be stuck in that, in that survival mode.

Taking a break is not the same as quitting or giving up or stopping completely.

It's how your nervous system is learning to recalibrate.

And that's what you're going to see, real difference in the learning and the training sessions and all the things that you try to do when you are giving your nervous system a way of recalibrating.

When you rest, even if it's brief, your parasympathetic nervous system starts to activate.

So that is where your heart rate starts to slow, your cortisol levels start to lower, the brain starts processing rather than reacting.

And this is where you can see how the learning that you're trying to do and the learning that your dog is trying to do won't ever go in and stick if they're in that constant state of feeling like you've got to react and feeling like you've Got to keep going and going and going.

So I want you to think of it like this.

Every time you stop trying to force that progress that you may be forcing at the minute, you're giving your brain and your dog's brain a minute to breathe.

And that is when the real learning starts to consolidate.

You start to see that progress every time you try and stop forcing the progress.

So the next time you hit that wall of I can't keep doing this, instead of pushing through it, try saying we're safe, we can pause and really try to ground yourself by having a break.

So even a 10 minute break, even a 5 minute break, a cup of tea, sitting outside with your dog if the weather's nice, I wouldn't be recommending that today with the weather the way it is at the minute it's pouring down with rain or it has been pouring down with rain of the day.

But if you're listening to this on a day where it's sun, like a bit sunny, even if you need to just put something warmer or like add an extra layer on just going and sitting outside, it's so, so good for your body to go and sit outside and be in nature.

You are giving your, both of your, you and your dog that kind of time to be able to tell yourselves that you are coming out of that survival mode and that it's okay to do that.

That is what's happening when you have that break and that pause.

If you just try and tell yourself we're safe, we can pause, but then keep carrying on, it's not going to work.

You have to genuinely take that break and have that pause.

Even if it's just that day you don't do the training, it's okay to do that.

Being consistent isn't about repeating the, repeating it day, day in, day out, being consistent about repeating the same steps consistently where it's in that same scenario.

So for example, when somebody comes to the door and there's a visitor coming into the house, we do these same steps every single time somebody comes to the house.

You're not going to have a visitor every single day unless you're a really super busy household.

But that is what happens, that is consistency.

It's not about pushing through and doing it more and more.

And more.

So maybe today you skip the structured walk and just wonder.

So you just have a wonder.

And I love going on freedom walks with my dogs.

So we book a paddock, different paddock each time, and we just go and be.

And I know that there's no pressure on me.

There's no pressure on my dogs.

There's nobody just going to appear around a corner.

They're not going to run away.

No dogs are going to come running at them, which generally is more of the case than anything else, unfortunately.

And that is where you can start to see real kind of nervous system regulation happening.

Maybe you let your dog sniff instead of practicing that recall that day.

So letting them sniff, giving them the outlets, letting their bodies and nervous systems re regulate again, that is what's going to help them with that.

Maybe you let go of that to do list and you just take a nap.

It's absolutely okay to take naps.

I know so many people who need afternoon naps.

You know, you have lulls at certain times of the day.

That is your body giving you a message that you need to rest in that moment.

Because dogs mirror us.

When you slow down, they are going to slow down as well.

When you exhale, their bodies genuinely notice.

Science tells us that this is what's happening and their breathing follows yours.

Science genuinely has figured that, that, that out, that that happens.

That is, that is CO regulation in action right there.

There's two nervous systems, yours and your dogs, sinking through that stillness.

You're in sync with one another.

If you try and fake it, if you try and pretend that you're calm, if you just tell yourself that you are, but you're really not.

I've been there myself.

I have been the dog mom to rescue reactive dogs.

So if you've listened to previous episodes, you will have heard me talk about it.

Bonnie used to be super, super reactive in so many different scenarios with other dogs.

And I was the person that at the time, this is going back years before I know what I know now.

I, you know, I pretended that I was calm and I made out that I was calm on the outside, but really on the inside, I was really anxious.

And, you know, all the cortisol, I could feel it coursing through my veins and I could feel myself getting worked up internally.

But just pretending that I'm not didn't convince Bonnie that I wasn't.

She knew I was anxious because she could sense it and she could smell it and she could feel all those little things that my body was doing, like with my breathing.

And anything that I was trying just wasn't working.

So when I actually started to be calmer and practice grounding myself and trying to really work on just taking those pause moments and having a break, that's when things started to change.

Because I took those, you know, I Took those skills and I started to, that I'd already kind of learned and started to learn, took them back out with me again and actually things started to shift.

Things started to happen where Bonnie started to check in with me rather than react towards the dog.

There's other things that you need to do.

So distance is a big one.

I was keeping my distance, but she was still reacting when I felt anxious because she was sensing that there was something that she needed to be anxious about as well.

So when I started to feel karma, genuinely feel karma, she would start to do what I needed her to do and checking in is part of that.

So it really genuinely works.

I'm not just saying this as, as somebody who believes in woo woo.

If you, you know, if you don't believe it, it's the science that tells us that that is co regulation.

Those two nervous systems, yours and your dogs, are genuinely co regulating.

When you take those moments to breathe and to pause and take a break, once your body starts to feel safe again, motivation naturally comes back.

Now we mentioned this in the last episode, episode 21, so I will link it in the show notes for you to go listen to because it's only a 12:30 minute episode, I think so really short.

But you see where motivation can naturally come back again.

It's not about being lazy.

You, you know, you drop, your motivation drops and you kind of drop in and out of being motivated and then not.

And it's because your body's telling you something.

So your motivation naturally returns when your body feels safe again and it's not coming from a place of guilt or pressure, which is potentially where it has been before, but it's coming from energy that's finally restored because your body feels safe enough to be able to restore itself and regulate.

That is when training feels lighter, that is when patience comes back.

That is when your connection starts to rebuild with yourself and with your dog.

So I've lived it and I've experienced it and I've been the anxious dog mum and I've been the guilty dog mum and you know, all the things I've felt all those emotions and I've been the embarrassed dog mum, but now I am the confident dog mum because I've gone through all of this, I've experienced it, I've lived it and I've come out the other side with a more regulated nervous system and a dog that knows what she's doing and can feel like she can actually do that herself because we're co regulating in that moment.

So this is where you genuinely, this is why I'm so passionate about it.

You genuinely are going to see progress.

It's the space that is allowing that to happen.

Taking that breaks, not the opposite of progress.

Taking a break will help you.

So some clients, it's not everyone because every single client dog is individual and sometimes this would be recommended and other times not.

But just as an example, a dog who is really stressed out on walks and they've gone through all the stuff, you know, day in, day out, they're out for a walk two, three times a day and they're very reactive and they live in a quite busy area.

So if that's you, then keep listening because it kind of helps to resonate a little bit with you and know that you're not on your own in this.

Some clients live in that scenario.

I come in and sometimes I recommend in that scenario specifically that dogs take a break from being walked because that stress is just compounding and compounding and building and building and there's nowhere for it to go except in, through the behaviour that the dog's showing through the reactivity.

So take a few days break from a walk, depending again on how long these situations have been going on for.

If it's only a short period of time and it's reactivity out on walks, say, but they're quite calm and relaxed at home, then absolutely taking a break from walks is going to help reset that nervous system for your dog and for you.

And then we start to rebuild it all back in again.

There are other ways for you to give your dog physical exercise where when you are during having those break moments, it's not about just completely switching off and doing nothing with them, they need those outlets.

But you can do it in different ways for those few days.

You know, sometimes it's up to two weeks depending on like if the dog's older and, and has had lots of chronic kind of stress build up over, over time and again they feel calmer at home than out on walks, then it might be up to two weeks having a break.

And that's absolutely okay.

It's going to help more than anything because after that two weeks you start to make progress.

After those you start to see progress because you're giving your body and your dog's body time to reset.

So don't feel guilty for not taking them out on a walk every day because that's how I used to feel.

But I changed things and I gave my dogs break from breaks from walks some days and then we went out for a good run around on a freedom walk maybe.

And then we went and started to do the training and that's where we started to see the shift.

It wasn't two, three walks a day, every single day trying to work through it.

Because that is exactly the example that I've gone through already where you're trying to push through the pressure and it's just never going to work.

So if this episode has given you a little bit of relief today, I really would like you to share it with somebody who you think needs it.

It could be that it's a friend or family member or colleague or somebody that you know that's getting a dog, getting a puppy.

Send this to them so that they can preempt and try to prevent this from actually happening.

Because it is possible to do that.

If you know somebody that's really struggling, do send it to them, because I think it's really going to help.

And this is episode one of three in my Mini Relief series.

So listening to this episode and the following two are really going to be what starts to change things.

And I want them to hear the same reminder where you don't have to keep pushing to be doing more, to do it, to be doing enough.

Because like I've said, it's not going to get you anywhere.

And if you'd like to learn how to create calm and confidence from this grounded place, genuinely from the grounded place.

My Confident Dog Parent Blueprint course is going live again soon, very soon.

So I'll link it in the show notes.

As always, you can go check it out and join the wait list for when it goes live.

But I want you to know that you are doing better than you think.

Because our brains can lie to us and tell us that we're not good enough and we're not doing things the way it should be be done.

But who's to say what what that looks like?

Because we're all different.

You're doing better than you think.

I want you to breathe and to pause and to start again tomorrow.

That is absolutely okay.

Thanks so much for tuning in to.

The Mindful Dog Parent.

If this episode gave you something to.

Think about or it just made you feel a little less alone, I would love it if you followed the show.

And shared it with another dog parent who needs it.

You'll find all the links and resources mentioned in the show notes@lavendergardenanimalservices.co.uk podcast and I would love to stay in touch so head there if you want to explore more ways to work with me or get support.