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Your dog's nervous system has the same job that your nervous system has
It's to keep you safe by monitoring the environment you're in and how you feel about it based on past associations
Reacting to advise our behavior to keep us safe & secure in the world helping us fight, flight, freeze, fidget or relax in any given moment.
Our nervous systems are imprinted and developed early in life, based on our life experiences, and impacted by how much our parents or life experiences either traumatized us or didn't.
When our nervous system is dysregulated and out of balance, we get sick, anxiety, have panic disorders, or other issues like excessive or explosive reactions to everyday stress.
A person with a regulated nervous system on the other hand responds to stress a lot more casually and confidently, rebounding quickly, reaching a calm state of mind shortly after being triggered.
A highly sensitive or reactive person takes much longer to rebound and requires more support and guidance to de-escalate and pattern calmer responses to stress.
How we respond to stress is patterned early in life and we carry that pattern with us into adulthood unless we become aware of it and break the cycle, to learn healthier responses to stress and conflict.
Once we break the cycle and become aware of how reactive and panic responses are self-sabotaging, we can come up with plans to heal the parts of ourselves that those responses are deeply rooted in our early behaviorial and societal programming/conditioning to begin building healthier responses to stress.
Your dog's nervous system works the same way as yours.
It's trying to keep itself safe and it will continue to choose a familiar type of hell instead of an uncomfortable heaven.
The only difference is that
1. Your dog doesn't remember it's trauma like you do, they don't have episodic memory
2. Dogs only have 5 real emotions that they can feel
3. If a dog's needs for a healthy parent-figure/pack leader is not met, their nervous system will become easier to trigger & create dysregulated patterns.
4. Your dog has YOU to help it feel better about the world, it doesn't have to make choices or figure it out on it’s own BUT you have to show them that
As it relates to behavior change, most of the dogs I work with are these dogs who are just stuck in a permanently triggered and traumatized nervous system and need a parent/pack leader to help take some of the stress off the dog by giving it more leadership and fulfillment of it's instinctive needs so the dog can relax and calm down in the world.
My client's dog's associations with the world are built so poorly because they were socialized and handled in a way that through no fault of their own, the humans felt good about, during a period of a puppies life when they needed their parent to properly Socialize them in a way that builds their confidence and neutrality to the world.
Dogs that needed a parent to give them clear communication to help them form neutral and pack-centered associations on the world, but puppies who didn't get that because the owner's didn't know any better >> We just want to snuggle and coddle our puppies to keep them safe and make them comfortable in this world... making everything as warm and "positive" as possible!!! Fear-free, force-free, cooperative care, rewards-based... it's all conflicting with how dog's form and learn associations.
Pet marketing and pet trainers around the world have us influenced to pump puppies full of treats, planning doggie play dates with non-littermates/stranger dogs, saying hi to humans to try and forcing dogs to be more "social", instead of appreciating that dogs are not like humans, they do not want to associate with stranger dogs. Instead of learning to think, speak and act like a dog, we try to train our dogs with obedience cues and food rewards...
Humans hyper focus on teaching dogs from an early age HOW WE COMMUNICATE as humans, using words and commands, instead of learning HOW DOGS COMMUNICATE instinctively. We start trying to tell our dogs what to do instead of showing them what we'd like them to do and often creating more confusion and conflict in the home with our animals.
The reason this doesn't work is:
We aren't acting like a dog parent like an actual mother dog ever would
We aren't convincing to the dog that we are in fact their humans who
Understands & provides for their basic biological, emotional, and social needs
And understand how it's alike but different raising dogs instead of kids
We are unintentionally triggering our dog's nervous system without teaching a dog that it should feel safe and secure with us in the world first
Humans do this without meeting a dog's basic biological, emotional, and social need for a strong parent figure and leader - something they are born with naturally and something we take away in domesticated dogs
Basically we force our dogs to live in this constantly triggered state of survival mode where they don't feel safe, secure, and relaxed about the world we live in
Because they feel like like they have to fend for themselves and don't understand who their parent or pack leader is.
And in the absence of a strong pack leader, our dogs must become one
So our dogs become the pack leader themselves to try and make themselves feel better by keeping themselves safe and in that process they pattern deep behavior issues because they figure out what works to get what they want, feel safe and secure, and meet all their basic biological needs.
In the absence of a strong pack leader, a dog must become one. It's a survival skill.
After dogs figure out what works to meet their needs on their own, dogs are going to keep doing what works until the cycle is broken.
Dogs will control as much in their lives as you let them until you teach them that you, their parent & pack leader, control everything in their lives and they don't have to worry about it. Then almost like magic in most cases, poof they don't worry about things anymore!
The only thing that shuts off the active, constantly triggered nervous system that always has to make a decision for itself, is to have a pack leader/parent who gets it and can help the dog co-regulate its nervous system out of sympathetic stress state into a parasympathetic rest state in any environment.
Dogs need us to help them break the cycle of anxiety/arousal, and help the dog settle down by understanding and prioritizing fulfilling its hierarchy of needs, healing the dog's foundation so they feel stable, safe, and secure, and trust and respect their parents to help them do it, thus loving and being loyal to their pack because it's what makes them feel at ease in this modern human world.
One of the greatest gifts you can give an unstable dog is a balanced pack that can help it can feel safe and secure with. A pack where it understands what's expected of it and one where it doesn't need to make any of it's own choices to get things it wants because everything is provided. it's like an all-inclusive resort vacation - it give's you peace of mind because all the basics are taken care of. A balanced pack with strong parental oversight and support has the same affect on our dog's well-being and that directly lends itself to how well behaved your dog is and if they just know what's expected of it in any environment and if it know's who can help it feel safe and secure when it's uncomfortable, excited, or stressed.
That's what we teach at Janna's Pack in our Transform DIY Board & Train Group Experience. We analyze your lifestyle and dog's behavior to compare it to the baseline of habits, rituals, and lifestyle of a stable and balanced dog and overall to be practicing the principles of a balanced pack.
Then we backfill your foundation and how you live with your dog using sustainable changes that integrate how dog's think, speak, and act with how humans live to achieve a symbiotic relationship and peaceful coexistence so dogs feel better about the world they live in.
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