Regulating Emotions: A Key to Successful Dog Training

Hey there, dog lover! Welcome to this episode of the Unconventional Dog Trainer. We hope you enjoy our battle tested, relationship based solutions for helping your unconventional dog shine, with your host, Luzelle Cockburn. Let's dive in.

The faster you go, the bigger the mess. Now, you may have heard that when it comes to driving to the speed limit or not speeding, but how does this relate to dog training? Hi, I'm Luzelle, the unconventional dog trainer, and in this episode we are talking about slowing down to speed up. Right, so what does that mean?

So, what do you need to know? Okay, so when it comes to working with people and animals, we have to remember that the stress hormone, cortisol, high levels of that, impairs, um, creates all sorts of problems, behavior problems, memory problems, problem solving problems. It leads to higher incidence of aggression. Um, and, uh, it leads to somebody who is not able to regulate their emotions because their, um, whole system is geared into the fight flight, um, freeze system.

They're not thinking because it's all, all, all, everything is triggered by the primal brain. If you have got high levels of cortisol, you are not getting out of primal brain. And if you want more information on this, check out Charlotte Moore. She is amazing. And she is the person who taught me all of this.

So. I highly recommend you check her out. She's a horse trainer in Perth. Um, she also helps dogs and owners and humans with their stress levels and trauma and so on and so forth. So she's brilliant. Look her up. This is the stuff you need to understand when it comes to your dog. Slowing down your speech and movement will not only help regulate your stress hormones, but it will help regulate your dog's too, because our dogs are so sensitive to our feelings and stress hormones.

Remember your dog can sniff out cancer, so if their nose is that good, then there's no question that they can smell. the hormones you are releasing. Now, I noticed this with my own dogs. If I've got a dog that got a fright or something, they absolutely stink to the other dog. Also, a dog who's unconfident, um, when I work with clients dogs and stuff, they're the ones who will pee in rivers and streams.

They won't pee out in public where other dogs can. find them or identify them because stress makes them smell weak. When you smell stressed you cannot be a relationship based leader because you Your dog won't trust you because you stink of stress and you really want to be in control so that your dog looks to you for guidance.

That they go, I don't know that I can deal with this, but my human smells like I've got it sorted. I will look to them. That's really why it's important to get your stress under control. And because our dogs are so sensitive to us, it's really important that we regulate our own emotions and learn how to do that.

So box breathing, four in, four hold, six out, or six or more out, that counts, your breath. Um, so you can help regulate your emotions a bit better. Now, these are just the tricks and so on and so forth, but there's so much more you need to do to help your dog. Because if you You're not going to trust somebody.

So like I usually do this when I explain to clients about leadership and stuff. And I say to them that, um, you need to. Pay attention to the way you speak because if you meet somebody on the train, say there was a train accident and the person goes, Oh my God, we're all gonna die! Now both my dogs looked up at that.

Then of course, um, you're not going to trust that person to get you out of here. If they say, okay, I can get you out of here, you're going to go, no, you just lost it. I don't trust you. If somebody comes along, say a firefighter, they don't even have to have a uniform on, it could be anybody. And they say in a calm, confident, low voice.

Hey, I can get you out of here. Follow me. Um, you're more likely to follow them. Um, even if they have to speak a little bit more firmly to you, you're still going to follow them because they appear like they've got it all together. So they're not running around like a headless chicken. They are. They truly look like they've got it under control

so, you do that by slowing down your speech, slowing down your movement, and giving the dog the information that you've got this under control. But you also need to slow down their movement. So, one step per second is perfect. So, that will really help you and your dog um, work together.

And It falls in line with leadership, it falls in line with getting their behavior better. Because stressed dogs bite. Stressed dogs. React. Stressed dogs, um, dig holes. Stressed dogs chew everything. Stressed dogs escape. Stressed dogs do all sorts of things we don't want them to do. Um, so, if yo