Why Fixing Your Animal Won’t Work—And What Does #111

What if the key to helping your horse or dog move with ease wasn’t about “fixing” them but connecting with them?

In this episode, I challenge the idea of correction-based approaches and explain why true change happens through mindful support, not force. I introduce my Possibilities in Motion framework—a powerful yet simple way to connect with your animal, relieve tension, and gently guide them toward easier movement.

You’ll also hear the inspiring story of Zoey, a dog who wouldn’t use her surgically repaired leg despite all traditional rehab efforts. The breakthrough? A simple yet profound shift in connection that helped her nervous system feel safe enough to change.

This episode is for anyone who wants to deepen their bond with their animal and help them move with greater comfort, confidence, and joy—without force or frustration.

Resources:
Doors open in March! Join the waitlist for the next Move with Your Horse Foundations program and get your discount code!  https://www.marydebono.com/joinhorse. 🐎

Grab your FREE video training to help your dog. 🐕 https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

Mentioned in the episode:

Zoey's holistic recovery from hip surgery

Get Mary’s bestselling, award-winning book, “Grow Young with Your Dog,” for a super low price at: https://tinyurl.com/growyoungwithyourdog. Demonstration videos are included at no extra cost. ⬅️⬅️⬅️

Want to sit in a more balanced, secure way? Click here for all the details on our new series.
Effortless, Balanced Sitting: A FeldenkraisⓇ Movement Series  ⬅️⬅️⬅️

All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and does not constitute medical or veterinary advice or professional training advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you, your horse, or your dog are unwell or injured.  Always use extreme caution when interacting with horses and dogs.

Email [email protected]

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello and welcome to Easier Movement, Happier life for you, your horses and dogs. I'm Mary Debono and I'm so glad you're here today. I want to talk to you about why I say that we don't fix animals, at least not in my world. Right. I don't promote, quote unquote fixing animals. I promote helping you connect with your animals and providing support, physical and emotional support, you know, using your hands physically to help facilitate improvements for your horse or dog.

So it's not about fixing, it's not about, you know, looking at your animal and saying, oh, these other horses or these other dogs move this way. This is what you should be doing. Or they behave this way and this is what you should be doing. Okay, it's not about that, that will backfire and it's not kind. But instead, if you want to have a holistic approach that respects the inner wisdom, the innate wisdom of your animal's nervous system and works with it, then you're in the right place.

So I always say we connect, we don't. Correct. Okay. This is really, really important. So big distinction. The, you know, process that I teach, which I call de Bono moves, it's all about doing something with your animal, with your horse or with your dog, not to them. It's a very big distinction. This is, this what we do here is more co creative. Right. You're constantly listening to your animal and then adjusting what you're doing based on that feedback.

So the animal is a, is a active participant in this. And, and this is really critical. Your self awareness is key to be able to doing this effectively. Now what do I mean by that? What is self awareness? Well, self awareness is, you can think of it like your awareness, I have to use that word again. But of, you know, your, your tension, your thoughts, your movement, your coordination.

And it's, it's not like you're constantly thinking about it, but you're more mindful. You have an understanding of what you do habitually and what you do more mindfully. Okay. So you become more self. Aware. So for example, if a person is trying to help their horse or their dog and, and they're maybe following something that they read that I, you know, maybe my book, maybe, maybe you got my book grow young with your dog.

And I go through and I tell you like certain, what I call, moves, hands on processes that you can do with your dog. And we have same thing for the horses. So say you're doing them, but the entire time you're doing them, you're really Tense, right? Maybe you're thinking, oh, I'm not doing this right. I don't understand this. Or maybe you got aggravated at your animal because they're moving around, or you find that your, you know, shoulders are up by your ears or back is really hurting, or you're just not comfortable.

Maybe you're working with your dog on the floor and you're not comfortable. Well, that will impact what you're doing with your animal. So in other words, when you're feeling those things, you won't be able to transmit a sense of ease and pleasure through movement with your animal. What you're going to transmit is a sense of strain and effort. So that's not what we want. Now, if this method was just simply following directions and like, put your hands here, press here, press this amount.

Da, da, da, right? It wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter if you were tense. It wouldn't matter what you were, where your attention was. You'd be going through the motions, right? This is not like that. So if you want that kind of an approach where you're just following, you know, like a recipe and you don't, you could be watching TV or whatever, then you don't want this. Okay? But if instead you're looking for something gentle and kind and holistic that will help improve you and your animal, well, then you're in the right place.

Okay? So today, what I really want to talk about is this idea that by simply listening to our animals and providing gentle hands on support, we can open the door for them for great change, for lots of improvement. Okay? So to give you an example of what I wouldn't do, just say you have a horse and you feel like your horse is. If, okay, and you think, I really need to fix that.

I really need to get my horse to be more supple. And maybe you. I mean, there's a number of ways you can do this. You can apply, you know, some kind of body work that's done in a way that you're just like, trying to change the horse's structure in an invasive way. Or maybe when you're riding your horse, you can put the spur on or something and try to, quote, unquote, get your horse to bend differently.

All of that is not only unkind, but it's going to backfire. And the same thing with maybe you have a dog who's tense and you're like, oh, I just want my dog to not be tense. I want to get my dog to be more relaxed. Well, I don't think that's gonna work, right? But instead, we can provide support, both physical and emotional support, so their nervous system feels safe enough to.

To change, to explore, to discover new options. Okay, so it's. It's. It's such a. It's such a mindset shift. And then the other important piece of this is, you know, you just not having that sense of comparison. Like, we all have expectations for our animals, and sometimes it's painful, right? Like, if they're not, quote, unquote, living up to that, those expectations. So, like, we have a particular story of how our dog or a horse should be, and if they're not, maybe we can't do certain activities with them or something.

You know, then we're always kind of judging them based on these expectations or we're comparing them to other animals, other horses or other dogs. So we want to really drop that. You want to really check yourself if you're doing that and again come back to this idea that you want to create a deeper connection. And by creating this deeper connection, you give your. Your animal, your horse, your dog the opportunity again to improve.

Okay, so let me tell you a quick story. So some time ago, this dog, her name was Zoe, she had hip surgery, and it's a FHO surgery. So it's the type where they actually cut off the head of the femur. The scar tissue basically creates a false joint. The dogs usually do well. And she was a smallish dog, so they usually do quite well with that surgery. And she did all the protocols that the vet told her.

She took the dog to rehab. And she herself, the. The dog's person, Zoe's person was a physical therapist, a really talented one, and she did all the things, including, you know, swim therapy, everything. But no matter what they did, Zoe would not use the repaired leg. She just wouldn't. She just kept it up. She wouldn't weight bear. She wouldn't do anything, no matter what they. What they did.

So she happened. Natalie happened to attend. That's the person happened to attend a workshop, actually, a talk I was giving. And so she heard about my book, Grow Young with your dog. She bought it. And one of the first things I teach you in that book is what I call connected breathing. This works with horses as well as dogs. And she did it with Zoe. And what that does is, is it promotes a deep connection between you and your animal because you're really listening.

I guide you through this whole process, and you're really listening to each other. That's all it is. You're not trying to Change anything. You're not trying to fix anything. You're listening to each other. And what I've seen happen with this is it's kind of like a reset. It really helps quiet the nervous system and by the way, I should say nervous systems, because what ends up happening is that your nervous system, it's really quiet and calm, and then so does your animal's nervous system.

And that's. That was the change that Zoe needed. Because what ended up happening is once her nervous system felt safe, and again, just by doing this connected breathing, which is very, very simple to do, she was able then to have like a reset, like she wasn't guarding anymore. And what Natalie said was she got up and she immediately started to use the repaired leg. It was quite amazing.

Now, I'm not saying it's always going to happen that way, but it really is amazing how that can happen. And I've seen this just create big shifts, both in the human and in the animal that they're working with. So. And by the way, Zoe, I have a link to her in my blog and there's even a video later on. It wasn't that same date of Zoe doing the Zoomies and everything.

I mean, she went on, she actually even was in a music video because they, they lived in la and she was even in a music video. So she was a little rock star, that dog. But anyway, it was really interesting, right? So that's what we're talking about. We're talking about that kind of change, change that comes from within. And you may find as you work with your animal that you improve as well.

So let me, let me go over my, my framework. I call it Possibilities in Motion. I think this can really help you understand, you know, how something like this can work. And by the way, if you go to the show notes for this episode, so there'll be a link to the show notes in, you know where you're listening to this. If you go to my website, you'll find it, but there'll be a, like a graphic for the, for the framework.

But if you want to picture this, it's like a. It's a Venn diagram with three circles and it's a Venn diagram. So there's overlapping areas. And the first circle at the, kind of at the top is connect. And what I mean by that is first you connect with yourself. And that means that you tune in how you feel to how your body feels. You let go of unnecessary tension, you let go of unnecessary thoughts, right?

You just stay present. You notice your Breathing, right? You become. You can call it centered or grounded, right? But certainly present mindful. And then you take that self that's now connected to your own self, and you connect with your animal, with your dog or your horse. And in my programs and in my book, I teach you ways, of course, to do this. Connected breathing is one of the ways, but there's many ways to do it.

The next circle in the Venn diagram in the framework is relieve. By that, I mean, you use your hands to relieve effort and strain. So by providing physical support, it reduces the effort that the dog is putting out. It reduces the muscular effort. So if you think about this, your horse or your dog, if they have tense areas, or if you have tense areas, which we often do, it's like sort of the muscles are constantly firing.

Becomes a habit. You don't even know you're doing it. Your horse or your dog is not doing it intentionally. Usually it's become a habit, a maladaptive habit, but a habit. And when you use your hands to support the soft tissue, right, you're sending a signal to your animal's nervous system that it can let go of that tension. So this is huge. This is a key part of the process.

And what that does is allows your animal to feel something different without needing to try, with no one forcing it. It just happens, right? They. They feel differently in themselves and they feel better. And what happens when the nervous system feels something pleasurable? It wants to do more of that. Okay, so this is really tapping into that inner wisdom of the body that you have. Your horse has, your dog has.

We all have. That's what we're doing. So think of it like this. Just say you were doing something where you had to hold your arm up in a certain position for a long time and you were getting tired, right? And some nice person came along and held it for you. I just held your arm. Like, how good would that feel? How relieving would that feel? Right? You'd want that person to hang around, wouldn't you?

Right? And then you might realize, oh, maybe I don't have to hold my arm in that position anymore. I could lower it. Now, that's just a silly example, but again, we do this all the time. Maybe you have a lot of tension in your upper back and shoulders or your neck or your hips. That's another big place. Or your low back. We have tension, unnecessary tension that's habitual in many different places.

And our animals often do that as well. So doing this for our animals can be quite profound because Instead of struggling to compensate, right. They start to experience what it's like to move with less strain and more freedom. And just by something as simple as you providing that support, okay, this is really, really key. So their nervous system registers this change and what happens is it makes new movement possibilities occur.

So in other words, they become available. So this is, this is key. The third circle in our Venn diagram, in our framework is remind. Okay. And what that means is that once we've provided this sense of relief for animals, then we use our hands to gently guide them to feel how their body can move even more freely. It's very, very gentle, very subtle. But this allows them to kind of explore and integrate these new sensations.

So it's. So you're really putting the learning, the nervous system in a learning state, right? And you're creating new, you're helping, I mean the animal is creating the new neural connections, but you're facilitating that. You're providing a learning environment. Again, this isn't something done to your horse or dog, it's something done with them. So you kind of set up the environment using your hands, using your attention, right?

Using your, you know, your own self awareness to say, hey, let me give you a hand here. Like literally, let me support you here. And then together you explore very gentle new movement possibilities. Okay? So that's the remind part of the framework. Then we come right around because this is a circular framework, we come back to connect. And this means that then we, we connect these new movement possibilities into everyday life, into something functional, right?

So you might start to notice that your horse moves more freely under saddle or your dog can climb the stairs or jump on the couch more easily now, right? We want to connect the improvement to something that makes a difference in the animal's quality of life. That's what we come around to connect again. So again I want to emphasize this is a co creative process. We explore movement and sensation with them, we don't do something to them, right?

So your, your, your biggest tool in this is your sense of curiosity. It's just being like really curious. But how, how things feel. And let me give you some ideas of how you can start this today, okay? I go into way in depth in this in my horse and dog programs. Okay? But let's talk about something you can do today. So here's just something very simple. Start by simply observing your dog or your horse without expectation.

Just notice them. Notice them in different environments, different scenarios, you know, doing different movements. You're just noticing them, okay? Notice their posture, your breathing Their facial expressions, the set of their tail, any subtle shifts, notice it. And you know, here's, this is important because you're actually training your brain to pay attention to these subtle things. So at first you might think, I don't know what I'm seeing or you're noticing.

I, I don't really know. I see my dog, I see my horse, I don't know. Don't worry, don't worry. You're training your, what they call the reticular activating system. It's a part of your brain often called the ras for short, ras. But what you're doing is you're saying, this is important to me. So let's filter for that. Like in other words, let's pay more attention to that. So unconsciously, even your brain will start to like, allow in more information about your animal, about your horse or your dog.

Because we, we are bombarded with billions of bits of data constantly. Like there's so much information coming at you that your brain filters it. It has to, otherwise you, you couldn't make sense of the world. So you have to basically tell it, you're interested in something. It's kind of like doing a search online. You know, whether you use Google or DuckDuckGo or whatever you use, right. You have to put something in the search bar to search for it.

So it's like you're telling your brain, oh, I'm interested in noticing subtle things about my animals. And then you will start to notice them. And again, some of the information will come in, maybe lots of it actually will come in unconsciously, but you'll start to get gut feelings about things. Okay, what, what I like to call informed intuition, which is a term that Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais created. The Feldenkrais method that I also teach used to use that informed intuition means it comes from a place of knowledge.

It's not just out of nowhere, right? You have, you're allowing the unconscious intake of information to inform. Okay, so, so anyway, so start to notice these subtle things and then just notice. Where do you want to put your hand on your dog or your horse? One hand or two hands, depending on how you want to do it. But see, if you had to guess and make sure it's a place your animal is comfortable with you touching.

Can you put your hand or hands on your animal in such a way that your providing gentle support, not pressure? There's a subtle distinction there. In other words, you're not pressing into your animal, you are supporting them. And again, there's many different Ways to do this, and I go into detail with this depending on how you're doing it and where you're doing it with your animal. But just think of it as your promoting more awareness to that area.

It's like if a friend put their hand on your back in a loving way, right? How would that feel? And it would naturally bring more awareness to that part. So that is a first, very important step is to just have even just a sense of emotional support by placing your hand or hands gently on your animal. Okay, so that's a good way to get started and just then observe.

So stay there together, breathe together and notice if they soften, if they shift their weight, or maybe they just simply become more aware of your presence. You know, maybe they start to breathe in a more relaxed way or maybe the, if they had wrinkles around their face, maybe those soften. So just start to notice things like that and you'll find where your animal really invites your contact and how to do it in a way that's, you know, subtle and gentle, not invasive.

One of the things I like to do is before I actually do a hands on movement with an animal, I like to imagine it first. I feel like it just sort of sets me up to do it in a really gentle, respectful way. So I'll think it first. And depending on what I'm doing, I'll hang out there for a while, you know, and I'll provide that support. And then when I'm getting ready to disengage, I just very gradually take my hands away.

But here's the key. I like to imagine that my hands are still on the animal. Like I have these imaginary hands. So. Sounds silly, but it works. And you know why it works? Because it kind of slows you down so that you're not disengaging too abruptly. Because if you were providing that lovely sense of support, both physical and emotional support, to disengage quickly would not feel very good.

So if you just think, well, I'm just going to slowly, gradually take my hands away and then you think, well, I'm going to leave my imaginary hands there. That really does encourage you to slow way down. Okay, so just, just something like that. Just bring this like small act of mindful awareness. It's like the first step in opening up new possibilities for your horse or your dog. Okay, so let's talk about.

So if this intrigued you at all, which I hope it did, let's think of some next steps if you're interested in learning more about this. So if you have A horse or you're interested in horses? I have a program called Move with your horse and our foundations program which is a 10 week program. It's opening up on March 25th. So I it's not open for enrollment quite yet, but it will be very soon.

And if you jump on the wait list, there's no obligation. If you go on the wait list, there is a bonus. You actually will get a very nice discount code if you go on the waitlist. So the wait list is maryDebono.com joinhorse that's all one word, all lowercase. There'll be a link in the description for that. So again maryDebono.com joinforce now if you're a dog person or maybe you're both right, my book grow young with your dog, which you can find either.

I'll put a link in the show in the description to the PDF version you can get on my website and that's the lowest price point for a little bit for like a dollar more you can get a Kindle on Amazon or a soft cover and it's also available at Barnes and Noble. So any of those websites you can find it on. The other thing is for those who want a coaching program the way I have for the horses, I will be opening up in another month or so, couple of months, maybe a coaching program for the dogs.

Okay. And make so keep it keep an eye on your email. If you're, if you're not on my email already, please join and I'm going to tell them. So for the horse people, go on the wait list. That'll get you on the email list. For the dog people, here's another this is actually a really valuable free resource. If you haven't signed up already, go to maryDebono.com forward/love dog.

It's all one word, all lowercase. MaryDebono.com forward/Love Dog. You'll then be, you'll, you'll be kept updated on what we have going on. So okay, again, I hope this is valuable for you. And now I'd love to hear from you. Let me know if you have an issue you're dealing with with your horse or your dog. And I'd be happy to do a podcast episode for you. And if you enjoyed this episode, please please leave a good review.

Subscribe of course, and share it with your animal lovers. It helps us get the work out in front of more people, which helps more and more animals as well as their humans. So thank you so so much for listening. I'll see you in the next episode. Bye for now.