The Transformative Power of Resonance with Your Horse or Dog #116

In this episode, Mary Debono shares how cultivating resonance—a felt sense of connection between you and your animal—can profoundly transform your relationship with your horse or dog.

Whether through hands-on Debono Moves, quiet companionship, or simply breathing together, resonance helps you tune in more deeply to your animal—and yourself. Mary explains how subtle shifts in attention, gratitude, and gentle support can activate your animal’s nervous system in a healing, trust-building way.

Through real-life stories, including working with an aging Australian Shepherd and liberty play with her beloved horse Breeze, Mary reveals how resonance can become a guidepost for more meaningful interaction. 

You’ll also learn practical ways to begin cultivating this quiet, powerful connection today—and why it’s one of the most valuable things you can share with your animal.

Key Takeaways

• Resonance is a powerful felt sense of connection that creates lasting impact—even after touch ends.
  
  
• Starting from gratitude shifts your physiology and opens a channel of attunement with your animal.
  
  
• Gentle, supportive touch helps the nervous system feel safe and ready to change—without force.
  
  
• Being aware of your own bodily sensations can help guide how you work with your horse or dog.
  
  
• Resonance strengthens trust, communication, and emotional well-being for both you and your animal.
  
  
• You can begin cultivating it today—with a pause, a breath, and heartfelt presence.
  
  

Resources:

Grab your FREE videos on Connected Breathing and Rhythm Circles to help your dog. 🐕 https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

Get your free videos on Connected Breathing and Rhythm Circles with your horse. 🐎https://tinyurl.com/equine-videos

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 series: https://tinyurl.com/balanced-sitting
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. Today I want to talk about something that's subtle but extremely powerful. I think you're going to really like how it helps you really deepen your connection and your communication with your horse or your dog. I've experienced it again and again in my work with animals and it never ceases to amaze me. And it's something I call resonance. And it's that deep kind of quiet feeling of connection that you sometimes get with your horse or your dog.

It can happen during hands on work. You probably know that I teach something called Debono Moves, which is very gentle, very effective hands on work with horses and dogs and other animals. But it can also happen, you know, so it happens there a lot because you're really supporting their movement and getting in tune with them. It's like you're really connecting with their nervous system on a deep level.

But it can also just kind of arise when you're in play or you're sitting quietly with your animal. And it can even happen from a distance. Okay. And it's, it's, it's kind of like this sense that something is connecting you with your animal. Like a signal was sent and not only was it received, but it mattered. Okay. And that's a big distinction. And it's kind of hard to define, right, to describe it, but once you start noticing it, you really feel it and you want more of it.

Okay? So. Okay, so when I'm. When I'm doing Debono Moves  with animals, I'm offering the horse or the dog very subtle and supportive movements. And they're designed to give the nervous system new sensory information, the kind that says you're safe, you can soften here. You can move differently if you want to. So nothing is forced. It's all done in harmony with the animal's nervous system. Right. They change when they're ready to change.

But we help facilitate those improvements. Okay. So you might notice that if you do the Debono Moves  work, and I have free trainings that I'll hook you up with, but after a few minutes, something happens. You might feel like a shift. You might feel a sense of warmth, like maybe in your heart area, a softening not just in the animal, but in yourself too. And to me, that's resonance.

So it's like the effects of the movements that you're doing, doing with the animal continue even after your physical contact has ended. Okay. And it's like the bond doesn't dissolve, it lingers. There's this connection, this, these sensations that continue after you stop the physical Contact. And it's like you're both more attuned, you're, you know, to each other. You're both more present, not only to each other, but to yourselves.

Like, you're more mindful, you have more awareness and you are more available to each other. So let me tell you a little story about one of the, the really one of the first times that I really understood the importance of this, I was working with this dog named Rocky was the first time I was seeing him. His person brought him to my office. He was an 11 year old, very handsome Australian shepherd.

And he was basically dragging his hind legs. He had, he was really, really weak behind. It was very difficult for him to walk. You know, we had to help him in and you know, of course his person had taken him to the veterinarian. They did everything they could. I insist on that, okay, it's super important that you take your animals to the veterinarian. But they, they were kind of like, medication isn't helping.

They didn't know what else to do. So his person, Bob had heard about me and brought him to me. And as I was working with him, it's like I started thinking, okay, you know, where can I help relieve his effort? Because that's one of the first things you want to do for an animal, right? Horse or dog. You want to think like how can I help them quiet their nervous system.

So I knew that his lower back muscles were working really, really hard because he was trying to compensate for his very, very weak and almost non functioning hind legs. So I started very gently supporting his lumbar muscles in a particular way. And by the way, I go into detail talking about what I did with, to help Rocky in my book grow young with your dog. So if you want to check that out, there'll be a link to the book in the description.

I make it available for a very, very low price because I want the, I want to be able to help you and your animals. So was really interesting. So I, as I was working with him, something completely unexpected happened to me. It's like I. First of all, I started to, you know, I'm, I'm supporting his lumbar muscles and at the same time I just, I was just overcome with this feeling of gratitude for him.

It's like he put himself literally in my hands and he was so sweet and so trusting and just a beautiful dol in every way. And then this is when the really unexpected thing happened. I just felt this tremendous, I'm going to call it like an explosion of heat in my chest and like in my heart area. And it wasn't just like a pleasant feeling. It was absolutely delicious.

It's like it was expanding. It made me feel so alive. And even more importantly, it help me feel even more connected with Rocky. And this is what I discovered. It's like as I was working with him when I was doing something that really relieved his sense of effort and strain in his body. You know, remember he's just lying on his side on a mat in my office. This, this beautiful feeling, this warmth in my chest would expand, would get larger and stronger.

And then when I did things that were okay but not as meaningful to his nervous system, that sensation would dissipate a little bit. So I started using it as like a barometer to help guide me into what to do with Rocky, like with my hands, like what specific moves I should do with him. So it was really, really amazing because it was like my own bodily sensations were helping inform how I worked with Rocky.

And by the end of the session, Rocky stood up and walked unaided. It was, it was quite mind blowing to say the least. Both him and his person, Bob, excuse me, both myself and Bob were completely floored. It's like we didn't expect something that good to have happened. And I'm not saying it's always going to happen that way with other dogs that have that situation. But from that moment on, I realized that what I was doing naturally, like that idea of really connecting with the dog on an emotional or spiritual level, like this idea of expressing gratitude, I mean, non verbally, I wasn't saying it out loud, but I realized I was doing that naturally with the animals I worked with.

But for some reason, and this is where I think Rocky was one of my greatest teachers. He let me experience that in a really profound way. So that when I was teaching my students, I make a point now of explaining how important it is to get into that state of gratitude and how that can help deepen the connection you have with your dog or your horse. It's, it's, it's amazing because by the way, this being in the state of gratitude creates physiological changes in you, right?

You might have heard of like heart rate variability, and they use that as a metric of physical performance and cognitive performance. And that is clearly related. They've done lots of studies clearly related to feeling gratitude. So the Heartmath Institute in particular has done a lot of studies with this and it's, it's amazing. So to me, that step like feeling gratitude for your dog or your horse is the first step in creating then.

Because then there's more to it than just that. But that's a good first step in helping you create this connection that I'm calling now. Like, like creating a resonant feeling between you two. Like a feeling that lingers and matters. Something like useful that you're giving each other. Okay, so you know, what I, what I realized happened there was. I was creating like a synergistic effect. Yes. The work I was doing with my hands was undoubtedly extremely helpful for him, for Rocky, extremely.

And I had a very good strategy of what I was doing and all that. But I, from that moment on realized that when I paired it with this feeling of gratitude, or you can call it loving energy, it created like this synergistic effect that kind of turbocharged the whole deal. So I really think that's an important piece of this whole thing. Okay. And, you know, so, so again, that's.

You want to think of gratitude as your first step. And then like the gentle supportive movements that we do in my work dibono moves is like the second step. And listening to yourself, like tuning into your own body, like what you feel like really listening to yourself and your animal is another really, really important piece. So it's like a three part strategy, if you will, or formula. Okay, so I'll give you another example.

This one involves my horse, Breeze. So my horse Breeze, who unfortunately passed away, but when he was with me, which we were together for almost 20 years, we used to do this amazing liberty play thing. That's what I called it. And there was no tack, you know, no ropes, no halter, you know, nothing. Just I would, you know, Breeze and I would be together in this big arena and we would play, we would do all these things.

We would run and turn and jump over things. You know, I was on the ground, you know, we were doing all kinds of, like, fun things. And it was like we were reading each other's minds. It was just. It's hard to describe, but we had this connection that was visceral. Even though we weren't touching each other, he could be on the other side of the arena. And we, we just had this incredible bond.

And it went beyond the bond that, you know, a horse and a human have. It was like, I. I would imagine, for example, that there was like this beautiful blue, energetic ribbon connecting us. And again, I think because I had done so much and I continued to do a lot of hands on work with Breeze, you know, my Debono Moves  work, we knew each other kind of inside and out.

And he, we already had that nervous system to nervous system connection when we were close. In other words, when my hands were on him. And we were able to maintain that even when we didn't have contact. Okay. So even when we were at a distance and it was like. And again, he was a very, very sensitive horse. So he used to, I think, read a lot of my subconscious cues, you know, things I didn't even realize I was doing.

And that's why it seemed like he was reading my mind. And because I was so tuned into him, I was also reading him and, and looking for those little subtle cues. And that's why it just appeared like we were reading each other's minds and we just responded to each other. And I, you know, and it was fun for what we were doing was fun for both of us.

So it wasn't like anything I had to coerce him into doing. Right. I wasn't chasing him around with a whip or you know, a rope or a stick or any of those things. Right. It was something we both enjoyed. And really it was a dance. And I have to say it felt like magic. And again that started from gratitude and the hands on work that I did with him and then being more aware of my own bodily sensations, my own movements, like having that awareness and awareness of my horse as well.

So again, it's that three pronged formula, right? Three part formula that I think is so, so powerful. So now why does this matter to you? Well, first of all, I'll tell you this, it feels so darn good. It's like because really, isn't that why you're with your horse, dog or your horse, right? You love that feeling. Like you love the feeling of connection between you two. So, you know, so these moments when they arise, because it's not like they happen like all the time, but you can start to cultivate them, you can learn how to develop them and to have them happen more often and stronger.

And at first it might be difficult for you to feel them, but the more you become aware of yourself and your animal, the more they'll happen and the stronger they'll get and the more delicious they'll feel. Okay. So it reminds you that communication doesn't have to be loud or forceful. Could be like a quiet whisper, right? That you can just have this non verbal communication with your animal.

And it also, I think that resonance also shows us that we're not separate from our animals. Right? We can, it's like we're co regulating, we're co learning, we're learning about each other together. We're learning about ourselves at the same time. Okay. So I think it teaches us to slow down, to listen differently, you know, to use our whole body to listen. You know, instead of just, like, listening with our ears, it's like we're really listening with our whole self.

Right. And to trust that our body and their body knows. Right. It's that innate wisdom of the body that we all have. Okay, so now how can you make this practical for yourselves? Well, I will say if you're in my move with your horse program, which we're just starting, if you're listening to this in real time, we're just starting a new cohort. I'm so excited. We're. We have people from all over the world.

It's very exciting. And I will be doing a dog program later as well. So hit me up if you want to know more about that. And. Yeah. So. But let me give you some practical things that you can do right away. So the next time you're with your horse or your dog, try this. First of all, just pause, right? Take a soft breath. Just think of kind of tuning into yourself.

And then just think about one thing that you're grateful to them for. Right? Just hold that sense of gratitude for your animal. And then notice any changes in your body. Just any. Any changes. Okay. Any. Any warmth, any softening, any change in your breath, any subtle shift. Okay. Because this requires, you know, it can take some time to cultivate this sensitivity, this awareness. So. And then just be together for a few moments.

Don't expect anything from your animal. Don't expect anything from yourself. Just be present together. And that's where resonance begins. And like I said, I'll have links in the description. Wherever you're listening or watching this, you can find some free video trainings I have. You can sign up for the wait list for any of my programs if you're interested in helping your horse or your dog. Yeah. So thank you so much for being here today with me, and I can't wait to see you next time.

Bye for now.