Why Your Dog’s Nervous System Resists Quick Fixes #34

Mary Debono challenges the common instinct to correct a dog’s posture or movement problems. Drawing from her extensive experience with Debono Moves and the Feldenkrais MethodⓇ, Mary explains why forcing a dog into a different posture may backfire by triggering the nervous system's protective responses. 

Instead, she advocates for a gentle, supportive approach that honors the body’s natural tendencies and gradually introduces new options. By working with your dog’s nervous system rather than against it, you can help your dog move more freely and comfortably, leading to lasting improvements in their mobility and well-being. 

This episode can change how you approach your dog’s health and movement challenges.

Key Takeaways

1. Rethink Immediate Fixes: Jumping in to correct your dog’s posture or movement issues may not be effective and can often create resistance.
2. Support, Don’t Contradict: Work with your dog’s nervous system by supporting what they are already doing, then gently introduce new options.
3. Debono Moves: This approach uses gentle, hands-on practices to help your dog feel and move better by honoring their body's natural tendencies.
4. Gradual Improvement: With gentle support and gradual hands-on “suggestions,” your dog can develop healthier movement patterns, leading to improved mobility and overall well-being.
5. Broader Application: These concepts apply not only to physical issues but also to behavioral challenges, offering a holistic approach to dog care.

Resources:

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https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

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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. ⬅️⬅️⬅️

All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and doesn't constitute medical or veterinary advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you or your dog are unwell or injured. 

TRANSCRIPT:

If you're like many people, if you see that your dog is having an issue with something, you just want to fix it right. You just want to make it right. So what I'd like to talk to you about today is why that may not be the best, the best strategy, and I'll explain why. And in case we're meeting for the first time, my name is Mary Debono, and this is the easier movement, Happier Dogs podcast.

So I'll give you an example from a mobility point of view. But this can apply to many different things, behavioral things, quite a number of things. But just say, for example, this has happened many times where I'm asked to work with a dog who has some back issues, and they've been cleared by the vet that they've done all the veterinary stuff. That's crucial, by the way. All the work I do is as a compliment to veterinary care, not as a replacement ever.

And the work is not medical in nature. It's what we call, like, educational. We're helping the dog discover how to feel differently in their body. It's not, we're not trying to force anything, and we're not treating any, like, diagnoses. So, but many dogs, as they age, and sometimes this starts fairly young, they get stiffness in their back, and the back may even sometimes, not always, but take on a more rounded shape.

Like, they just get more into that flexion mode with their back. Now, some dogs, their confirmation is like that all the time, like from when they were young, and that's fine. Like certain breeds, they're more predisposed to. That doesn't mean that's a problem. But for others, you'll see a distinct change in the back. So what a lot of people feel like they want to do is do the opposite of that, like, quote unquote, get the dog to do more extension so that the back changes shape and becomes flatter, if you will.

But that's usually a bad idea. That's usually a bad idea because what I always think about is, why did the dog's nervous system decide to do that flexion in the first place to create that more rounded shape? There was a reason. Now, the reason may be obsolete now, it may be maladaptive, it may actually be causing a problem, but it's, at the very inception of it, when it was first created, it was probably a response to a problem.

It was like a potential solution, that the nervous system felt like it was getting a sense of relief. Maybe some other parts were bothering the dog. Who knows? There's many many different reasons. We won't go into all of them, but it's your body and your dog's body. It's like you have this innate intelligence. You have this bodily wisdom that's trying to solve problems for you. But sometimes it's like they become maladaptive.

Maybe the problem was a temporary thing, but the body holds onto it. This is very common. So in any case, so now the dog has this issue, what I found, and again, this is informed by my work as a Feldenkrais method practitioner, the work of Doctor Moshe Feldenkrais that I'm trained in. What we find is, for example, like, just say it's. You just say you have this more rounded shape.

And I've worked with a lot of humans like this, too. And so your back is a little more rounded in certain areas. You know, maybe your chest is a little more sunken right, than you would like. You don't have that elegant posture that you wish if instead of, you know, if I thought, oh, well, I want to fix that. And I, like, got you to be more upright, and I, like, moved your sternum up and your ribs up, and I moved your back in this way.

Your nervous system would take offense to that, probably, right? It would be like, that's not what we do. And so then your nervous system, this is all happening unconsciously, starts to develop, like, armoring habits. Like, it wants to protect against that. There's a level of anxiety about it because it doesn't feel familiar, it doesn't feel safe. And the same thing happens with our dogs. So taking them out of their normal habitual responses can feel very unsafe to them.

And instead, if you actually support what they're already doing, and I do that with my hand, I mean, this. This requires training. Okay, so I'm not encouraging you to play with this at all, but it requires training. But as I do that, as I help the dog to actually do that habit even more effectively, like, oh, maybe bring this in. Bring this in. Like, I wake up all the different parts of the spine so they basically can round more effectively in a healthier way.

And I bring in the rib cage, you know, the sternum, the ribs, etcetera. Now, suddenly, the dog can come out of that on their own. It's like, number one, I'm doing the work for them, like, literally using my hands in a very gentle way to support what they're doing. So their nervous system is like, well, that's cool. We don't have to hold our muscles so tensely like that.

And then number two is that as they come back to their starting place, they go past that. It's like they now have been freed up to feel like, oh, I can open up. I can do what we call extension. Right. That more open sense of arching the back. Okay, so this is a very helpful idea is that we don't want to contradict what the nervous system is doing.

We want to support what they're doing and then gently, gradually introduce new options. So if you haven't been trained in my work, which I call Debono moves, I would say do nothing. Try that yourself. However, let's think about how you can apply this to other aspects of your dog's life and your own life. Maybe there's something that you're doing that, you know, again, it could be a movement type thing that you're.

You. You just want to change and you're trying to force yourself, right? But instead, well, I'll give you the examples like I just used about. Maybe you're more rounded. Well, if you get really good at rounding, get really good at it. Really put your attention on, like dropping your head, softening your chest. Like, what does that mean? Right, soften your chest, letting your ribs and sternum move downward, using your hands to do that for yourself, like pressing gently.

Get really good at that. And then you'll find that you can do the opposite movement, the arching, the extension, the more elegant posture, just very easily, right. Because now it's like you weren't fighting yourself. You weren't contradicting what your nervous system wanted to do. So you've opened up the possibilities. I like to say there's a tagline I use, like possibilities in motion because that's what we're doing. And you can think about this again, think about this maybe in other aspects too, wherever, instead of just going in and contradicting what you or your dog are doing, you can approach it in a more roundabout way.

That's a little easier for the dog to accept, for the dog to be able to integrate, for the nervous system to find some value in it. But when you just come up and you try to just do the opposite of what the dog's nervous system is telling them to do, then that makes it very difficult. So find those ways to come kind of approach situations, problems in a little more roundabout way where you're working with the dog and with the dog's nervous system, getting that buy in from the nervous system.

Again, this applies, you know, physically as well as behaviorally. So let me know what you're dealing with and I'd love to help you with that. Maybe we'll do a podcast episode on that. You can always email me Maryland marydebono.com so thank you so much for listening, subscribing, and reviewing the podcast, and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye for now.