Nervous System Co-Regulation for Dogs and Their Humans

By Shannon Cutts.

Lately it seems like news and information about nervous system regulation is everywhere we look. Thank goodness!

Finally, we humans are beginning to work out how much we influence – and are influenced by – others. What is still less well highlighted and understood is how this influence crosses species boundaries.

In other words, is your dog affected by your bad mood? Are you affected by your dog’s anxiety? If yes, how much crossover actually exists and what can you do about it?

In this article, we talk about a level of animal communication that very rarely gets highlighted – the communication taking place between your nervous system and your dog’s nervous system.

And if you are experiencing any canine behavioral issues that seem to come and go without a clear pattern, we will talk about a possible connection there as well.

The end goal: optimal nervous system coherence and co-regulation

Nervous system co-regulation as a working theory takes us all the way back to the origin of social structures as a survival strategy.

With his Polyvagal Theory, pioneering psychologist and researcher Dr. Stephen Porges explains how we and so many other social species have evolved over millennia to automatically share messages of safety or threat back and forth between each other – amazingly, through our nervous systems.

Over time, this survival-based adaptation has taught the autonomic, or self-regulating, aspect of our nervous system to automatically sync up with other nearby nervous systems, not unlike how today’s smart devices are set up to automatically sync between themselves to share updates and information.

This works great when everyone is peaceful and relaxed. In the past, it has also worked great to protect the whole group in times of danger.

Our ancient nervous system in the modern world

Where it doesn’t seem to work so well is in our everyday life full of its first world problems.

The truth is, our vagus nerve simply cannot tell the difference between a grumpy partner, an anxious co-worker, a bellyache and a saber-tooth tiger attack.

In the same way, our dog’s nervous system automatically syncs with our own just as it would with another dog’s or any nearby living being.

In dogs with good internal coherence (more on that in a moment), they can tackle the job of co-regulating us towards a calmer internal state by being cute, giving us kisses, snuggling, playing and so forth.

The trouble is, even the most balanced canine is going to get worn down over time through being exposed to a chronically dysregulated human.

And for dogs whose internal coherence is frayed due to past trauma, health issues, age-related decline, sensitive temperaments or other situationally problematic traits, eventually it becomes impossible to tell who is triggering who or – even worse – what the heck we can do to work through it.

Nervous system co-regulation versus nervous system coherence

While the words co-regulation and coherence sound quite similar, they refer to processes which are complementary at best.

Coherence, which is loosely defined as “creation of a unified whole or state of internal balance,” points to your relationship with you on a physical, emotional, mental level.

Co-regulation, which is loosely defined as “the influence we each have on each another,” refers to how well we are (or are not) moving toward beneficial coherence within our greater social group.

What is interesting is how, in both cases, we tend to find a setpoint of sorts over time. Often this involves learning to tolerate dysregulation both within and without because we are not aware we can do anything to change this dynamic.

Human and canine nervous systems: basic elements

You and your dog share the same basic nervous system structure. You both have an autonomic (involuntary) and a somatic (voluntary) nervous system.

This is actually good news, as we will discuss in a moment.

But for now, it is enough to know that both human and canine nervous systems work very much the same.

For example, for both your dog and for you, it is the autonomic nervous system that oversees coherence and co-regulation, or what we are calling syncing. And it is the somatic nervous system that gives you control over shifting a lack of internal coherence or a shared sense of dysregulation.

Differences in human and canine dysregulation

As an animal intuitive, I have insider information about how our human somatic nervous systems attempt to cope with disrupted inner coherence versus how our dogs’ somatic nervous systems typically cope.

For instance, where you and I are prone to overthinking ourselves into action when our inner coherence gets disrupted, our dogs are prone to over-feeling themselves into action.

So where we might yell or fall silent, our dogs might bite or cower. Where we may fire off a nasty email or gossip, our dogs are more likely to chew up the couch cushions or let loose with a flood of pee.

Animal communication has also taught me that dogs, cats, and other companion animals live predominantly from their connective, unified right brain hemisphere. In contrast, you and I default to left-brain mind dominance, which is analytical, logical and highly individualistic.

So it just makes sense that our dogs are able to feel the slightest disruption in our inner emotional landscape and don’t think twice about reacting to it, while we often remain quite oblivious about the effect we have on those around us – or to their effect on us.

This dynamic neatly explains the number of dogs I talk with who are acting out at volume 10 levels (and have been for some time) while their genuinely bewildered humans struggle to make sense of how they might be contributing or reacting to a dangerously escalating dynamic.

Trading places: what it feels like to be your dog

We all know what it feels like to be trapped in a classroom, meeting or even family unit with someone who is chronically anxious, annoyed, sad or stressed.

It gets to you!

But in most cases, we can find ways to distance ourselves from the individual whose company we find triggering, uncomfortable, or anxiety-producing.

Our dogs aren’t so lucky. They can’t escape our company so easily. On that note, here is an uncomfortable truth to ponder. Dogs that repeatedly try to escape may be in fact trying to escape!

In the same way, dogs who are exhibiting periodic behavioral disruptions that don’t seem to follow any reliable pattern may be doing something called “mirroring.”

You can think of mirroring like a type of canine charades where our dog acts out our own lack of inner coherence right in front of us in hopes we will a) understand, and b) do something about it.

How to tell if you are part of your dog’s problem

Luckily, there is a way to troubleshoot to find out what (or who) is causing your dog’s dysregulated behavior.

Does the behavior go away or change in some way when you are not there?

True story: I once worked with a pet parent who had a senior Chiweenie dog named Orry. Orry was diabetic and needed twice daily insulin shots. Mom worked out of the home and so during the day either her sister or a pet sitter would give Orry his shots.

When someone other than Mom administered his injections, Orry would hold perfectly still. Similarly, when Orry visited his vet for checkups, he was a perfect angel for his injections and wouldn’t move a muscle.

It was only when Mom gave the injections that Orry wiggled and wriggled and wouldn’t hold still. Fed up, Mom finally booked a session with me.

When I talked with Orry, he explained his behavior quickly and simply. He told me, “Mom is anxious and upset and so I’m trying to make it (the injections) fun for her!”

I then worked with Mom to approach Orry in a calm, neutral state for his daily injections. And – no surprise here – he held still for her!

I see this over and over again in my weekly pet conversations.

The dog in question is reacting or responding to their person’s dysregulated state.

How can you know if this is what triggers your dog’s behavior issues? The only real way to know is quite simple – we need to ask your dog. This is where animal communication comes in so handy as a complement to veterinary care and training protocols.

How to help your dog self-regulate

Once we understand the root cause of your dog’s dysregulated behavior, the next step is to set up a structure to help your dog self-regulate with more ease – even when you are going through rocky times in your personal life.

These plans typically come in two flavors: a) helping you learn to better manage your own inner coherence, and b) establishing an optimal co-regulation (nervous system syncing) between you and your dog.

Fun fact: this is the main reason I often guide my pet parent clients to do for themselves what they do for their dogs. For instance, if a dog lets me know they might benefit from lymphatic massage, aromatherapy, better hydration, play dates or more exercise, I instruct their person to adopt the same basic protocols.

In other words, massage for you, massage for me. It establishes synchronicity in your daily shared routine and gives both you and your dog additional tools in your personal self-regulation toolkits.

There is another benefit to this shared protocol approach. It helps you become more mindfully present to your impact on those around you as well as their impact on you. How? Because you are calmer, more relaxed, detoxified from excess cortisol and filled up from the inside out with ongoing self-care.

From this much more elevated inner state, you then become uniquely positioned to catch early warning signs that your dog needs your help to regulate through a stressful situation, whether it is because of stress you are going through or another type of stressor.

This is especially vital when your dog comes into your family with past trauma issues that you then need to help them sort out and heal from.

Here is another facet of our shared dynamic with our dogs that all too often gets completely overlooked.

When you become better able to maintain your own mindful inner coherence, you also develop a greater capacity to notice when you might be leaning on your dog too hard for emotional or mental support, an imbalance we humans call “codependence.”

Dogs with fragile nervous systems often buckle under the added pressure of supporting a needy or fragile human before they are even well able to support themselves in consistently healthy ways.

Supporting healthy canine coherence and co-regulation: a summary

Talking through issues of coherence and nervous system co-regulation can quickly start to feel heavy, dense, complex.

So let’s simplify.

Even without understanding a thing about how the nervous system works, the hands-down greatest gift you can give your dog is to become mindfully present to your own inner landscape – mentally, emotionally and also physically.

Here are some easy questions to ask yourself that can help you do this quickly:

• What are the dominant thoughts you are thinking?
• What feelings do those thoughts produce within you?
• Are you enjoying those feelings?
• Yes? Keep going!
• No? What can you do to change your thoughts so your feelings get an upgrade?

The second greatest gift you can give your dog is to surround yourself with other humans who have an overall positive effect on you.

Not only does this improve your daily life in every way, but it puts you in a wonderful position to offer your dog the most supportive nervous system network to sync with.

For dogs carrying trauma, this creates the safest possible space for you to help them work through it. For already healthy dogs, there is every research-backed reason to expect them to enjoy an overall longer, healthier life with you.

Either way, it is a clear win-win for you both.

Shannon Cutts is a professional animal sensitive and intuitive, Reiki Master and animal communication teacher with Animal Love Languages. Shannon’s global client base seeks her out for help with pet trauma, pet anxiety, highly sensitive pets, pet grief, pet reincarnation, interspecies family dynamics and more. Request Shannon’s free pet trauma guide here: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/pettraumaguide