Is Your Intuition Trying to Get Your Attention? How Tuning in Can Help You Help Your Dog

By Shannon Cutts.

Intuition. It’s one of those words we all tend to feel like we understand better than we actually do.

But what does intuition really mean? More importantly, how do you know when intuition is happening within you?

This is a question worth asking under any circumstances, but especially when you are tasked with making care decisions for your precious dog, who can’t talk to you in human words.

Your dog can’t just speak to you about where it hurts, what they need, why they are acting the way they do.

But this doesn’t mean your dog can’t tell you these things at all. You just need to learn a different way of listening.

Intuition is the gateway to this type of listening. Learning about intuition itself and how it happens within you will absolutely make you a better dog parent in every stage and phase of your dog’s life.

What is intuition?

The first step is to actually slow down enough to ask yourself this question. What does the word intuition mean – and not in general, but to you specifically?

If you are drawing a blank, then rewind to the last time you had a hunch or a vibe about something or someone. Call to mind a memory of somebody or something you either just like or just don’t like.

Ask yourself what part of you knows how you feel about that individual or thing.

Where do you feel your inner knowing in your body? Do you see an image? Hear a voice in your head? Smell or taste something? Do you get a physical sensation or feeling? Or do you perhaps just know that you know that you do or don’t like whatever or whomever?

This is your intuition talking to you, tugging on your arm, nipping at your heels, giving you that very subtle yet persistent heads-up that your highest good can be found closer to or farther away from whatever or whomever it is.

Intuition is a practical survival skill

This one can be a shocker at first. How can intuition, that woo-woo concoction of new age silliness, actually be practical?

How can lil ol’ intuition help you survive?

Well, would you believe science has at last answered the ages old chicken-or-egg question about which comes first, thought or feeling?

Spoiler alert – it’s feeling!

Our species (and all species) evolved to have feelings for one purpose and one purpose only: because they motivate us to act.

We act in one way when we get feelings we enjoy. We act another way when we get feelings we don’t enjoy.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Think of your favorite food. Imagine it is sitting on the kitchen counter right now. Which direction are you likely already heading?

This is an example of positive emotional motivation. The feeling pushes you towards safety or opportunity – what I call “more of this, please.”

Here’s another example. Think of a food that made you physically ill when you last ate it. Imagine it is sitting on the kitchen counter right now. Which area of the house are you likely avoiding?

This is an example of negative emotional motivation. The feeling pushes you away from danger –what I call “less of that, please.”

These two states – danger and safety/opportunity – are both evolutionarily advantageous to your survival. Any emotional state you ever feel has a relationship with one or the other. And both share the same end game goal: to keep you alive.

So then why do people think so much?

If feeling is the most important motivator of animal behavior, then why do we think so much?

Intuition has gotten a bad rap as a woo-woo pseudo-science because of something truly strange in our own evolutionary process.

Somehow our species, Homo sapiens, alone out of all the animal species, has evolved to default to thinking, cognition, over feeling.

Here’s one theory as to why….

We human animals don’t have a tough exoskeleton or giant sharp teeth or poisonous skin or sharp spines or incredible athletic prowess or any other helpful defense mechanism like the other animals out in the wild food chain of life.

If we’re being honest, all we really have to defend ourselves with is our giant brains.

So we have learned to use them – I would submit, overuse them. We have used them so much we have convinced ourselves that feelings are for wusses, sissies, and those who got Cs and Ds in math class (like me).

But feelings, not thoughts, are what keep us alive, surviving and – believe it or not – thriving and evolving.

Scientific fMRI studies have demonstrated that what really happens is: first we feel, then we act, and THEN we think.

And when we think, the sole purpose is to code the experience we just had into our memory banks for future reference….just in case our sympathetic nervous system ever needs that data again in the future.

But if intuition is natural, then why does it feel hard?

Intuition is not hard. It is hidden. If we were still out in the greater food chain of life with all the other animal species, we would not have to hunt for our intuition. We would use it all day every day.

And we would know it was working well if we survived from one day to the next, eating and not getting eaten.

Intuition is hard for our species because we don’t use it. Even worse, we don’t trust it. So when we do have a hunch or a vibe, we ignore it, doubt it, even berate ourselves for second-guessing our logic or analytical thought by considering it.

Something that can make finding and using your intuition easier

According to Polyvagal Theory, social species like canines and Homo sapiens have evolved to sync our autonomic nervous systems with one another.

This syncing isn’t for complex conversation. It is to share the two types of survival messages we just discussed – danger and safety/opportunity – back and forth.

This is important to know because this syncing happens automatically, which means it operates using the same mechanism your body uses to keep your heart beating and your lungs filling with air.

You can’t stop it from happening.

Neither can your dog.

While this might sound scary at first, it is actually a good thing. Why? Because it makes it super easy to use your intuition to make decisions for your dog if you know how to use it.

This intuitive syncing – the animal version of what your smart devices do with one another all day long – gives you and your dog a primitive way to communicate back and forth.

Here is one example of how it works.

You are having a bad day. Your mood is in the dumps and you just want to cry. Your dog suddenly gets up and comes over and nudges you or lays their head on your lap or curls up beside you.

How do they just….know?

In a word – syncing.

How to use this primitive language to care for your dog

It is mind-blowing to consider how many decisions you, dog parent, must make for your dog throughout their life with you. What is even more mind-blowing (to me at least) is that your dog trusts you to make those decisions on their behalf!

But it isn’t always so easy to be perpetually in the hot seat, is it?

You never know when you will be called on to make decisions about your dog’s food and treats, veterinary care, medications, training and socialization, friendships and even end of life options.

So activating your awareness of how your nervous system syncs with your dogs can REALLY help.

Simply by remembering that your dog is aware when you are making care decisions for them is the first step to activate your awareness.

Here is a simple example.

Let’s say your dog is bored during the day and gets a bit destructive when left home alone. You are faced with a number of choices you could try including dog crates, doggy daycare, bringing your dog with you, getting your dog a friend, bringing in a dog walker or pet sitter, rehoming your dog, dog anti-anxiety medications, behavioral modification…..the list goes on and on.

How on earth will you ever find the right solution?

As an animal intuitive and animal communication teacher who specializes in pet parent intuition training, this is what I recommend to my clients and students.

Start with three rounds of what I call parasympathetic breathing. You want to exhale fully, then take a deep inbreath. When you breathe out, extend your exhale past the length of your inhale. Do that two more times. Notice how you likely are feeling calmer, more centered and present afterwards.

Next, tune in to your bond with your dog. Notice in particular your love for your dog and their love for (and trust in) you. Feel or sense or visualize the energetic bond of unconditional love you share.

Still holding your bond in your awareness, call to mind option 1, doggy daycare.

Notice how it feels in your body when you bring this option to life within you, visualizing or sensing or feeling your dog going to doggy daycare.

How do you feel? Excited? Anxious? Calm? Something else?

Do this for each option on the table until you find the one that evokes emotions that most closely align with positive associations, the “more of this, please” end of the feeling spectrum.

Then start with this option.

At this point, you might be wondering, well what if that option doesn’t end up working?

Then we do the process all over again with the next best-feeling option. And so forth and so on until we find what actually does work.

But isn’t this going to take, like, well, forever?

At first, it might feel like it is taking a long time, yes. But with time and continued practice, it will become a part of you again. Remember, once upon a time this is how our species made all of our decisions.

But now, learning to parent your dog intuitively will take practice because we are quite simply rusty at using intuition as a decision-making tool. We no longer have those original strong neural pathways to support giving our intuition a voice and a choice. So we have to rebuild those neural pathways again, often from scratch.

The good news is, it is possible….and once you do it, you will find intuition works better than thought to successfully guide you through even the most complex aspects of your life with your dog.

Shannon Cutts is a professional animal sensitive and intuitive, Reiki Master and animal communication teacher with Animal Love Languages. One of her favorite gifts to offer pet parents is the chance to enroll in her popular free Intuitive Development for Pet Parents webinar. Get notified of upcoming webinar dates by joining Shannon’s weekly Love Letters community here: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/loveletter