Clinical Tapping for Traumatized Dogs: The Memory Editing Revolution

By Dr. Laura Donaldson, PhD, CDBC, KPA CTP, Certified Trauma Professional.

(This is the second in a series of three articles on how evidence-based Emotional Freedom Techniques like Clinical Tapping have transformed approaches to trauma in both humans and dogs. Next month’s offering will explore how to tap with your own animal through a process called “surrogate tapping.”

Be sure to tune in!)

For many of us who live and work with dogs, the following scenario is all too familiar: our dog has been overwhelmed by traumatic stress like an off-leash dog attack and now they bark and growl at every canine who passes the house or walks by them outside. We (the dog’s humans) turn to the behavior change strategies offered by traditional dog training only to discover that these measures unfortunately provide only temporary suppression of the dysregulated learning. That is, the strategies work for a while but then they plateau or need to be reinforced repeatedly over an animal’s lifetime. This happens because counteractive approaches like extinction create learning in separate memory systems from that of the original traumatic stress (Ecker, 2024). This competes against, but does not replace, the original dysregulated deep emotional learning.

For most of the 20^th century, the prevailing wisdom declared memory permanently locked once it had become encoded in a subject’s neurobiological system. More recently, however, researchers like Karim Nader have challenged this notion and conclusively documented that it IS possible to transform memories via a process called memory reconsolidation (MR). As described by Joseph LeDoux (2022) in entertaining detail, Nader began his groundbreaking MR research in LeDoux’s New York University lab. This became the foundation for later researchers like Bruce Ecker who built on Nader’s findings. Basically, MR is an “adaptive update mechanism” which incorporates added information into old memories (Schiller et.al, 2010). The original memory remains but MR changes a subject’s emotional and neurobiological relationship to it.

MR first reactivates the symptom-generating memory and Big Feeling. In a clinical tapping sequence, this is the function of the setup statement which is discussed in the first article on how Emotional Freedom Techniques have transformed approaches to trauma. After this initial sequence, the contradictory knowledge is juxtaposed to the original learning, both of which cannot be true. According to Ecker (2024), this mismatch—usually described as a “prediction error”—unlocks the neural encoding of the targeted learning and opens a “reconsolidation window” lasting about five hours. During this brief period, the original memory becomes susceptible to incorporating the new, disconfirming knowledge. Or, as the authors of as alternative metaphor suggest: “Think of it like opening a document on your computer. While it’s open, you can edit it. When you save and close it, the edited version becomes the new file. . . This explains why the results with Tapping can be so rapid and permanent. You’re not just managing symptoms or building coping skills. You’re rewriting the source code (Ortner et.al, 2026).” This is how MR or what some have named the “memory editing revolution” transforms rather than counteracts.

Why is memory reconsolidation important? The first reason is its contribution to the evolving knowledge about animals, especially dogs, and their emotional wellbeing. I say “especially dogs” because while the research on MR pertains to humans, the similar social and emotional brains of canines and humans strongly suggests that MR also happens in dogs. In my twenty-year behavior consulting practice, I have witnessed this transformation enough times to suggest that just as MR transforms the human relation to traumatic stress, it likewise does so in dogs. Clearly more canine and animal specific research on MR is needed and I hope this will happen over the next few years.

The second reason for MR’s importance invokes a construct with which many dog- and animal-centered readers are already familiar: the so-called “Five Freedoms” for animals. Four of these are freedoms from hunger/thirst, discomfort, pain/disease and fear/distress. The fifth is the sole “freedom to” which endorses the right of any species to express normal behaviorthrough the provision of space, proper facilities as well as access to other species members. Over time, however, the narrow notion of five freedoms has morphed into the much more expansive platform of the “Five Domains” integrating nutrition, environment, health, behavior and mental state (World Animal Protection, n/d) into any analysis of animal welfare.

MR and the memory editing revolution add several more “freedoms” and yet another “domain”—the freedom to feel Deeply Safe and the domain of the traumatized body—to consideration of animal welfare and emotional wellbeing. Nick, Alex and Jessica Ortner have aptly articulated a human list of these new freedoms in their book, Rewired (2026). From this, I have chosen three that I would argue highlight the freedoms needed by dogs (and all other animals) to experience life safely and to its fullest extent:

• The freedom to experience emotions without overwhelm.
• The freedom to feel calm in situations that previously caused fear, stress and anxiety.
• The freedom to feel at home and peaceful in your body.

These MR activated freedoms transform rather than just counteract traumatic stress and Big Feelings: “You’re not just getting rid of a problem—you’re reclaiming your birthright to a full, vibrant life (Ortner et.al, 2026).” And clinical tapping exists not only as one of the best but also easiest ways to activate the memory editing process when addressing trauma and other Big Feelings. I will say much more about this in my third series article unpacking why a surrogate mode is my preferred way to tap with dogs. So please be sure to join me and I look forward to seeing` you next month!

Dr. Laura Donaldson, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus from Cornell University located in Ithaca, New York, northeastern United States. She is an award-winning writer on dog behavior who has worked as a canine behavior specialist for 20 years. Laura is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC/IAABC) and a Karen Pryor Certified Training Partner (KPA CTP). She is also a Certified Trauma Professional. She created the very popular program, Slow Thinking is Lifesaving for Dogs® and given a number of online webinars as well as conference presentations. Laura currently lives in upstate New York (northeastern US) with her husband, working Border Collies, three cats, an African Gray parrot named Obi and a small flock of Navajo Churro sheep. Website: https://fourpawsfourdirections.com/

REFERENCES

Ecker, B., Ticic, R. & Hulley, L. (2024). Unlocking the emotional brain: memory reconsolidation and the psychotherapy of transformational change (2nd ed.). Routledge.

LeDoux, J. (2022). The day I told Karim Nader, “don’t do the study”. Brain Research Bulletin, 189, 1-3.

Ortner, N., Ortner, J. & Ortner, A. (2026). Rewired: the breakthrough tapping method to stop overthinking, calm your body, and finally feel at ease. Hay House.

Schiller, D., Monfils, M., Raio, C., Johnson, D., LeDoux, J. & Phelps, E. (2010). Preventing the return of fear in humans using reconsolidation update mechanisms. Nature, 463(7277), 49-53.

World Animal Protection (Blog, n/d). What is the difference between the five domains model and the five freedoms of animal welfare? https://www.worldanimalprotection.ca/blogs/what-difference-between-five-domains-model-and-five-freedoms-animal-welfare