Leah Lykos, a dog behaviorist out of Chattanooga Tennessee and guardian to three dogs, Eva, Biggie, and Mia explains how her focus is on movement and somatic work. That makes sense given that she operates from the philosophy that for dogs even more so than for humans there is no separation of mind and body.

We discuss something new to me: resistance feeding.

The idea behind resistance feeding is to not control the dog’s behavior but to provide an appropriate outlet for it.

Everything is always on a spectrum, so we discuss how to know if you’re allowing stress to dissipate or adding to the dog’s stress.

In that same sense of knowing if something is helpful or not, we touch on the concept of your dog as a mirror. When is hurting to see it that way and when is it helping?

Leah explains how she differentiates between people who are already so aware of their own stress and so focused on solving for that, that it inhibits them in working with their dog,

and people who are so detached from their body and their feelings. that they have no idea they may be projecting onto their dog.

From there we dig into the inner work we get to do thanks to our dogs.

When you have trouble connecting with your dog, what part of yourself do you have trouble connecting with or accepting?

How does understanding your dog help to understand yourself?

How do we regulate our own nervous system?

Leah explains that it is her daily work to figure out how she can stay passionate about what she’s doing, without getting completely wrapped up in every single case.

Links:

Leah’s website: https://www.caninemovementlab.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caninemovementlab/

The YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSlbjJXVMBxSGBgkbNWXOZw