I have a dog who spent the first year of her life living on the end of a chain (obvious due to the deep scars still evident on her neck) and in the parking lot of fast food restaurants (where we found her). She was so hand-shy that it took two very dog savvy people three months to ‘catch’ her. She is also what many people would call a submissive dog, prone to hit the floor anytime something scares her or moves too fast for her to process.

I grew up in NY, upstate NY but still…I was blessed with a very fast pace; I move fast, talk fast, drive fast, think fast….too fast for little Kele much of the time. My little Navajo Terrier likes things to go a bit slower than I do. So we developed a communication tool that’s come in very handy.

As a passive girl, Kele naturally goes into the bow position (downward dog) so I encouraged it and we worked on it for a couple of days. Now anytime I’m moving too fast or she’s uncomfortable about something, she assumes the downward dog position which immediately tells me to slow down and pull my energy back. A secondary benefit of this particular position is that she’s stretching – which helps her relieve her stress even as she’s telling me she’s having it.