When You Lose Your Patience With Your Dog (And the Guilt That Follows)
About this episode
This episode discusses the physiological aspects of losing patience with dogs and the accompanying guilt, emphasizing understanding rather than excusing the behavior.
If you've ever lost your patience with your dog, shouted, snapped, yanked the lead harder than you meant to, and spent hours afterwards feeling guilty, this episode is for you. Today we're talking about what's actually happening physiologically when you lose your patience, why the guilt that follows is often disproportionate to what happened, and what to do with both the moment itself and the aftermath. In Episode 52 of The Mindful Dog Parent, I share a moment of losing my patience with Bonnie that I wasn't proud of, and explain why losing patience is a nervous system event, not a character flaw. This episode also covers repair: what actually helps after a moment like this, for you and for your dog. This episode isn't about excusing the behaviour. It's about understanding it accurately, so the guilt doesn't outweigh what actually happened. Main Topics What losing patience actually is Losing patience is a nervous system event, not a moral failure. Sustained stress moves your own nervous system closer to its threshold. Near threshold, the prefrontal cortex (responsible for patient, regulated responses) goes quieter and faster, more reactive responses take over. This is the same…
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