After nearly two decades professionally and a lifetime of communicating of with animals, I have learned ways to improve the outcome of raising and training your animal family members.

There are three elements that can greatly improve the outcome of raising or training an animal family member in any of the following situations:

* raising of an animal family member from their younger years

* bringing a new pet into the home to help them to become an integral part of our family

* improving our relationships with animal family members who have been with us for a while.

I refer to these three animal communication pointers as “RRC”

A few days ago, my German Shepherd dog, Kane, was barking after hearing a sound near the front door. Kane came to us at the age of 3 from a neglect situation, and clearly hadn’t had any training to do with reacting to sounds (or much training at all).

My husband and I have done a lot of work to achieve change with some of this reactivity to sound. Kane knows he is not supposed to react this way and, most important, is supposed stop barking when we tell him to.

As a part of his training, I took Kane to another room and then let him out after a few minutes.

This all occurred about half an hour before my husband had come home and not long after he returned, my husband pointed out that Kane seemed “off” and like he wasn’t able to settle down.

Now my husband didn’t even know about the incident with the barking and the room. But he pointed out that Kane was not relaxed/not himself. For the record, my husband is pretty intuitive with animals but he isn’t a professional animal communicator.

I stopped what I was doing and looked into Kane’s eyes. I could tell that he was still upset that I have given him the correction.

I have been communicating with animals all of my life and for nearly two decades, professionally. However, even I sometimes fail, when distracted by “life”, to notice how changes in my behavior or actions or emotions impact my animal family members. Take the situation with Kane. He isn’t used to having me “correct” his behavior and he really took this incident to heart.

Not all animals take things so hard. For instance, some of you may be laughing and thinking that “my cat doesn’t care what I say!” I can relate, as there’s not much I can do that would bother my cat, Gia.

But Kane is very sensitive and attached to me. He, as I mentioned above, responds to even subtle changes in my energy or emotions. He was watching and waiting to see if I was “over” my response to his reaction. He was trying to figure out if everything was ok between us, now. German Shepherds are often especially sensitive, which can be surprising if you haven’t known one. They are very “in-tune” with their humans and often highly invested in doing a “good job”.

Of course, emotional reactions don’t just happen with German Shepherds or other dog breeds. Horses, cats, bunny rabbits and any animal we have a good relationship with, can have “hurt feelings” if their loved human reacts with negatively towards something they have done.

This brings me to my TWO Rs in RRC.

R For “Reassurance”

As mentioned, some animals are more sensitive than others. Kane thrives on actual focused “training” where he gets rewards, whether it’s in the form of treats or praise. He will quickly correct himself to do what he needs to do to get that reward during training.

But, understanding during a training lesson that he didn’t do the “thing” right the first time, is different than an incident where he knows that we are “disapproving” of something he has done. Such as putting him in another room. And, putting him another room meant separation from me. Something not typical when I’m home (GSDs tend to be “velcro dogs”).

This is also because of the nature of our relationship vs Kane and my husband. Kane tends to view me as the “softer” one and isn’t used to me doing much “correcting”. This is not unusual for many people who have more than one person in the home and an animal family member.

Therefore, our pets will sometimes need reassurance.

What can we do to avoid or alleviate an adverse emotional response when we need to correct behavior with our pets?

When I realized how upset Kane was, I took a moment to connect in with him. I used telepathic animal communication to feel what Kane was feeling, which was worry and concern. I then used telepathic animal communication to remind Kane about what he had done earlier that I didn’t like, mindful that he hadn’t had this training refresher in a while.

It was an opportunity to remind him that he does know how he’s supposed to react when he hears someone at the door. I sent him images of the sequence of events as far was what we expect and how we have taught him to respond when there is a sound outside the door.

Although this is a great opportunity for reinforcement of training, what’s even better is to use it before training and even during training. The point here is that animals need reinforcement and this can take on many forms, not just traditional training alone.

When a pet is not getting something, we can increase the likelihood of them understanding by showing them respect by explaining it to them in a their language, and giving them reassurance when things haven’t gone exactly as we want.

R For “Respect”

Have you ever had a boss or supervisor who was unclear about what they wanted and then reacted negatively when you didn’t do exactly what they wanted? It can be very confusing and can lead to anxiety and a host of other problems. Clear, respectful, communication, combined with the knowledge if you make a mistake here and there, that the response is not going to be over the top, is key.

Animals need the same from us. This can be achieved with traditional training alone, but you will likely see greater success if you incorporate using animal communication, the language that animals use, into the mix.

I know that it can feel like a lot of work to not only be doing training but also taking time to reinforce this with animal communication. I even sometime think there’s not enough hours in the day to do all of these things. However, I can assure you that it will pay off in the long run.

Investing in building a deeper understanding results in our pets’ being able to better understand and trust you, because you have shown them that you are also willing to understand and that you care about what they are thinking and feeling.

You will be glad that you did invest the time, when you experience a deeper connection with your precious animal family member. And, likely, you will see how much faster they externalize, through their behavior, what they have internalized from your time spent communicating with them.

Which brings me to the C in RRC: C “Confidence”.

Taking the time to sit down and talk with our animal family members, using that telepathic language they inherently understand, builds confidence.

Your pets’ confidence will be greater, because they will be much clearer on what it is that is expected of them. And, the sense of safety and security your pets will have, knowing that you are going to respond in a reasonable and loving way if they do make a mistake (even if they willfully do something they know is wrong), builds confidence. They will not feel restricted to the point of anxiety or fearfulness that undermines the achievement of successful training and behavior change.

It is not only easier to make changes in behavior with current training but having this kind of relationship that you’ve built through clear communication, can help to quickly undo a mistake that we might make. Such as getting overly emotionally reactive when our pets do something we don’t like. When we do mess up, instead of sending an animal backward in progress they have made, having that communication can make it easier to repair and bounce back from that interaction.

And if you would like use my free meditation for animal communication to help you communicate with your pets, go here!

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