by Yitz Miller
Until I moved to Boston 4 years ago, I had never had a dog less than 35lbs. Of course I had never lived in a sub-1000sf apartment (since college), either.
I LOVE living smack in the middle of downtown Boston…but a Boston-size apartment required an Apartment-sized dog. Meet Bingo (yes, he loves riding the T):
Bingo, as you can see, is a 9-lb Chihuahua. He has earned appropriate nicknames—like Bingoleon–as a little guy who won’t back down from anything. I’ve NEVER seen a dog evoke so many “OMG how cute” reactions and instantly get anyone to love him. Except when he’s intimidated…
Anger has always been a challenging emotion for me. I judge myself with a certainly level of pride that I’m doing 50% better handling my anger appropriately than my father did, and that I’ve helped my kiddo do 50% better than that. But reacting to a stressor by becoming energetically-intimidating in an attempt to “squelch” the source of the stress is a challenge I expect I will continue to need to improve on for the rest of my life.
Enter a 9-lb Chihuaua, who has been my best teacher ever on this issue, and has recently earned the nickname BinGuru.
As a limbic therapist, I know that my intimidation-reaction is a “limbic reaction”…one level of the brain higher than the instinctual “pull your finger back from a hot burner,” but one level lower than my conscious mind that can understand the issue, but can’t do any more about it than guide me towards what I need to work on.
Bingo—like a toddler—is a walking limbic system, which means I get instantaneous feedback to my emotional state.
Last week I witnessed myself make a HUGE step in my stressor-squelching challenge:
Bingo grabbed the cord to the power supply to my laptop which was dangling far-too-temptingly near the floor…at perfect toddler height. He’s actually quite good about not messing with stuff, but this happened to look a lot like one of his chew toys.
I did have the presence-of-mind to unplug it, but I still needed it back.
As I approached him, I got the “don’t do it” growl that I know to be the first of 3 warnings I will get before he actually tries to bite.
Since this was a power cord (and not—for example—a chicken bone), I could grab it without getting my hand too close to his mouth.
And then we both froze, waiting to see what was going to happen next.
I heard my own voice begin to escalate the situation and—sure enough—I got warning #2.
We both froze again.
And then I did something new. I focused on my empathy for Bingo, who didn’t know he was doing something wrong—he just knew he was doing something that was making me angry—exactly the way a toddler sees things. Thankfully Bingo doesn’t speak fluent English, so when I clumsily-but-amusingly said out loud “It’s ok, Bingo, we’re going to de-escalate the situation” about 10 times, he successfully felt my energy shift without judging me as completely nuts for the words I was choosing.
De-escalate, then Distract. Classic parental advice.
I started scanning my immediate surroundings for a dog-toy, a treat, ANYTHING. Bingo just stood there—not grabbing harder at the cord, but not letting it go, either.
And then he coughed.
And when that gave me enough time to pull the cord away from him, I watched him begin to cower. Not exactly the reaction I want to evoke from my dog…or anyone else in my life for that matter.
My energy was friggin AWESOME by that point, and I started to reach down to pet him saying: “It’s ok Bingo, it’s ok.”
And now it was time for one more lesson…:
HIS limbic system was still ramped up, and it takes time for those chemicals to move and those reactive neurons to stop firing.
He didn’t accept my offer to pet him, and turned away from my words. Then he walked to his “house” and—literally—gave himself a time-out (or, as the Quaker school my son attended used to call them, a “centering moment”).
10 minutes later he came into my office to apologize. NOW he responded to “It’s ok Bingo, It’s ok.”
De-escalate, then Distract.
Powerful Parenting. Works on Chihuahuas, too.
With love, and the relentless quest to catalyze more of it,
-Yitz
