Are you carrying the invisible pressure of dog training anxiety?

Many overwhelmed dog parents feel responsible for everything, every reaction, every setback, every walk that doesn’t go to plan. Over time, that pressure builds into tension, overthinking, and burnout.

In this episode of The Mindful Dog Parent Podcast, Siân Lawley-Rudd explores the nervous system side of dog training anxiety and why being the “responsible one” can quietly keep your body in a state of readiness.

You’ll learn:

1. Why cognitive load increases stress on dog walks
2. How perceived responsibility affects your nervous system
3. Why anxiety makes behaviour feel heavier
4. How subtle tension travels down the lead
5. Practical ways to reduce pressure without lowering your standards

This episode blends grounded science with real-life experience to help you build calm dog training habits that feel sustainable.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re holding everything together for your dog, this conversation will feel like a breath out.

🎙 New episodes every Tuesday.

Takeaways:

1. The experience of dog parenting often involves an invisible burden that is unseen by others, leading to a huge sense of fatigue.
2. Anyone who assumes the role of the 'fixer' in their dog's life do so not just from a place of care, but also due to an instinctive desire for safety and control.
3. The psychological concept of cognitive load says that high mental effort can diminish your flexibility and creativity, resulting in increased anxiety and tension.
4. Recognising the subtle ways in which our own stress manifests can increase our ability to regulate both ourselves and our dogs, fostering a more connected relationship.

Tags: dog training anxiety, overwhelmed dog parents, calm dog training, dog parent burnout, nervous system regulation, reactive dog walks, ethical dog training, anxious dog owner support, dog behaviour stress, mindful dog parent

Welcome to the Mindful Dog Parent, the podcast for overwhelmed and anxious dog owners who are doing their best but still feel like they're getting it all wrong. I'm Sian, a trauma informed coach and ethical dog trainer. I created this podcast because dog parenting isn't always cute reels and perfect walks.

Sometimes it's tears after training, guilt in the quiet moments, or just feeling like you're the only one struggling. If you've ever said, I love my dog, but this is really hard, you're in the right place.

Each week, I'll bring you calm, compassionate guidance to help you build confidence, regulate your emotions, and reconnect with your dog. Even when things feel messy because you're not failing, you're just overwhelmed. And you don't have to figure this out on your own.

There's this particular kind of tired that just does not look dramatic at all.

So you're still walking your dog, you're still researching and adjusting, and you still care just as deeply as you did when you first bought them home. But inside, you feel like you're carrying everything. So you're planning routes for dog walks, you're monitoring your dog's body language.

It feels like 24 7. Whether you're at home or out and about with them.

You're trying to think three steps ahead when you're with them, and especially when you're going to go out. You're replaying interactions afterwards to see what you could figure out from it. You.

You're trying to improve things constantly and no one really sees it. It's such invisible work, but it's really, really heavy work. And I've noticed something over the years.

Being the person that's done all of those things myself and working with so many clients who have also been that person, some of us have defaulted to becoming the one who figures it out. And it's not because we're the ones that care more deeply than anybody else.

It's not because we're trying to be one up on anybody else in this situation. Because you want to be able to do tit for tat. I do this, I do that, and what do you do? It's not about that at all.

It's actually about safety, feeling, like the need to understand.

So all that stuff that I've said, the being three steps ahead and planning the routes and doing all the things, reading your dog's body language and interactions that they have, like analysing them afterwards, all of that feels like safety to you.

So if you feel, if you grew up being the fixer, so if you're the one that anticipated problems ahead of time or the one who tried to understand everything before you could relax, that pattern is not going to disappear when you get a dog. It's actually amplified more.

And I'm talking to you 100%, honestly and transparently as being the person that's done all of that and being the person who grew up being the fixer.

I did anticipate problems ahead of time and tried to basically understand what was happening, to be able to then fix it, be three steps ahead, anticipate a future problem and fix it.

And when you get a dog, especially when you bring a puppy, a rescue dog, especially a dog who's come from abroad into your home, that honestly, it's going to be amplified. So you're going to do your research. You start to analyze things.

You are looking for patterns, even if you're not consciously aware of it, you're looking for patterns and you just take responsibility really quickly. And on the surface, it looks like commitment, but often underneath, it's coming from a place of anxiety. So it's not like loud panic anxiety.

It's just like a quiet sense that if you don't stay on top of all these things, something is gonna go wrong. And that is what keeps your nervous system slightly activated. So it's not in crisis mode.

It's not like I need to fight, flight, or freeze in this really, really stressful situation, but it's just readiness. So you're ready to respond, you're ready to manage, you're ready to prevent. And over time, that readiness becomes your baseline.

So your nervous system, even though it's an unhealthy situation, for your body to be anticipating all of these things all of the time, and this anxiety being underlying in your body isn't healthy. It becomes your safety because that's what your body has started to get used to you always doing.

So it's gonna feel like tension underneath that readiness feels like a bit of tension there.

So I've talked about cognitive load before, and if you haven't heard it in previous podcast episode, it basically just refers to how much mental effort your brain is using at any one time. So it's literally cognitive load, what our brain is able to cope with at any one time.

The there is no such thing as multitasking, even though it's become something that people use often. I'm multitasking. I love multitasking. I'm good at multitasking. Our brains can literally only focus on one topic with full attention.

We might be Trying to scatter, like scatterly do lots of different things, but we're not putting all our attention on one thing. And multitasking is just. Yeah, it's just not a thing. It doesn't exist.

So what our brain is able to take and how much mental effort you, your brain is using at any one time. So we're thinking in dog sense and dog parent sense.

When you're constantly scanning your dog's environment, when, if you've got a reactive dog, when you're predicting any triggers that might happen, when you're managing your own reactions. So if you're maybe getting frustrated because your dog barks out of the window or in the garden, that can be about managing your own reactions.

And then you're gonna mentally rehearse what happens next and what to next. Your cognitive load in that situation is going to stay really high. And a high cognitive load reduces flexibility. It just narrows down your thinking.

And it makes it really hard to access parts of our brain that are going to actually help us, which is patience and creativity. We can't have patience and creativity happening at the same time as high mental load. It's just, they just don't go together.

And it's not anything about you personally. This is how our brains conserve energy under pressure.

So when our nervous system believes that it's responsible for preventing problems, it starts to prepare in a way that it sees fit to prepare.

So in stress psychology, there are research studies out there that show that perceived responsibility increases physiological stress responses in our bodies. So in simple terms, the more responsible you feel for an outcome, the more your body is going to be mobilizing itself for the next thing.

What do I need to do next? Even if it's.

Even if the situation, even if the thing that you are trying to figure out isn't actually that big or extreme, but if you, if your belief is that you must do this perfectly, your body is definitely going to brace. And I can talk again from experience of being a recovering perfectionist.

I talk about it all the time because I want everybody to know that being a perfectionist, there are good points to that and there are negative points to that. And the negative part of it is where we start to say we need to do this stuff. We need to manage perfectly.

Management isn't something that we can do perfectly. It's not going to be happening, like able to happen 100% of the time. But your body's going to brace your.

And that bracing is going to show up with those physical signs that I've talked About before with that shoulders tightening and the breath changing and shortening and the jaws, for me especially jaws clenching is a big one. And the grip, if you're out on a walk, the grip on your lead is going to change.

And dogs are just so sensitive to all these subtle shifts that are happening within our bodies, the chemical changes that are happening within us as well. And it's not because they're judging you.

It's because nervous systems communicate through the tone and the postures and the movement and all the things between us and them. So if your body is feeling braced, your dogs is going to start to feel that as well.

And I want you to hear this and I want to shout this from the rooftops. This does not mean that you have caused that behavior. If your dog is reactive, you have not caused them to be reactive.

It is not your fault that they are reactive. It just means that regulation is traveling both ways.

And there's things that we can do, we can still feel the feelings, but being able to regulate ourselves and help our dogs to regulate in that moment is going to help them to be able to regulate themselves too.

And I just want you to hear it because I talk to so many people say to me, oh, I've seen a video, I've seen videos that says it's your all your fault if your dog's doing this, that or the other, it's all your fault. And they've worked with somebody who said it's all your fault that your dog's doing this. And it's not, it's not.

There's too many other things going on around this. So just to kind of give you a little story, that should help, hopefully should help. I went through a period like that with Bonnie.

I've been through so, so many things with her. So she's 11 this year. We think she's a rescue, so we're not too sure, but she's around 11.

And I was the dog mum and just the dog mum prior to becoming a trainer with her and then I became the dog mum and trainer afterwards.

So we've kind of gone through the transition with her, like going from the before and after, I guess of me being a trainer and I went through a period of doing all these and feeling all these things when she was reactive. So going out on a walk with her felt like a mission.

And even when walks weren't a crisis, so even when something wasn't like looking, you know, it was a quiet time and we went to a quieter location and all that stuff, there wasn't a crisis happening, but it was me constantly thinking ahead. So every single walk had to have a strategy. The interactions really needed contingency plans.

As we started to work on it more and all the setbacks that we did have got overanalyzed.

And I've talked about it in a previous episode where if you have a setback when you are working on anything with your dog, it doesn't mean you are starting from scratch again. And I want you to hear that as well. So that's a message that I've.

I've given out in a previous episode so I can put in the show notes some of the relevant episodes that I think will help link to this really nicely and go into it in a bit more detail. But all those things. So when, whenever anything did happen that I didn't expect or want to happen, it got overanalyzed.

And then I told myself all of those things.

So having a strategy, having a contingency plan, analyzing every setback, I told myself that that was good dog parenting because thinking back to what I said earlier, I was the fixer. I took it on myself to feel like I was responsible for all the things. So that was. It felt like good dog parenting. And in a way it is.

So I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a strategy on a walk, especially if you're working on stuff with them like loosely walking or reactivity. You should have a strategy. Interactions, having a contingency plan, yes, that's fine. And setbacks being analyzed.

Again, it's one of those things where there's like a tipping point. And when I said what I said, I was saying every single walk had a strategy, every single interaction had a contingency plan.

And every single setback was analyzed and probably over analyzed. That was the issue.

So in some ways, some of those things are things that I have planned with my own dogs and some I've worked with clients as well doing those things. And it is good. But I realized that when I was doing that, every walk had a had a strategy and every single interaction was contingency planned.

And every kind of setback had an analysis kind of session afterwards. I hadn't properly breathed for months because I was doing that. I hadn't exhaled properly for months.

And there is a difference between being intentional and being braced. And I was just braced. So I went through a period, and I've talked about in previous episodes as well, where I started to soften more.

And even that slight softening things started to feel like they shifted. And this Isn't about. I'm not somebody who says, oh my gosh, this one thing has completely transformed my life.

You know, one overnight, one walk, we were doing this and the next day all of the walks like that is, that's not me, that's not real life. That's not realistic.

Nothing changed dramatically, but it was changing enough for me to start to feel like I was making better progress and not putting so much pressure on myself.

So what's tricky about the pattern that I'm talking about here is that it really does feel responsible and mature and it feels like you're doing the right thing when you, when you do all that stuff. And in, like I said, in many ways you are doing the right thing.

It is good to have plans and strategies and analyze things, but when that responsibility becomes hyper responsibility, your nervous system definitely pays the price. And this is where I'm like, the wording I'm using is very intentional.

Every walk, every interaction, every setback, that is that hyper responsibility that you're feeling. You feel like you've got to do more, more, more, more, more in order to be a good dog parent.

Because if something goes wrong, then I'm not good enough. That is the nervous system paying the price.

And over time, when you are in this kind of braced anticipatory state over a long period of time, it's going to start to come out as more irritability and more mental fatigue and overthinking things and second guessing yourself and just finding it really difficult to enjoy small wins. And you can just start feel like feeling like you're always managing and very rarely finding any joy or even in like making that even smaller.

Because finding joy in this situation is going to be really hard. Just enjoying walks or enjoying life with your dog, that just, it just becomes something that you don't even think about.

And it's not because you don't love your dog. Absolutely not. Like I said, you care really deeply and you've cared from them from day one.

But it's because your sister, your body has not had a chance to drop out of that readiness state. So I want you to just think about how that like pause for a minute and have a think about like what I've said.

And does that feel like it resonates or feels like it's something that you maybe have experienced even if you're not in that moment now, but in the past with your dog or any situation really? Because it can start to transfer to every, every situation it's in life.

And doing that body scan when you feel like you are in that moment of anticipation. So what are your shoulders doing? That body scan is so helpful to figure out what you need to do next.

Because if you know that you're in and have that awareness that you are in readiness, anticipatory mode, you can at least just give yourself time to start to help yourself to regulate a little bit more and come back to that calm. It's not about not feeling the feelings, having an awareness of how you feel.

Yes, there is an underlying anxiety there because that is where everything's come from, from me. I've felt anxiety. I felt like I've got to be the fixer and it's just become something that then I feel I have to feel ready and braced and prepared.

But I want to recognize that I can come back to calm when I need to as well because I don't want to be forever in like in this state of anticipation and starting to feel irritable. And I was starting to do that. I was very irritable.

In certain situations frustration comes out of irritability and you know, the tone of voice that you use in, in those situations. And then afterwards I'd feel guilty for doing it. So.

And this isn't just with your dog, this can be your like if you think about the bigger picture, it's going to be in the relationships that you have with, with the people around you and the closest people around you as well. And especially if you feel like you're the one that's taken on all of that responsibility.

Like I said at the beginning, it's not about having a one up kind of on other people or laying blame on them for not caring as much as you or anything like that. But when you feel like you're the one taking responsibility, it's like you become a little bit of a martyr.

So you kind of put yourself into that situation and sometimes asking for help from someone else can just, even just doing some really kind of low level things can just start to take some of that pressure off while you are checking in and doing the body scan and not going into hyper responsibility mode. So it's not like what helps isn't about abandoning that responsibility altogether.

So it's not about saying, well I, I'm not doing all of this anymore. You can do it. It's up to you to do all this stuff. Absolutely not about that.

And it's not about pretending that you don't care, but it is about redistributing that pressure. So it can be about asking for help from those around you. But it can also be about letting go of the idea that every walk's gotta be productive.

I go on what I call freedom walks with my dogs whenever I feel like I need them. So sometimes it's multiple times a week. And the freedom walk for me is I book a big paddock, just us. Just us for that hour.

Privately booked paddock that I know I am not gonna get anyone coming into the paddock. There are going to be no other dogs around. There's not going to be. There's literally nothing. Nothing that's gonna.

And I pick, intentionally choose my fields based on how I'm feeling as well. So it's not always the same place that I go to. And it just takes the pressure off.

It's then basically saying my dogs have got the freedom to just go off, do their own thing and I don't have to think about anybody else.

But because it's not always just about what your own dog's doing, especially when you're out on a walk, it's what other people and their dogs are doing half the time, 80% of the time. And, you know, takes the pressure off with that as well. So letting know, letting go of the idea that every single walk's gotta be productive.

I don't have any expectations of my dogs on those walks. Those freedom walks are there for us to enjoy that time together. They get some good sniffs in.

It's not a really small, like, paddock the size of a garden. We do some little games together. If they want to go off and sniff for the whole time, they can.

And I can just walk around and start to just regulate myself, get a bit of sunshine if the sun's out, all of that stuff, it just really helps.

So letting go of that idea that every walk's got to be productive, allowing one imperfect moment to pass without analysis, that's really hard when you are in perfectionist, hyper responsibility mode.

But if you just think that what I've said in previous episodes as well, one setback does not mean that you are starting from scratch again with your dog. There is still progress there. It's underneath. Yes, there could have been a stressful situation that's happened and there's something that you can do.

There's things that you can do to help come out of that, but it's not because you then have to start from scratch. So you can let some of these imperfect moments pass without analyzing them and kind of saying, I'm not good enough and all of that stuff.

Because again, I've lived that and I've gone through that myself where I've just let go of something that's not worked how I expected and said, okay, that's not worked how I expected. I'm just going to move forward and help my dog recover from whatever situation was.

If it was high stress or something that's just made their confidence drop, whatever it is, help them through that and come back out and do and just move, move forward.

And it can be as well like if it is walking that you're struggling with with your dog choosing a shorter route without feeling guilty, it's okay if your dog goes on a shorter walk occasionally you don't have to be out for that full hour, three times a day. You know, one shorter route without guilt. You're basically. Then you can do it differently. You can go on a little sniffari.

So your dog can be walking very slowly on that shorter route and just doing lots of sniffing and exploring. And that is just as good for them as getting that walk that they go on with you that's longer.

And then reminding yourself that behavior is influenced by so many other things. Environment, biology. So that's their DNA and genetics, learning history. It's not just about your effort.

I had to remind myself that a lot of the time in the past with my own dogs. There's so many other things that are shaping your dog's behavior.

It's not just about what you're doing in that moment that's making these things happen. So when you start to reduce that unnecessary tension, your nervous system is going to start to soften.

And when your nervous system is softening, your dogs often are going to follow that. Your dog's nervous systems are going to soften as well.

So it's not about perfection, it's not about softening perfectly, but just something that you can notice a little change so you calm down and your dog can start to sense that and feel a little bit calmer as well. So if you recognize yourself in this episode, you feel like the one that's holding everything together. I just want you to right now do that pausing.

Do that body checking. What are your shoulders doing? Notice that. Notice what your breath's doing. Notice if your jaws clenching and then just soften something really small.

You don't have to carry that whole system on your own like a big boulder on your back. And your dog does not need to be. Need you to be braced in order to improve and move forward sometimes.

And what I often see when I work with clients is that progress starts to stabilize Way faster, when actually the pressure reduces because you're putting too much pressure on yourself, and then your dog's feeling it, too. And that could just be like, I need socialization to be perfect with my puppy.

Therefore, we're going to go to a busy, busy place, go into the middle of a busy place where there's people and dogs, and they'll get it all, and it will be great. That can be too much pressure on you, and it can be way too much pressure on puppies.

That's not anything that I would recommend anyone with a new puppy do. So when you start to take that pressure off, going into that situation full throttle, you'll start to see more progress.

And your puppy is actually going to start to say, okay, I can process this environment better, rather than it being like, oh, my God, all the things. What is happening? And starting to shut down a little bit, or just feeling really overwhelmed.

So before I finish up, I just wanted to say I love hearing feedback about the podcast. And I've had some amazing feedback from people I've never spoken to before who have felt compelled to send me a message.

And they're beautiful messages. I read every single one of them, and I appreciate every single one of them.

So this podcast is here because I have felt all the things, and I've been the dog mom who hasn't felt good enough. And I've been the dog mom who has had dogs with behavioral things happening, whether it's reactivity or pulling on the lead or whatever it is.

Like, however extreme it is, I've been the dog mom that's gone through those things and just felt all the pressure and all of the responsibility and all the things. And I just want to help, even if I just help one person to feel less like I did and feel less alone in it all. That's why I'm here.

That's why I'm doing it.

And the feedback that I get and the feedback, especially from someone recently who said it feels like my podcast is like the light at the end of a tunnel. It's just really like, I just. I get emotional really genuinely, because I don't expect people to send messages like that to me.

And I. I just appreciate it.

So if you felt like you've been the one holding everything together and you feel like you want to talk to me about it, you don't have to tell me all the details. Like, I'm not. I'm not nosy. I don't. I don't want to know all the information.

If you don't want to share it but but send me a message and let me know if this has helped. I'd love to know. Like I said, I read every single one and they really start to help me to shape what I talk about on the episodes as well.

So if you want practical tips, I give practical tips. If you need more emotional support through difficult scenarios with your dog, I can do that too. And that's what I want.

I just want this podcast to be built into something, shaped into something that everybody feels like they need, rather than just me coming on here and just talking at the camera not knowing if it's relevant or not. I'd just love to hear from from you. So I'll put some free resource links in the show notes.

As always, there's always something there that's going to help get you started.

And if you're interested in working with me more, there'll be a link to my website as well that I help clients who live locally to me, but I also help clients who live remotely as well. So I've loved talking to you on today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it too, and I shall see you next time on the Mindful Dog Parent.

Thanks so much for tuning in to the Mindful Dog Parent.

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You'll find all the links and resources mentioned in the show notes@lavendergardenanimalservices.co.uk podcast and I would love to stay in touch so head there if you want to explore more ways to work with me or get support.