If you’ve ever looked at your dog and felt… nothing, no spark, no joy, just heaviness - you’re not alone.

This episode of The Mindful Dog Parent gently explores why overwhelmed and exhausted dog parents sometimes disconnect emotionally, and why that doesn’t mean you’re failing or losing your bond.

Siân Lawley-Rudd explains how your nervous system protects you during burnout or emotional overload, why joy becomes harder to access, and how to begin rebuilding calm, connection, and safety with your dog again, one gentle moment at a time.

What you’ll learn today:

• Why joy disappears when your body is in survival mode

• How nervous-system shutdown affects your connection

• Why feeling “flat” doesn’t mean you love your dog any less

• Simple co-regulation practices to rebuild connection

• Micro-moments that help your joy slowly come back

• What dogs feel when you’re emotionally overwhelmed

• How to reconnect without pressure, guilt, or shame

If you’ve been feeling disconnected, numb, or emotionally exhausted, this episode will help you feel seen, understood, and deeply reassured.

Joy isn’t gone, it’s waiting for your nervous system to feel safe again. 💜

🎧 Listen next:

• When You’re Tired of Dog Training: Why Taking a Break Helps You Make Real Progress

• When Staying Calm Feels Impossible: Why You Keep Losing It (and How to Come Back Faster)

• The One-Minute Reset: A Simple Way to Regulate Your Dog (and Yourself)

💌 Links & Support:

Explore ways to work with me → lavendergardenanimalservices.co.uk

Follow Siân on Instagram → @lavendergardenanimalservices

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.

Have you ever had a moment where you look at your dog, the dog that you adore, the dog who means everything to you, and you just feel nothing?

No excitement, no joy, just flat?

And then the guilt hits you?

What's wrong with me?

Why don't I feel anything?

Am I a terrible dog parent for feeling like this?

If you've ever had a moment like that, this episode is for you.

Because the joy isn't gone.

You've not lost your spark and you're not ungrateful, you're not cold, and you're not failing.

It might feel like all of those things, but it's not the case.

Your nervous system is simply overwhelmed and it is protecting you in the only way it knows how to do it.

It's doing what it's designed to do, protect you, keep you safe.

And we've talked about the different states that your body is in when it's in safety mode.

It can't be in creative mode.

It can't be in two states at the same time.

It's going to be in one or the other.

And if you're in safe mode, we'll talk a little bit about why.

Why joy does disappear, why it doesn't mean anything bad about you, and how to gently find your way back to that connection without forcing anything.

This isn't about putting pressure on yourself.

I've talked about in the previous two episodes.

So this is the third of the three episodes in my miniseries.

Do listen to the previous two episodes.

If this is the first episode that you're listening to, go back to the previous two.

I'll put the link in the show notes.

So, because they kind of follow along from each other, we talked about kind of bringing calm back and I've Talked in a previous episode about bringing fun back into.

Into your life.

But when joy just doesn't feel like it's there and you do feel flat.

And this is the point that I was at that I mentioned in the previous episode.

I felt flat and I didn't feel joy and everything felt like an effort and I wasn't going out when, you know, I was just given the opportunity.

I was just staying in the same room, in the same house, not really doing anything.

And it's not a nice place to be.

My body felt unsafe and it was doing what it needed to do, but it was doing it in a way that meant my creativity wasn't there and all the things.

So I've been there and I've lived it and I've come out the other side from that.

And that's why I want to talk about it even more, so that we're not making it something that you can't talk about.

So I've worked with clients who have been in this place and they've been honest and they've told me all the feelings that they have.

And I come at it from a place of no judgment because I have felt those things as well.

I felt like the failing dog bum.

I felt like I don't like my dog very much.

In moments where their behaviour was just really difficult.

And this is going back a few years, I felt like I'm not good enough as a dog parent.

Like, all those feelings are really valid, but we need to recognize that our brains are telling us a story and creating a story and feeding our negative mindset when it's not the case and it's not the truth, that's the difference.

It's valid to have those feelings, but we need to understand it's not the truth.

So when your life has been feeling heavy for a while, so that can be emotionally, mentally or physically.

Your nervous system is going to begin to conserve energy because it's shifting from one state to the other.

So it's shifting from that curiosity, the play, the connection, the creativity, that state to a state of protection, survival and reduction.

That is because it doesn't feel safe.

Your nervous system is saying, I don't feel safe right now.

I need to shut all of the things down that aren't necessary right now and just keep us Going and.

And keep us alive.

This is called functional shutdown.

It's not dramatic.

It's not this big dramatic thing.

It's really subtle.

And like I said, I've lived it and experienced it myself.

Because if you're feeling flat, if you feel like you've gone on autopilot, so you're just doing things without really thinking about it.

Even your dog's excitement can feel overwhelming.

So it's not like over stimulation or over excitement.

It's just that they're excited and they may be kind of a bit playful.

That can start to feel overwhelming.

Your brain isn't saying that you don't love your dog.

It's trying to say, you have been running on empty and I need to protect you right now.

That's biology.

That is our nervous systems doing what they were created to do from the beginning.

It's not about failure.

It's not about lack of love, because it can feel like that.

If you don't like your dog very much, it can feel like you don't love them as well.

So it kind of.

It dramatizes it a little bit more.

And it's not lack of gratitude.

Now.

Gratitude is a really important part of mindset shifts.

So trying to just be like, keep a little record of things that you're grateful for, even really tiny things.

If it's really difficult to feel grateful for anything right now, the tiny things.

So, like, this morning for me, the sun is beaming, it's shining.

You can see it, like, reflected behind me.

And I got to see the sunrise.

And I just appreciated the sunrise this morning.

I don't do it every day, and I think we take certain things for granted.

But the sunrise was something I could be grateful for this morning.

And I really kind of said, I'm grateful for this sunrise.

I'm grateful for seeing this sunrise.

So it can be as small as.

Like, I have a pen right now, and I need to write something down.

I'm grateful that I have this pen, like something really, really basic.

But if we start to do these little things and show the great.

The gratitude towards the tiny things, our brain starts to say, this is what you are looking for now.

These are the things I want you to look for.

And then you see them more and you spot them more.

And it's easier to spot these things because you're telling your brain you need to see them.

So that's where it can start to help.

Just spot in those little bits of gratitude, those tiny moments of gratitude.

It's not about the failure of the lack of love or lack of gratitude.

It's your nervous system doing its best to keep you afloat because that is what it needs to do right now.

It feels like that is what is necessary.

Dog parents feel joy as connection, not just as happiness.

So when that joy starts to disappear, if you think about that link, you can assume that you're doing something wrong.

You can feel like your bond is slipping away.

You can panic that something's broken, you start to blame yourself, and you feel like you're failing your dog emotionally.

But the truth of that is joy isn't like a personality trait.

It's a state that your body accesses when it feels safe enough to access it.

So if your body is feeling all these things that I've mentioned, so it is feeling like you've done something wrong, you start to have the fear and you start to have the panic and you start to have the blame.

You're not in a state of being able to access joy, so you can't play or laugh or feel that lightness from inside.

Stress or burnout, it's just not possible.

And it's not about your dog seeing it as a rejection, and they're not seeing it as rejection.

They can feel that overwhelm that you have, and they might be responding with that stillness or softness because dogs co regulate.

That's what science tells us.

They have that ability to co regulate with us.

So they're not judging you.

They're not wait then.

They're not kind of waiting for you to bring joy back into their life.

They're waiting just with you.

They're waiting with you, not for you.

You're not losing that connection.

The connection can be.

You can have an insecure connection with your dog.

So.

So your dog can feel a bit insecure about the relationship and they're like walking on eggshells a little bit because they don't know what the response might be.

But it doesn't mean that connection has disappeared and it's not possible to get back.

There's always a way to bring that connection back with your dog.

It might take longer for some than others because of how, how long something's been going on for how new they are to your home.

If they haven't even had chance to really build a connection with you yet, that can be where this kind of stuff comes from.

So it's just thinking about these things.

It's very specific to everybody.

But you're not losing that connection.

It's something that you can get back again.

You are just recovering Right now.

So I don't want you to think that you just have to push through because there is no pushing through.

There isn't just a.

Well, we just enjoy them.

So one of the things that a lot of people say generally is you need to appreciate every moment.

And the first thing that springs to mind is having children.

So you have a baby and they're starting to grow really quickly, you know, but in the blink of an eye, they're four, you know, and you think, where have the last four years gone?

And you always hear like, oh, you need to appreciate these, like every moment with them while they're, while they're young, because they're not going to be this young forever.

And I get it, I really do.

I do genuinely get that.

Because, no, they're not going to be this young forever and you're not going to be as close as you are as, as they are as you are when they're children.

But there's going to be times where you don't feel like that, like it's just not possible to appreciate every single second.

And that's how it feels.

Like society tells you to feel.

There's going to be those moments where you feel really rubbish, that you don't feel like a good enough mom, that you have mum guilt.

Like all those feelings are so valid.

And it's not just about just enjoy them or just push through it.

Why are you complaining?

Like all this stuff, like, just snap out of it.

It's not about.

It's not possible to do all of that.

Joy starts to come back in tiny doorways.

It can't come back with pressure.

If you start to put too much pressure on yourself to try and enjoy these things, it actually feels you, makes you feel worse because you start to say, well, I am pushing through.

I'm trying to enjoy these moments, but I still feel flat, I still don't feel anything.

And bringing it back to dogs, it's the same thing.

Like they're only, they're only puppies for so long or you only have them for X amount of years.

And I get that.

Again, I don't.

I'm not dismissing the sentiment around it, but there has to be an element of human stuff going on with this.

There's got to be a time where you can accept that it's not going to feel easy, it's not going to feel good, it's not going to feel positive because toxic positivity is not healthy.

All those things pushing through, just enjoy them, like snapping out of it.

We need to have some awareness.

We need to sit with the feelings, but doing all that stuff is not going to bring you back to a place of joy and it's not going to help you reset your nervous system.

So I've got three really gentle ways that you can start to reconnect in a more human way, in a more subtle way, so that you can start to actually genuinely feel it again.

So the first one is allow yourself to be exactly how you are.

If you are feeling numb or flat, that is okay, because that is what your body is telling you it needs to do.

Right now.

Having that awareness is going to really help because you can say, well, what do I need to do?

What can I do differently?

And I'll talk about that in the next couple of points to, to change that.

Now I'm aware of it more.

Let yourself be as you are with your dog.

So it can just be about sitting near them, breathing with them.

So literally kind of watch them breathe in and match their breath, touching them gently.

If it's not something that triggers them into overstimulation, which can happen for some dogs, for others, they actually quite like it and it can calm them.

Let their presence just be enough.

Right now.

Connection doesn't always look like play, so play is a brilliant way of building a bond with any dog.

It's such a really nice way, a connected, interactive play session with your dog.

Not just throwing a ball for them, genuinely interacting with them.

Playing a bit of toggy if you've got a puppy, you know, gentle tuggy if you've got a dog that likes to.

To kind of play toggy with you, great.

That's going to build the bond.

Playing with a. I've forgotten the.

The word.

I can see it in my head playing with anything.

I'll come back to it if I can think about what the word is.

A flirt pole.

That's what I was trying to think of.

Playing with a flirt pole with your dog, which is basically just like a giant cat toy.

It is a pole that you hold with, with a string and some kind of toy on the end of it.

And it's about having that nice interaction, giving them an outlet, like meeting their needs, all that kind of stuff.

And it helps with some impulse control too, so there's lots of benefits to it.

But interactive play is going to be a brilliant way to build a bond.

But if play isn't something that you can do right now because you are feeling flat and numb, you're not just going to push through, you're not going to put Pressure on yourself to just do it.

These little things are going to be just as good.

Sitting near them, touching them.

If they're happy with you doing that, breathing with them, being close to them.

So my dogs have been laid on the sofa behind me.

If anyone's watching the recording on YouTube, they've been laid on the sofa behind me earlier on, and we can feel connected, just sat with each other, not cuddling.

If your dog likes a cuddle, great.

If they're not so keen, that's okay.

If they tell you that they're happy to cuddle.

My dogs are really kind of clear with when they want touch and when they don't.

And I understand that that's how they're feeling.

So that's how I know that I can build connection with my own dogs.

Because we're sat on that sofa together and we're just being present with one another.

And often it does look like it's just simply being.

That's how simple it can be.

So that moves us on to the second point.

So the second thing that you can start to just shift out of this place of feeling numb and being in this nervous system state of being in survival mode, looking for those micro moments, not those big feelings and those big changes.

Joy rarely comes back as fireworks.

It's not always about those big things that are happening.

And I think society tells us that it has to be that or it's not good enough.

It has to be perfect or it's not good enough.

And perfect means big and extravagant and all the things.

But.

And social media feeds into that a lot as well, because we see the highlight reels of everyone's lives.

And I've mentioned that in earlier episodes as well, how social media can feed all of our negative thoughts.

So it's not about those big things.

It can come back as, like, appreciating the softness in their ears.

You know, how did their ears sit?

And I've seen clients and people talk about like, you know, I'm doing this on my recording, recording, and if you're not watching me, you won't know what I'm doing.

So I'm like putting my hands to my head and I'm like drooping my hands as if ears are bouncing, basically.

So imagine your dog's ears and they're bouncing as they're walking, walking along in front of you.

So it can be recognizing that.

It can be the weight of them leaning on you if they're a leaner.

My dogs are leaners, so you can feel the weight on them.

Leaning on you, it can be that kind of happy tail wag.

So it's not necessarily anything big's happening, but they're nice and happy.

So tail wags aren't always as a little kind of.

I'm going across on a little rabbit hole here, but it's relevant to say, because I can't just say a tail wag.

Tail wags aren't always happy.

So dogs aren't always happy when they're wagging their tail.

If they're nice and loose and they look.

Their whole body looks soft and, you know, reading the context that they're in, great.

That's a nice happy towel work.

If they're, you know, their heads are low and their ears are down and they're approaching slowly, they've really slowed themselves down.

Their tails are starting to go like lower.

So it's not necessarily tucked under their bums, but it can be lower and quick.

Those fast tail wags aren't happy tail wags.

They're stressed tail wags.

So talking about tail wags, just wanted to mention that as a little aside, a nice happy tail wag recognizing that the sound of their breathing.

So I am in a quiet room right now.

My dogs are in the room with me, and I can hear Oliver snoring behind me.

You guys might not hear it on the microphone, but he is snoring behind me.

That can just bring us back into the present.

And it's really good as a grounding exercise to just listen to that sound of them, their breathing.

It can be just like the warmth of the body near yours.

So, you know, like they're touching you but not on you.

They're not leaning on you, but you can feel the warmth of the body.

Like recognizing that those moments count.

Your system is recognizing them even before you do.

So having that awareness and bringing it into your, your conscious mind, because it's currently in your subconscious mind, is going to make a difference.

So just recognizing those small moments of connection, micro moments of connection are going to really start to help you bring back some of that joy or connection that you felt was lost.

And then the third one is trying one small light thing.

So in I think it was a couple of episodes ago, I will mention any, like saying any of in the show notes, any episodes that I talk about or think are relevant, I'm going to put links to them so you can listen to those too.

Try one small light thing that doesn't necessarily have to be fun.

So I mentioned fun and how fun can be brought back into your.

Your Life when you don't feel like you're having it, like you've had any fun for a while.

I talked about my personal experience of when I was going through a tough time.

I didn't feel like fun was something that I was doing because.

And I just didn't recognize that was what was happening.

If that feels too difficult, come back to doing that.

When you've done these things, it's not about a big walk because you might not have enough energy to do that.

It's not about a big training session.

It's not about creating a brand new routine and just like shifting everything on its head and making it big and dramatic.

It can just be something that was, that's lighter than the moment before.

So it could be sitting outside together for a couple of minutes.

So like the weather's beautiful today.

The sun's shining, but it's freezing cold.

So like put something a bit warm on, get a cup of tea, just sit out there for a minute or two.

Offering them a sniffing opportunity.

So just slowing down, letting them sniff, watching them sniff.

Regulate yourself and breathe.

In the moments you know that they're sniffing.

Take that moment to do some breathing exercises to make yourself recognize.

Do your body scanning.

Are your shoulders high?

Is your jaw tense?

All that kind of stuff.

It's going to help ground you and bring your, your nervous system state back to a place of feeling.

Like it can be regulated again.

It could be a slow cuddle.

If your dog enjoys touch, enjoys cuddles again, every dog's different.

Not every dog likes it.

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

Really understanding your dog and their communication with that really helps.

But that can be another one giving them a toy and just watching them rather than interacting.

So an example that springs to my mind is Bonnie absolutely loves to do what I call the wriggle wriggle.

And she knows what the word is because she actually starts to do it when I say do the wriggle wriggle.

And she rolls onto her back, wriggles around a little bit on her back and then tries to grab something that's around her.

And I just give her a toy to grab.

She will grab a blanket or something, anything within reach she will try and hold on to.

She's not tearing it up, she just wants to hold it and mess about with it.

So give her a toy, leave her be.

And she does the wriggle wriggle.

And she's having a great time.

And I just sit and I watch and I enjoy the moment that I am watching Right then.

And it only goes on for about 10 seconds usually, but it's just that little tiny moment of that connection and it makes me laugh.

And we've associated a cue to actually doing it.

So it's just that like there's no interaction directly.

There's no, you know, there's nothing that I'm doing directly with her apart from giving her the toy.

But she's having a lovely time and it makes me then enjoy the moment and then like it could also be a 30 second check in moment.

So eye contact is a really good way of building a bond.

So it releases oxytocin in your dog's body.

Science tells us that that's the case.

It also releases in our body.

So when that eye contact is there and happens, that connection chemical is released in both of our bodies and it starts to help create that bond again, create that connection that maybe you felt like it's a bit lost.

So what I'm trying to say is, in summary, in that section is that novelty.

So doing something a bit different that you might not have thought of doing and bringing safety into it and starting to feel safe by grounding yourself is the fastest way to reopen that door to connection.

Those are the moments that are going to start to help your body recognize that you feel safe again, that you are doing some things a bit differently.

It recognizes that that's what you're looking for again.

So really try and do those three things.

So just as a recap, allow yourself to be exactly how you are.

Look for those micro moments and if you need to just write them down somewhere, have a little notepad, put them on the fridge, or like a note board in the kitchen just somewhere or on your phone somewhere, you can look back at them and say, look.

Actually there are more than I thought, like more micro moments that I can see and recognize now than I thought they were.

The more you do that, the more you're going to naturally be able to recognize those things.

Because your body now knows that's what you need to look for.

You are telling your brain, look for this stuff because I want to see it.

And then the third one, try one small light thing.

And then once you start to do that stuff, bring the fun into it.

So go back to the episode that I talk about fun and things that you can do and start to really see the shift on a bigger scale.

We often think that joy is a feeling, but for me it's more than that.

It's a state of availability.

So it's what your body Accesses when you're not overwhelmed, you're not in survival and you feel safe enough to soften.

Joy actually needs a few different things to be able to actually be felt and to be in that state with.

So it needs the ventral vagal activation, which I mentioned in our previous episode.

It needs oxytocin, which is that, like I say, that connection chemical.

It needs dopamine, which is a happy chemical that we all know and hear a lot about.

And it needs co regulation.

So that's us and our dogs genuinely feeling safe together and co regulating one another's nervous systems.

Your dog's presence helps you access those states, but only when your body has enough capacity to be able to.

That is why joy does not show up on the hard days.

It's not going to be a natural thing that your body is recognizing.

It's not because you love your dog any less, but because your body is still trying to protect you.

It is doing what it's meant to be doing and it can't do both things together.

So this is what I want you to take from today.

I want to remind you that you've not lost Joy.

You can always get it back.

You've not lost connection, you can always rebuild it.

You haven't lost yourself, you can always find yourself again.

If you do have that awareness and start to work on these things and changing things and working on your mindset and you haven't lost the bond with your dog, despite feeling like you might have, you can always rebuild it again.

You are in a season of recovery emotionally and in recovery, Joy will come back slowly, quietly and gently.

Your dog isn't waiting for you to be joyful.

They're waiting for you as you are where you are right now.

So thank you so much.

If this episode helped you breathe a little easier today, please, please share it with another dog parent who you might feel is feeling a bit flat or overwhelmed too.

It may not be something that they're communicating with you, these feelings, especially if it's I don't like my dog, they're not going to tell you that because they feel, they feel that shame potentially.

But if you starting to feel a little bit like they're behaving a bit differently with, with you or they don't seem as connected with their dog, really share this episode with them and start to help them to recognize how they're feeling and help them get out of that state of kind of survival and protection and Joy will come back, connection comes back.

You come back one gentle moment at a time.

So I'll see you next time on the Mindful Dog Parent.

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

If this episode gave you something to think about, or it just made you feel a little less alone, I would love it if you followed the show and shared it with another dog parent who needs it.

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.