Creating and allowing space to give and receive healthy no with your animals (super-important!)

I learned a lot of ‘unhealthy no’ with animals from birth. And a lot of ‘unhealthy yes’ too. I’ve had to unlearn a lot over the years, and then learn how to create and express ‘healthy no’ with my animals – and the animals I care for as a holistic vet. I teach my clients how to get to a consistent healthy no with their animals – both giving and receiving. It’s hard work. And thoroughly worth it.

A lot of people haven’t even heard of this concept – the healthy no. In fact, I find that the vast majority of my clients (the humans) are staggeringly bad at say no to their pets and their horses, even when it’s what is most needed for well-being and safety.

There is often this continual ‘unhealthy yes’ from the humans –  for example ‘Yes, you can jump all over me,’ or ‘Yes, you can have more food that you don’t need, even though it makes you fat and unhealthy,’ or ‘Yes, you can run wild in the dog park and be mugged, or mug other dogs’.

The list could go on, and on, and on.

So what is a healthy no? What does that look like? How do you do this in a way that builds relationships?

I define a healthy no as saying no in a kind, yet firm way to my animals – only when it’s important. I use the word important rather than needed. This is a subtle distinction, but an important one. Because I can easily decide that something is ‘needed’ but I have to think about how important a given thing, behaviour, or request of my animals is in the context of this moment.

It’s a spectrum. A healthy no will be important in one context, and not in another. How my animals are feeling, how I am feeling, what kind of day we are having, also need to be taken into account. My animals’ response to a healthy no will help me shape and adjust the intensity of and the manner in which I am expressing this communication. I always want all of my communications with my animals to be dynamic, sensitive, kind, and responsive.

A healthy no is pressure that your animals will have to learn how to regulate with. Mental pressure. Emotional pressure. Frustration and other emotions may be triggered, processed, communicated, and danced with. This is true for humans as much as it is for animals. When your animal has some strong, perhaps uncomfortable emotions arise, you’ll likely then be triggered into your emotional response to their healthy discomfort.

Then everyone has to learn how to sit in that healthy discomfort while they self-regulate. That’s a muscle. It takes practice for everyone. Consistent practice. And this is all very non-linear, with everyone having good days, worse days, and sometimes awful days. That’s normal, and to be expected.

One of the key things you’ll need to do is to be more determined than your dogs, with kindness. I’ve never yet worked with a dog (and I’ve worked with thousands of dogs) who said ‘Hey, this is cool, thanks so much for this healthy no, I just love it! Can I have another one please?’

Oh no. It’s like ‘What do you MEAN??????? This is TERRIBLE!!!!! I’m gonna DIE here!!!!’ is what comes back the first time you do this with your animals. We need to allow our animals the space to work their way through their dislike of the healthy no that is important for safety, for ease and comfort of all the family, or to maintain harmony and prevent conflict. That takes time, and it can be tough emotional work to do so.

It’s super-important that you give the other end of the lead – your horses, your dogs, all kinds of animals, the opportunity (when safe and appropriate) to give YOU a healthy no. Humans can find this hard to accept, because there are deep patterns within humanity of expecting animals to do what they are told, when they are told. We are only recently taking the right steps towards allowing our animals agency, choice, and freedom to have their say and have that respected.

Here’s how Gem, my Whippet, gave me a very clear healthy no the other day

Gem doesn’t like going in the car. She gets nauseous, very dribbly, and a bit anxious. I was heading out to the car to take my beloved to pick her car up from the mechanics. I pulled my keys out of my pocket. Gem shot out the gate after me.

I said ‘Gem- come here.’ Normally she would come straight over, no worries. Instead, she took off out into the paddock, past the tiny house nearby to the main house. I walked out after her, calling her name. She ran out into the paddock on the other side of the main house. I followed her around, and found her up the other end of the paddock.

I whistled and called again, and she ran back into the houseyard instead of coming to me. I walked al the way back around. At first I was a little frustrated, but by this point I was smiling, quietly amused. I found her at the back door and said, quietly yet firmly ‘Gem. Come here.’

She gave me a look, and then ran straight past me, over into her Whippet Palace, and hopped into the big box that is her bed in there. Now, normally, she isn’t super-keen to go in there. She always does when asked, but I can tell that it’s not her favourite thing to be shut in.

But on this day she was like ‘No- I don’t like the car, I’d much rather stay in here, please shut the door!’ I smiled, laughed, gave her a pat, shut the door, and off we went. That was her giving me a ‘healthy no’, and me listening. Another day, if it was more important that she have to come in the car with me, then I’d give her a healthy yes – we are going, and you have to hop in. But I’d be kind, and take it slow, and support her as much as possible.

You can express a healthy no with your animals in so many ways, for so many reasons. It should never be forceful, though kind pressure is often required in one form or another. A really important healthy no I teach all my clients is ‘No – you may not come into my close personal space at this time’. It’s amazing how hard this is for many people to learn and express. Even though the benefits are HUGE – including a deeper, stronger relationship!

Love to hear from you- what do you think of this healthy no idea? Are you good at expressing this with your animals? Can you see the value in it? One thing a healthy no teaches your animals is resilience, and it helps them build independence and self-regulatory capacity too!

Here’s a video where I talk about this topic live

If you’d like to explore expressing a healthy no with your animals, I’d love to help. Your first step is to book a free evaluation call at this link (a free call where I work out with you if I am a good fit to help, and if I am, how to book and how it all works).

If you’d like to explore using loving therapeutic touch, empathic dog training (what I’m talking about to day is a key pillar of this approach), intuitive connection, and Energywork – the Whole Energy Body Balance Method – pop into this link to learn more about the method and our home or professional practitioner programs.

And… Here’s another blog talking about how animals have feelings

Gem saying ‘NO” to me