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Enlightened By Dogs: Living with Cooperation, Not Obedience — Kids & Family
Enlightened By Dogs: Living with Cooperation, Not Obedience

Welcome to our podcast where we dog moms discuss modern, enlightened dog parenting! Each week, we’ll take a dive deep into the human-dog connection and explore strategies that will inspire you to create connection and cooperation with your dog…no obedience training needed!

We meet up at the intersection where training and behavior meet Heart and Soul…and where we leave behind the ‘power over’ obedience training paradigm we inherited and lead the way to an enlightened ‘power with’ approach. Join us for an inspirational and educational journey as we explore what living in cooperative partnership with our beautiful dogs looks like in real life.

Brilliant Partners are kind, loving, calm, clear, confident, and cooperative … and when WE learn how to be a Brilliant Partner, our dogs do too.

Kathy Kawalec is an author, writer, the founder of Dancing Hearts Dog Academy and creator of the Brilliant Partners Academy, The Foundation Formula, Herding Partners Academy, and Creative Alchemy Passion Plan.

Latest Episodes:

EBD177 Stop Leaking Trust and Confidence with 3 Clarity Questions Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

Trust and confidence are crucial ingredients to a loving, happy, and healthy partnership with our dogs.

Our dogs trust us with a lot, so we need to be good leaders and worthy of that trust. This means we should try to avoid leaking trust and confidence with our dogs.

When our dogs trust us to lead the way, they feel safer, more secure, and confident. If they don't and we put them in stressful scenarios, they can become reactive and unhappy.

In this episode of the Enlightened By Dogs podcast, Kathy shares insights into how easily we can leak trust and confidence with our dogs. She shares the three simple questions you should ask yourself before doing a new activity together.

In this episode:

What the right type of leadership looks like
Why role modeling is so important
How to stop trust and confidence from leaking

Quotes:

"It's really up to us to take responsibility for being the kind of human that our dogs love to follow and love to listen to and love to partner with."

"It's all about being able to inspire, to discover solutions to be solution-focused, not problem-focused."

"A leader is a visionary and leads by example."

"It's really natural for dogs, as socially intelligent animals, to learn through our role modeling."

Want More of Kathy?

EBD176 4 Steps to Emotional Balance Sep 27, 2021

Show notes

How does your emotional intelligence affect your relationship with your dog?

Your dog can teach you so much about how to be in the world, and one of the big things you can learn is how to step more fully into your innate, emotional intelligence.

In this episode, Kathy explains why finding emotional balance is key to being a loving leader and how it can help you on the way to achieving your dream partnership with your dog. She also talks about how socially intelligent animals model emotional management through their "get back to grazing" response and what we can learn from this.

Grab a pen and some paper, as this episode is packed with helpful advice that you can put into practice with your relationship with your dog.

In this episode:

How your emotional intelligence impacts your family group
The five key elements of emotional intelligence
How to approach fear, anger, frustration, and anxiety with emotional balance

Quotes:

"Socially intelligent animals use emotion as information to engage surprisingly agile responses to environmental stimuli and relationship challenges."

"As dog moms, it's so helpful for us to step more fully into our innate emotional intelligence."

"The more we develop our own emotional intelligence, the better our life is with our dogs."

"Our dogs are like models of emotional sanity. By collaborating with the nonverbal wisdom of their emotions and feeling their emotions, they conserve energy for true emotions."

Want More of Kathy?

To explore other episodes, click here.

EBD175 Connecting Heart-to-Heart Sep 20, 2021

Show notes

In our busy lives, sometimes we need to just pause and reflect. How we are and how we act can have a huge effect on our relationship with our dogs.

So, if you want to start working more on your partnership with your dog, it all starts with you.

In this episode, Kathy walks through several simple exercises to help you explore who you are and who you want to be as a dog mom. These exercises will help you gain a clearer understanding so you can forge a stronger heart-to-heart connection with your dog.

Grab a pen and paper and tune in to this episode to gain clarity on yourself and your partnership with your dog.

Also, if you're a struggling dog mom stuck at home, be sure to check out Kathy's new free PDF guide: Stuck at Home "Survival Guide" for Dog Moms.

In this episode:

Kathy announces her brand new downloadable guide: Stuck at Home "Survival Guide" for Dog Moms
Why who we are informs how we act
Simple exercises to get clarity on your partnership with your dog

Quotes:

"At our core is our heart. And our heart is most directly connected to the essence of who we are."

"When you think about what you love, it generates a vibration in your body."

"What we do is directly informed by how we are being."

Want More of Kathy?

To explore other episodes, click here.

EBD174 How to Be A Better Listener for Your Dog Sep 13, 2021

Show notes

What does it mean to be heard?

Both you and your dog are social mammals and so have a deep need to be understood and cared for. Meeting this need can help you live the brilliant partnership with your dog that you dream of.

In this episode, Kathy discusses how real listening can help you stay calm and connected to your dog and why it's one of the four core daily practices from the Brilliant Partners Academy.

She also talks about the relationship between listening and leadership and how to embrace being the loving leader that your partnership deserves.

In this episode:

Understanding what it really means to be listened to
What true leadership is
Why being a loving leader is a good thing
What real heart-to-heart, mind-to-mind listening is
How to listen mindfully – even in stressful situations

Quotes:

"To be heard means to be listened to without judgment about how we should be better or should be different than what someone thinks we should be."

"To be heard means to be loved, without condition."

"We're in some process of blossoming into the next iteration of who we are."

"Good leaders are good listeners."

"Our dogs are changing, we are changing. And yet, at each step along the way, we are already perfect."

Want More of Kathy?

EBD173 Lessons from A Reactive Dog with Paulina Grzesinska-Mrozek Sep 06, 2021

Show notes

Living with a reactive dog can be a frustrating experience, and as a first-time dog mom, it can be a confusing one as well.

In this episode of Enlightened By Dogs, Kathy revisits a conversation she had with first-time dog mom and BPA member Paulina Grzesinska-Mrozek.

Paulina was struggling with her dog Badi, who was very reactive to other dogs and people both in their apartment and on walks. After trying her luck with a behaviorist (who Badi wouldn't even let in the apartment), Paulina tried the Brilliant Partners Academy.

And she hasn't looked back since!

Today, their partnership is strong and built on trust and a mutual understanding. Hear about Paulina's experiences and how she used the BPA partnership principles to achieve this complete transformation.

In this episode:

How Paulina initially struggled to understand Badi's needs
How Paulina and Badi have transformed their partnership together
The partnership principles that Paulina found most useful
How Paulina and Badi became role models for each other

Quotes:

"BPA had a big impact on me understanding Badi's behaviors. Now when I just look at him, I know what he wants to communicate."

"Now I understand it so much better. I learned how to listen to him."

"I'm learning how to actually be there with him. When I catch myself […] going somewhere else with my thoughts, I'm like, no, no, no, we are here and now. Don't worry about other stuff, you are here and now."

Want More of Kathy?

To explore other episodes, click here.

EBD172 From Reactive Dogs to Remarkable Partners with Ros Swallow Aug 30, 2021

Show notes

Having one reactive dog can be challenging enough but imagine adding another one into the mix!

In this Enlightened By Dogs episode, Kathy revisits a conversation she had with Ros Swallow, proud dog mom to two beautiful (yet highly reactive) Hungarian Vizslas.

Ros had tried everything and had adapted her lifestyle to try and keep her dogs calm. Yet, she felt overwhelmed with anxiety whenever she took them out for a walk. People, dogs, bikes, and everything in between would always trigger panic and reactivity in her dogs.

Ros eventually took a leap of faith and joined Brilliant Partners Academy to learn how to become a calm and confident role model. Hear her experience and how BPA helped to turn Ros and her partnership with Phoebe and Myrtle around.

In this episode:

What triggered Phoebe and Myrtle's reactive and anxious behaviors
The steps Ros took before joining BPA
How BPA helped Ros transform her relationship with her dogs
What Ros loves most about the BPA community

Quotes:

"The progress we have made is beyond anything I have ever imagined possible."

"What I really like about BPA and the coaching is that all I need is myself and my dog. And I don't have to think that hard about how I'm going to react in this particular situation because it becomes a habit."

"If you're willing to make a commitment, if you're willing to follow the program, step by step, the support really is there."

Want More of Kathy?

To read and explore other episodes, click here.

EBD171 The Summer Series on The Power of Partnership – Part 5 of 5 Aug 23, 2021

Show notes

Do you have a clear vision and dream for the life you want with your dog?

Staying committed to the partnership of your dreams begins with some clarity on what your dreams actually look like.

This marks the final part of Kathy's five-part blog and podcast series, "The Summer Series on The Power of Partnership." In this series, Kathy has been sharing some simple partnership principles that will help you forge a much closer bond between you and your dog.

In this episode, we return to Mary (an avatar client and proud dog mom), who has been tackling some tricky challenges with her dog Max. You'll see how Mary has put each principle into action and how they have drastically improved her partnership with Max.

If you're new to this series, you can start with episode one.

In this episode:

Why staying connected to our dreams helps us stay committed
Why you should create a flexible plan for your goals
The four lessons to take from the commitment principle

Read the blog post on this topic.

Quotes:

"Being focused and connected to our dreams and goals serves to keep us in the now."

"Staying connected to our dreams every single day is one of the things that helps us stay committed."

"Old habits and patterns can be challenging to overcome. But having a plan to work through that challenge makes it so much easier."

Want More of Kathy?

To read the blog post on this topic and to explore other episodes, click here.

EBD170 The Summer Series on The Power of Partnership Part 4 of 5 Aug 16, 2021

Show notes

Part of living in a true partnership is to work towards some kind of common purpose. Yet, it's something that a lot of us don't think about when it comes to our dogs.

Welcome back to part four of Kathy's five-part series, 'The Summer Series on The Power of Partnership.' Over the course of this series, Kathy has been sharing some simple and highly effective partnership principles to help you forge the partnership you've always wanted with your dog.

We're returning to Mary and Max's story. Mary's a dog mom and avatar client who Kathy has been following along her journey as she puts these principles into action.

If you haven't already caught up with the previous episodes, check out the first three parts before continuing. Listen to the podcast episode for part one, two, and three, or read the blog post for part one, two, and three to catch up.

In this episode:

What a common purpose is and why it's key to a successful partnership
How Mary and Max found a common purpose
4 important lessons about finding a common purpose

Read the blog post on this topic.

Quotes:

"When we approach that cooperation from this perspective of, we both want the same thing, auto-magically, you and your dog become teammates."

"You become partners that are working together toward a common goal, a common outcome."

"Living in partnership is so much easier if you and your dog both want the same thing."

Want More of Kathy?

To read the blog post on this topic and to explore other episodes, click here.

EBD169 The Summer Series on The Power of Partnership - Part 3 of 5 Aug 09, 2021

Show notes

Transitioning into a new way of being with your dog isn't always like going from A to B. Sometimes there are a few bumps in the road along the way. But what do you do when you make a mistake?

It's normal to get knocked off-course when you're moving towards something new. However, how you deal with those moments will determine how difficult it will be to get to where you want to go.

This is the third of five installments in the ongoing blog and podcast series, "The Summer Series on The Power of Partnership". In it, Kathy shares some simple – yet effective – partnership principles that you can start using in yours and your dog's daily life right away.

Once again, Kathy returns to Mary, a dog mom and avatar client, who's tackling some challenges with her dog, Max. In each part, she looks at how Mary puts these principles into action and moves along in her partnership journey.

Listen to part one here and part two here.

In this episode:

Why patience is the secret to partnership success
How best to embark on your journey to complete partnership competence
How to become better partners in the dance of life

Read the blog post on this topic.

Quotes:

"Partnership competence is a journey not a destination."

"Give yourself permission to learn, permission to make mistakes."

"Partnerships are an ongoing learning experience."

Want More of Kathy?

To read the blog post on this topic and to explore other episodes, click here.

EBD168 The Summer Series on The Power of Partnership - Part 2 of 5 Aug 02, 2021

Show notes

What's the key to any successful partnership or relationship?

That's right. It's all about communication!

Communication is what ties your partnership with your dog together, so you're both happy and healthy.

This is part two of Kathy's ongoing podcast series, "The Summer Series on The Power of Partnership." In this series, Kathy shares some simple partnership principles that you can easily incorporate in your day-to-day life with your dog.

Each episode will follow Mary, an avatar client and dog mom, who's facing some challenges with her dog, Max.

As Kathy shares each principle, you'll see how Mary uses these lessons to build a solid partnership with Max. It's a glimpse at what working together as a partner really looks like!

If you haven't already, you can catch up and listen to part one here.

In this episode:

Why dogs are so in-tune with our thoughts, feelings, and intentions
How to engage in mindful dialoguing
How to get your dog back into balance

Read the blog post on this topic.

Quotes:

"There is no way to fool a dog. Dogs are masters at reading our intentions."

"Mastering this part of the partnership lifestyle formula requires that we learn to be focused, attentive, and clear as we interact with our dogs."

"Be a student and allow your dogs to teach you by observing their responses to your dialogue and your interactions with them."

Want More of Kathy?

To read the blog post on this topic and to explore other episodes, click here.

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