For example, Beowulf was a favourite dog to be at the park when the local University students would come with their clip boards to record canine social behaviour, and not because he was so damn handsome (tee-hee \ud83d\ude00 ).\u00a0 They had a manikin dog with which they could manipulate typical canine signals, such as tail, trunk and ear posture. The students then record how other dogs respond to these postures. While some dogs in the park ignore the \u201cstatue\u201d in the middle of the field, (some peed on it), other dogs, including Beowulf, would attend.\u00a0 When the manikin dog was in an aggressive stance for dogs, Beowulf would circle the \u201cdog,\u201d bark and generally display his own postures of threat; which often included \u201cwhale eye\u201d which is when you can see the whites of your dog\u2019s eyeballs and they tend to hold a frozen facial expression.<\/p>\n
But since RO DBT is not about our companion species per se or necessarily making analogous parallels to all species, it made me ask a new question. As a human at the dog park, what were my<\/em> social signals for engagement or disengagement from other dog owners?\u00a0 In other words, how was I \u201cbowing\u201d to other owners or displaying \u201cwhale eye\u201d? In RO DBT we teach hunting dogs, swords and shields and this might be a helpful way to conceptualize this. There is no rule that you have to engage with other humans at the dog park but it was very much my tutorial in learning to \u201cchit chat\u201d outside my professional realm. \u00a0As I teach my clients, this was difficult at first but got easier over time with practice.\u00a0 For example, I would practice Match + 1, I would use bigger gestures when arriving at the park, and try to tease a little. With such heat off topics as our dogs, their antics (like Beowulf popping up behind a log with a dead seal\u2019s head); and the never ending cycle of picking up poop and subsequent discussion of the same, the interactions lent themselves to practicing an easy manner which our clients are working on. And this little doggy tribe grew more intimate over time even under pounding West Coast rain.\u00a0 I would actually anticipate getting to the park by ten to hang out with the other owners of young and silly dogs and felt disappointed if I did not run into them.\u00a0 And this- anticipatory reward – was a very new experience to me.<\/p>\n Our little doggy tribe began to dissipate over time \u2013 people moved, our work schedules altered and sadly, dogs died. I learned not to avoid the good byes but to celebrate them, human and dog alike. Beowulf was my trusted co-therapist until August 2017.\u00a0 Despite being a cancer survivor, he died unexpectedly just prior to the RO DBT trainers retreat in France.\u00a0 It was at this retreat where I was introduced to the RO grief protocol (forthcoming).\u00a0 It was helpful to know, as someone who leans to OC, that I don\u2019t have to abandon my relationship with him to avoid painful emotions, but rather I can \u201ctouch\u201d the grief in a way that I don\u2019t fall apart. In that way, he continues to be my original teacher.\u00a0 I can hold the dialectic of love and loss because of him.\u00a0 And I can honestly say it is likely the only relationship I have ever fully grieved.\u00a0 Due to his previous reputation as a therapy dog, he continues to get direct \u201creferrals,\u201d so I am reminded often how affection and openness can impact people; how they remember such love.<\/p>\n So my question to readers is what are your play bows and what are your whale eyes in your social contexts?\u00a0 When do you get your hackles up and when do you wag your tail?\u00a0 Because humans, like it or not, are expert social safety detectors even without tails or manikins to test us!<\/p>\n Since my involvement as RO DBT, I have learned a lot about playfulness.\u00a0 Clinically, I have learned that bringing playful irreverence into the therapy room and skills class functions to model to people who lean to overcontrol (OC; of which I am one) that chilling out is therapeutic. After all, if we are not playful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radicallyopen.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radicallyopen.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radicallyopen.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicallyopen.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicallyopen.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicallyopen.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicallyopen.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radicallyopen.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicallyopen.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicallyopen.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAbout the author:\u00a0J. Nicole Little, Ph.D., R.C.C.<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.radicallyopen.test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Nicole-headshot-300x200.webp\")
Nicole is a therapist specializing in eating disorders and other conditions of overcontrol in Victoria, B.C., Canada.\u00a0 She has also taught for 13 years at Universities and colleges. Her passions are RO DBT and animal assisted therapy.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"