Knowing Canine Emotions
What an Emotion actually is...
04 Apr 2026
Categories:- Understanding Canine Flow
- Dog Behaviour
How a dog feels is incredibly important to their behaviours, on the whole the industry is recognising this. However, I don’t wholly agree that those emotions are felt or even considered - in their Minds.
20+ years of observing and working with both dogs and energy work has led me to not wholly believe the dog is even very aware of their emotions. Instead I believe they literally live in the moment, the moment of the emotion. That they kind of are that emotion, rather than thinking about it - that the emotion takes over, overwhelms and they act because of that emotion, and the subsequent flow of emotions running through them.
Which means working with, discussing and referring to canine thoughts, mind, mental tiring or even neuro pathways is only ever part of, possibly even a small part of, canine behaviour.
If we are to discuss emotions, it could be said that the first step is to fully understand what an Emotion even is.
We all know Emotions fluctuate, they do not stay the same from one millisecond the next, from one lived in moment to the next. They flow, and by flowing they need to be expressed. Released, given somewhere to go, otherwise they stick, overwhelm and lead to the kind of behaviours we prefer not to see in our dogs – such as behaviours labelled excitement, aggression, excessive barking, spinning for instance.
Talk of impulse control is essentially asking a dog to feel less, to flow less - and is not, to me, something to aim for in a dog – just look how aiming to supress the flow of emotions has affected humanity!
Starting with the very English ‘stiff upper lip’ and even today where Gen-z will sulk until the parent gives them the ‘prize’, at no point are these emotions actually respected, they are supressed, misunderstood and thus get held in the body somatically showing up as actions and ailments instead of being grounded, released and actually Felt.
Emotions in Canine Flow are seen as a flow of a certain frequency, a vibration if you like.
Once felt, they often release themselves, discharge – and in dogs using Canine Flow skills they are super easy to re-balance. Emotions are a dog’s vital life force.
The idea of emotions as energies or frequencies flowing (E’Motion) has subsequently (to my retreats and teaching starting) been proved by the IHM in their famous published studies (https://www.heartmath.org/research/) which have shown unequivocally that when different emotions are felt a unique set of numbers, a measurement is consistent for each one. Measured outside the body as the emotion is being experienced.
These measurements or frequencies are what the cells take on to become what is labelled Somatic, Cellular Memory i.e. stuck, if you like, in the cell. When they are held in the body in this way they become repeatable patterns as they are the first frequency the body can access as they experience the variety of emotions in life. For instance even just simply on a daily walk a whole host of occurrences can happen in which the dog feels an emotion, and could be overwhelmed by the emotion if they have stored that patterning inside them.
At no point does the dog stop to mentally consider if a different emotion should be felt, if they should or shouldn’t be feeling a certain way, if the situation ‘justifies’ feeling that emotion – it is simply felt, they become the feeling and thus a behaviour arises from that because the end result of behaviour isn’t chosen mentally it’s an expression of frequency, an energy that is trying to flow and thus ground itself back down to Earth.
In Canine Flow we have been discussing behavioural grounding for over 15years.
What all this means practically, is that your dog is a moving flowing set of emotional energies, and every time we restrict, limit, stop, pull them away from grounding through sniffing, stop them playing with other dogs, even label their behaviours (as labelling is energetically limiting, the word is extremely powerful) we are suppressing their energetic/emotional flow – effecting them somatically, physically and emotionally and in fact creating the likelihood of the behaviours we don’t feel comfortable with them displaying.
Humans are so certain that suppression and control of emotions is needed, (and perhaps it is in the society we have now created) that we baulk at the idea of simply letting a dog express itself – we literally fear it, and use various levels of control, even compassionate control, to stop it flowing from our dogs.
However in Canine Flow we aim to transmute, to change the frequency being felt so that it is one of joy, love & peace rather than the great volumes of fears, anxieties, fears, grief, guilt that is stuck in both us, and our dogs - held and aiming to be released.
That way we not only calm a dog but ensure that the frequencies that run through them are conducive to cellular renewal and true health too.
Consider for a moment the therapies we turn to for our dogs. All talk of a measurable force flowing through the body that can be worked with, changed or released.
Ancient wisdom speaks of this flow. Therapies may call it chi, prana or reiki but they all speak of the same idea - changing the flow of vibrations or frequencies in the body to bring about cellular health and reduction of an ailment.
All too often people remark that following such therapies a dogs behaviour changes too.
In CF we would say this is not only because they are not in pain anymore, or because they “feel better” in their minds. But because the therapy also created a transformation of their emotional energies.
What has really happened is entire way the dog experiences the world has had fears removed from it. They have been replaced with frequencies, energies that relate to love, joy, peace – and thus when they experience life the patterning they have to access too is not the kind that leads to the behaviour expressions we don’t like to see.
Instead it leads to expressions we prefer to see - like a play bow, or a simply run or perhaps a dig of the ground to ground – rather than a mouthing, or a force of flow so strong it can only be grounded by biting behaviours.
The mouth is the seat of the emotions and so if an emotional pattern is held deeply it will rise to that area very quickly to be grounded.
In fact whilst we think canine enrichment is a dog being mentally challenged, or having to use their mind what is really going on is a grounding of emotions in order for the dog to reach contentment, and thus be calm. It has absolutely nothing to do with their mind.
The mind is a concept we humans are reluctant to move away from, and yet as a species ourselves, it has only served to separate us from our hearts and create various levels of fear in society.
As the days go by I will write more and more about how we see a dog’s behaviour in CF.
Including:
What you can ‘do’ to bring about the transformation of emotional frequency
How you can observe and interpret the flow of energy moving through your dog
What you can offer, or do both outside of the behaviour and during to support the Flow and the Grounding of emotions safely and lovingly.
We humans have been so determined to continue being intellectual we are missing the simplicity of the wonderful, our purely heart-based animal that is living with us.
Our dogs offer huge chances for empowerment, sovereignty - if we are prepared to re-remember what it is to let emotions flow. To feel and ground in ourselves too.
With love and happiness, Caroline and Foosa