A more joyful, cooperative way through the things that need to get done with your dog.
When my Border Collie Raven became suddenly and seriously ill, we ended up in the emergency room.
She was in ketoacidosis, a life-threatening complication of diabetes that had developed suddenly and without warning. Raven spent a week in intensive and critical care while the veterinary team worked to stabilize her, run tests, and determine whether she could come home.
Finally, she did.
Raven was so happy to be home, but she was still fragile and overwhelmed by everything she had been through. I was overjoyed to have her back—and also emotionally exhausted, worried, and overwhelmed by the new responsibility of caring for a diabetic dog.
Our new reality began immediately. Raven needed insulin injections twice a day, along with glucose checks twice a day—or more often when indicated. Checking her glucose required a skin prick, a drop of blood, and enough stillness to get an accurate reading.
There was no time to prepare Raven with weeks of training, desensitization, or counterconditioning. We couldn’t ease into it gradually and wait until she felt completely comfortable. Her life depended on us doing it now.
But that didn’t mean we were unprepared.
Raven and I already had something much more important: a trusting, cooperative partnership.
Raven and I already had something much more important: a trusting, cooperative partnership. We had connection and belonging. We knew how to listen and respond to one another, and we could learn our way through this new experience together.
I didn’t need to train Raven to tolerate each step before we began. I needed to become the grounded, clear, loving partner she could trust inside the experience. She could take in and respond to what I modeled, and I could listen to her communication and adjust. That living, social exchange gave us a way to begin immediately—and to grow more comfortable and cooperative together as we went.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t frightened. I was. I made space for my own worry, emotional processing, and recovery—but I did my best to keep that separate from my interactions with Raven. When it was time to care for her, I wanted to be fully present with her, not ask her to carry my fear along with everything else.
I created a little care station for us in the kitchen. I staged her supplies there and put down a rug where we could stand together. I wanted it to become our familiar place, so Raven would always know what was about to happen. No surprises. No wondering what I might suddenly do to her.
This was the place where we would figure it out together.
I explained what we needed to do, and then we began.
Raven stood on her own, without restraint. I gently supported her with a touch on her chest or shoulder and waited until she found her balance. I asked her to lift a front paw so I could check her glucose using her carpal pad. Then came her meal and the insulin injection, all right there on our rug.
That description makes it sound like a tidy sequence of steps. The real partnership happened in the tiny spaces between them.
I listened to Raven throughout the entire process. If she leaned away, I gently followed her movement rather than holding her in place. I stayed with her while inviting her to stay with me. I adjusted my position, the approach of my hand or the tool, my timing, and the support I offered.
Sometimes the adjustment was so small that someone watching casually would not have noticed it. But Raven noticed.
The glucose checks and injections were not optional. Raven’s life depended on them. But that did not mean her communication stopped mattering.
She didn’t like the prick or the injection. No, thank you! But because she trusted me to listen, and because I responded to her smallest communications, she knew she was being heard. From that trust, she offered her cooperation.
Every tiny step gave us another opportunity to discover what worked better for both of us.
During those first few days, though, I began to notice something happening in me.
When it was time to go to our care station each morning and evening, Raven sometimes made it quite clear that she would rather not. I could feel myself becoming tense before we even began.
I knew where that pathway could lead. Glucose time could quickly become the part of the day we both dreaded—the serious thing I had to do to Raven because it was good for her.
That wasn’t the relationship I wanted us to have together.
I needed to take responsibility for what I was bringing to the experience. I wanted Raven to know that this time was not only necessary. It was our special time to connect, be together, and care for her body as partners.
That’s when the songs began.
When it was time for Raven’s care, I would find her wherever she was in the house. I came in with a smile, an open and welcoming heart, and a wonderfully ridiculous little song:
“Checkin’ the glucose, baa-aaa-bee! Checkin’ the glucose, yeah!! Checkin’ the glucose is so, so good, ’cause up next is your yummy food!”
I made up more of the song as we walked to the kitchen together. I could see Raven lighting up in response, so I kept singing right through each part of our routine.
Before long, I could begin her song from across the room. Raven would hear it, get up, and run over to me. Then off we would go together to our kitchen care station.
Within a week or so, I could start singing in the kitchen and Raven would come happily to her rug. She stood freely, lifted her paw with my lightest touch when I was ready, and willingly participated in each step.
Glucose time had become our special time.
The song was not a magic trick for making Raven submit to medical care. It was part of the joyful little world we created around something neither of us would have chosen.
It helped me remember who I wanted to be with Raven. I brought an open heart, loving confidence, clarity, predictability, connection, and plenty of joyful nonsense.
Raven brought herself too. She brought her trust, her communication, her preferences, and her willingness to participate.
We weren’t pretending that skin pricks and injections were fun. We were enjoying figuring out together how to make this necessary part of our life feel safe, familiar, loving, and even a little bit silly.
That became our rhythm for the next couple of years.
Raven’s willingness did not grow because I trained a response to every tool or conditioned her to tolerate the procedure. It grew through connection and co-regulation, through the safety of belonging, and through social learning as we listened and responded to one another in real time.
This is one of my deepest convictions after decades of living and working with dogs: training and behavior conditioning do not need to be at the center of how we live, learn, or meet life together.
A trusting partnership gives us another, much more powerful, way to learn. Our dogs learn from who we are and what we model. We learn from what they communicate. Together, we adjust, respond, and discover the way forward as we live it.
And because partnership is alive, our circumstances and available capacity are always part of the conversation. I was reminded of that last year, when I was hospitalized for almost a month.th
My husband, Joe, had to take over Raven’s diabetes care. He was already worried and distressed about me, and now he was overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for Raven too. He was afraid of doing something wrong or making a serious mistake that could harm her.
Raven was living through her own version of this enormous change. I was gone. Her familiar care partner was gone. The rhythm and understanding we had created together had been disrupted. Joe and Raven were both doing their best, but neither of them had much capacity available.
Raven became distressed by the process and sometimes ran away, making it even harder for Joe to care for her.
When I finally came home, I was too weak to bend down and resume her care myself.
But I could sing.
So that’s what I did.
My voice and Raven’s familiar song helped bring a little more calm, joy, and connection back into the experience for all three of us. It was something I could contribute until I was strong enough to take over again.
When I could resume Raven’s care, I started where she and I actually were. I listened again. I adjusted again. We found our way together again.
Within about a week, Raven and I were back in our familiar, comfortable rhythm at the care station.
That second chapter made something beautifully clear: cooperation is alive and responsive to the moment.
When our circumstances changed so dramatically, all three of us had different capacity available. Of course Raven’s response changed too. Expecting her to offer the same easy cooperation within a completely different relational and emotional experience would not have been reasonable—or necessary.
That wasn’t anyone’s failure. Joe was doing his best in an extraordinarily difficult situation. Raven was responding to a world that had suddenly become very different. We were all overwhelmed in our own ways.
My pathway back was to notice any disappointment, worry, or distress arising in me and return to the main thing: reaffirming our trust, our connection, and our partnership.
From there, Raven and I could find our familiar rhythm together again.
What if your dog doesn’t have diabetes?
You may be thinking, “This is a wonderful story, Kathy, but my dog doesn’t have diabetes—and I hope they never will.”
I hope so too!
But I’m sharing Raven’s story because every one of us has things we believe we must do to or for our dogs.
We take our dog for a walk. We put a harness on them. We trim their nails.
Our intentions may be loving, but the moment our mindset becomes, “I have to get this done, and I need to get my dog to comply,” we have stepped out of partnership. We have made ourselves responsible for the entire experience and reduced our dog’s role to going along with our plan.
“Doing for” may sound more loving than “doing to,” but it can leave just as little room for partnership.
For example, simple walks make this very clear:
- “I am taking my dog for a walk” begins with something I am doing for my dog.
- “We are going for a walk together” begins with a shared experience.
The external activity may look identical. The relational orientation is completely different.
The same is true of nail care:
- “I have to trim your nails because they are too long” makes the task, obligation, and outcome primary.
- “We are caring for your body so that you can remain comfortable and enjoy running, hiking, and adventuring” gives the necessary care a shared purpose and keeps both partners inside the experience.
What if doing with your dog changed the whole experience?
Let’s say you are getting ready for a walk. You reach for the harness, and your dog communicates “no, thank you”.
You invite them closer, perhaps with a treat and a happy voice. Your dog turns their head, lowers their body, ducks away, or leaves the room.
You try to become more encouraging. You move closer, repeat your invitation, or wait for an opportunity to slip the harness over your dog’s head.
You aren’t trying to overpower your dog. You’re thinking of the lovely walk you want to take for their benefit—and perhaps the appointment you need to get to or the rest of the day waiting for you. You are simply trying to get the harness on so both of you can carry on with the walk.
But now your dog’s communication feels like an obstacle to what you are trying to do for them.
The more focused you become on getting the task done, the more pressure enters the experience. You are standing right beside your dog, but neither of you is truly in partnership anymore. Your dog has become the recipient of your plan, and you have become the person solely responsible for carrying it out.
What if you both came back into the experience?
Perhaps you create a familiar harness station—a rug, mat, or comfortable place where the two of you come together and get ready. The station offers clarity and predictability, just as Raven’s care station did.
But the station itself is not the answer. The partnership lives in how you meet your dog there.
Before you begin, you check in with yourself. You pause, breathe, and connect. You remember what you want to bring: perhaps calm confidence, warmth, clarity, playfulness, or a loving spirit of adventure.
Then you make sure that your mindset, body, invitation, and actions all communicate the same thing. You are not brightly chirping, “Let’s go!” while internally thinking, Please don’t make this difficult again.
You become clear and congruent: Let’s get ready for our walk together!
You listen deeply. If your dog shifts, hesitates, or turns away, you remain attentive and responsive. You adjust your position, pace, approach, or the way you hold the harness. You invite the smallest moments of consent—your dog looking toward you, moving closer, placing their head forward, softening, or staying connected while you take the next small step.
You remain clear about what needs to happen without taking over the whole experience.
Before long, this familiar way of being together becomes comforting. Your attentiveness invites your dog’s attentiveness. Your responsiveness makes room for their response. What once felt like a negotiation or battle begins to feel like the two of you participating in the same conversation.
That is mutual attentive responsiveness.
And that is where natural cooperation grows.
When something has to happen, we may believe our job is to get our dog through it. But our deeper responsibility is to find a way through it together.
Necessary does not have to mean unilateral.
The shift from “to” or “for” into “with” brings both of you back into the partnership. You remain responsible for what needs to happen, but you stop carrying the entire experience alone. Your dog is no longer the recipient of your plan. They become your partner in finding the way through.
💖 Reflecting on Connection 💖
As I’ve been writing about Raven, I’ve been smiling about the wonderfully ridiculous private language my dogs and I have created over the years.
There was Raven’s glucose song, of course. There have also been made-up stories about toes while trimming nails, happy songs sung while walking through the pasture, and plenty of affectionate playfulness while toweling muddy feet and wet coats.
I’m quite certain some of it would have sounded completely ridiculous to anyone listening nearby.
But my dogs understood.
These little rituals were not extras I added after the important work was finished. They were how we did the important things together.
Our songs, stories, familiar places, touches, pauses, shared jokes, and tiny adjustments became part of the language of our relationship. They helped us say, in a hundred ordinary ways: I’m here. I see you. We know how to find our way together.
That is what I keep coming back to after all these years with dogs. Partnership is not reserved for the moments that look meaningful from the outside.
It lives in wet towels, muddy paws, harnesses, glucose readers, insulin needles, doorways, car rides, and the thousand ordinary necessities of shared life.
These moments are not interruptions of our relationship.
They are our relationship.
And they are where we show our dogs who we are, how deeply we listen, and what it feels like to move through life with us.
This is very much at the heart of my upcoming interactive workshop, Re-Mapping Your Future with Your Dog.
If you and your dog keep finding yourselves in the same difficult struggle—on walks, during care, or in ordinary life—I would love to help you understand what may be keeping that familiar pathway in place, and discover how to meet it differently, together.
During the workshop, we’ll take something you and your dog are currently struggling with and begin mapping the first steps toward the connected, cooperative, joyful life you want to share—from this day forward, not someday.
💌 Register for the free workshop: Re-Mapping Your Future with Your Dog
In the meantime, choose one ordinary thing you usually think of as something you have to do to – or for – your dog. The next time it comes up, pause before you begin and ask:
How can we do this together?
Then listen. Your dog may help you discover the first step. pathway together. I can hardly wait!
📸 That’s me and Raven, goofing off on the bed 😂💞
If you’d like to work with me and learn how to create a partnership lifestyle for you and your dog, you can request an invitation to join us in the Brilliant Partners Academy when the doors open for the next enrollment!
