I'm going to talk about Dr. Karen Overall’s deep breath protocol as a cognitive therapy for dogs. Because of Tina, the dog with extreme OCD, it was suggested to me by a veterinary behaviorist early on to use Dr. Overall’s relaxation protocol through deep breathing. I didn't quite understand what this protocol was about, and I spent a good amount of time learning about it directly from Dr. Overall’s presentations.

But first, for those of you that do not know of Dr. Karen Overall, I will make a brief introduction. She is one of the most influential force free advocates. I'm going to read some of her credentials, because it will be important to see how someone with a PhD can be extremely misleading to the dog training industry. So here we go. Dr. Karen Overall has a Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, but most importantly, she has graduated as a Dr. of Veterinary Medicine at University of Pennsylvania. She also has a Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was the director of the Behavior Clinic at Penn Vet for about ten years. Dr. Overall lectures veterinary schools worldwide. She has given hundreds of national and international presentations. She is the author of the book Clinical Behavior Medicine for Small Animals. Many consider this to be the Bible for some reason. And of course, she also has hundreds of other published papers. Dr. Overall is also editor in chief for the Journal of Veterinary Behavior. Where all the dog studies get published as well. She is most definitely someone with great influence in certain dog training circles.

It is important to point to her credentials because these are the reasons why so many accept her work without any questions. All right, so here is the main claim Dr. Overall makes: cognitive behavioral therapy techniques can be applied to dogs to help them manage stress and anxiety similar to humans. She suggests specific training techniques to accomplish this. Encouraging dogs to relax through deep breathing. Focus training to change behavior by altering how dogs perceive their actions. Using cognitive training to stimulate learning of replacement behaviors. Well, here is the premise. The idea is to change the way dogs perceive their behavior and how they feel, physiologically, reducing stress and promoting relaxation. This is deep. This is indeed a very deep and far fetched proposition.

So I will share my thoughts with you on this. And you tell me what you think. As a starting point, Dr. Overall claim is that dogs can recognize and control their emotional states like humans do. At this point, it really doesn't matter how many PHDs she has. Expecting a dog to use deep breathing consciously to manage stress on their own is unrealistic. Period. Dogs lack the self-awareness humans possess. I mean, would you expect your dog to practice yoga? It would be adorable, but utterly impossible. Humans greatly struggle to master deep breathing during mindfulness practice. These are meditation practice techniques. The central tenet of any meditative practice is that one's ability to direct and frame their thoughts and feelings dictates the quality of their experience of life and the world around them.

If you haven't tried to meditate, you have no idea how difficult that is. From my personal experience, for the longest time, I couldn't tell the difference between active meditation and letting my mind wander. Meditation is about learning to be aware of the present before your thoughts take over and interfere with your perception. And here is Dr. Overall suggesting that your dog could become little canine yoga.

Anthropomorphism at times is not a bad thing, but in this case, it grossly overestimates a dog's cognitive abilities. I really find myself questioning Dr. Overall PHDs given the sheer absurdity of such training protocol. What is even more absurd is that breathwork protocol is endorsed by the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behaviorist, ABDT, and many other force free advocates as a legit treatment. I've read and I've watched many of Dr. Overall’s plausible sounding bullshit. She insists that dogs can choose to use deep breathing techniques to control their emotions. I am not exaggerating. Here are brief excerpts from one of her presentations. I'll read the whole thing. But basically, “if we can teach dogs to self-calm by taking a deep breath, they will slow down and stop moving. Be receptive to being calmly and slowly petted or massaged, and be able to follow the rest of our physical and verbal cues. Such dogs will also learn that they feel better and get more information when they relax. And then they will learn that they have control over their reactivity. They can choose not to react.” That's her words. I suggest that you do a search. We're going to put a link also of some of her presentations for you to watch unless you've seen them already. But there is plenty on YouTube of her and her followers using the protocol. 

The processes she describes are clearly misleading, and it's really prime type "sell the science". It's flawed logic. And here is why. The smell of food triggers involuntary biological responses geared toward digestion, such as salivation. It has nothing to do with the deep systemic relaxation that results from controlled breathing techniques. Digestion, salivation. Does that ring a bell? We can teach dogs to associate cues with certain behaviors, but there is no way dogs can actually understand the physiological benefits of deep breathing.

Let's talk briefly about conditioning versus cognitive control. Dr.. Overall’s claim is that dogs can learn to choose to change their emotional response. While dogs can learn to modify their behavior through training, they do not have the mental capacities to consciously change their emotional responses as humans do through awareness, understanding, and cognitive strategies. Teaching a dog to sit calmly using positive reinforcement does not require nor involve understanding emotional states.

Dogs do not have the capacity for abstract thinking, which is necessary for reframing thoughts and beliefs that influence emotions. Dogs can not engage in complex thought processes like introspection or rationalizing their emotions. Of course, dogs can be trained to alter their behavior in response to certain stimuli. However, this is achieved through conditioning or what we call training rather than conscious emotional regulation.

The notion that dogs can manage emotions through controlled breeding is ridiculous. Can we teach dogs to control their arousal level using breathwork on their own? Come on. For example, instead of this bogus proposition, a dog trainer should focus on gradually exposing the dog to a fear stimulus. While perhaps using positive reinforcement. We can also slowly increase the intensity of a stimulus to build tolerance without causing much stress.

Yes, we can change a dog's emotional state associated with certain situations. I demonstrate how this is done in my TWC course, but it is certainly not done through deep breathing techniques. To wrap this up. The idea of using cognitive behavioral therapy, as with humans for dogs, overestimates their cognitive abilities and lacks any scientific support. All the videos I have watched are beautiful examples of snake oil salesmen. Effective dog training should rely on well-established conditioning techniques that align with canine behavior and physiology. There are way better ways how we can influence emotional states, but most definitely this cannot be done in this way, using Karen Overall’s protocol. There are humane and scientifically backed up methods that ensure realistic expectations and improve the quality of life for both pets and their owners. Dr. Overall’s breathwork protocol is not one of them. Thank you for reading. As always, questions and discussions are welcome.