It was February. The Army Corps of Engineers had been pumping sand in from the ocean to replenish our beach — enormous pipes, trucks everywhere, sand flying. And the smells. All the stuff that lives at the bottom of the ocean, suddenly right there on the surface. Shells. Bones. Everything.
Izzy — being Izzy, and also very much part Scent Hound — thought she had died and gone to heaven.
We’d spent the whole previous summer doing serious work on the beach. Recall. Off-leash skills. Learning to play nicely with new friends. A lot of learning, a lot of progress. So when we walked onto that beach on the first day they started spewing sand, she was ready for it.
About a mile and a half from home, she came across something extra interesting. A bone. Solid. Just sitting there. I got her past it with minimum effort. We kept going.
And then, of course, we had to come back the way we came.
Here’s what I’ve learned about Izzy: she can use her nose to plot the exact geographic coordinates for anything on the ground. I have to remember where things are that I don’t want her getting into — because she absolutely will. And if I don’t get the leash on her before we pass it? She’s going back.
Wouldn’t you?
I had forgotten about the bone entirely. She went straight to it. Picked it up. Circled wide. Completely proud of herself.
And when she saw me coming toward her — she started running the other way.
I did the thing they tell you absolutely never to do. I chased her. Calling “Izzy! Come! Izzy!” — which I have since learned is completely counterproductive, because she can track exactly where I am from the loudness of my voice. Which means she can keep going with total confidence.
And she did. She kept going. She’s the athlete between the two of us, after all.
I stumbled — made what I hoped was a dramatic, loud, noisy fall. “Izzy, help!” She had the decency to pause and look back at me to check. And then — I swear — she decided: “Sucker, see you at home!” And kept going.
The good thing about the beach is the view is completely clear. I could see her the whole time. She got off the beach, made her way down the boardwalk to our block, and headed home. A route she wasn’t even that familiar with. But she knew enough.
A man on a bike followed her for me and waited with her on our street until I finally caught up. My lungs hurt for several days afterward. Izzy; however, was completely unfazed, utterly proud of herself.
She wasn’t being difficult. She wasn’t ignoring me. She had a plan. She knew the route home. She hadn’t panicked. She hadn’t gotten lost. She had handled it — all by herself.
🦴 What I Did Instead of Fighting It
So instead of trying to stop it, I decided to work with it.
We created what I started calling a treasure pile at home. I made it really clear — it was completely okay for her to carry things. We would just do it together. And once we got home, we built a little routine around it. She’d bring the thing in, put it down, and wait. And I’d trade her.
Shredded parmesan, or a little bit of lox, currently. She has opinions.
She lets go, I take care of whatever needs taking care of – throwing out the really gnarly stuff – and whatever’s worth keeping goes on the pile in the backyard. It’s growing.
And over time, something really shifted. She stopped rushing. She started waiting. Checking in. Even when she finds something exciting now, she’ll pause — and wait for me to catch up.
One time I came up on the baordwalk a couple of blocks away, and there she was — sitting with someone on a bench. Looking for me. Actually looking for me. When she spotted me, she was basically: okay, let’s go. And headed down the boardwalk toward home.
I’m fairly certain she thinks she’s trained me. She might not be wrong.
But here’s what’s important. I didn’t teach her that step by step. I didn’t control it. She learned it — because she had repeated experiences of something working out. She knew what to do. She knew she could do it. And she knew it would end well.
That’s capability.
🧠 Compliance and Capability Are Not the Same Thing
A lot of what we’re taught to build with dogs is compliance. Do the thing. Do it when asked. Do it correctly.
But compliance and capability are not the same thing.
A compliant dog might do something because they feel they have to. A capable dog does something because they feel they can. And that distinction lives entirely in the nervous system — in whether the dog feels safe enough, experienced enough, and trusted enough to actually think.
Capability feels like: I think I can do this. I know what to do. I’ve done this before, and it worked out. It doesn’t come from pressure. It comes from experience — from enough safe, successful moments stacking up until the nervous system stops bracing and starts believing.
After overwhelm, dogs don’t need to be corrected. They don’t need to be pushed forward. They need to start feeling capable again.
And capability starts the same way confidence does — with feeling safe enough to try. Not in a dramatic moment you can point to, but in the accumulation of small experiences where your dog realizes: I can do this. And then realizes it again. And again. Until one day, it’s just true.
💛 I Didn’t Get Calm First. We Got There Together.
Here’s the part I didn’t expect.
I had to get there too.
I had to become okay with her picking things up. With her carrying them home. With her sometimes getting there before me. That bench on the boardwalk — where she waited with a stranger until I caught up — that only happened because I had learned to stop panicking when she got ahead of me.
My regulation made space for hers.
I stopped chasing. I went quiet. I let her have the bone. And each time that worked out, I got a little less scared. A little less grossed out. A little more trusting. A little more able to stay present instead of bracing. And she felt that.
I didn’t become calm first and then help Izzy become calm. I think it all happened at the same time.
We tend to think: once my dog is calm, then they’ll be able to do things. But often it’s the experience of doing something successfully that creates the calm. For them. And for us.
Success creates regulation. Not the other way around.
So our role in this isn’t to push them further once things feel stable. It’s to notice the small moments when they try — a pause, a hesitation followed by a step forward, a choice to stay instead of leave — and give them more opportunities to experience that same feeling again.
Because capability isn’t something you teach directly. It’s something that grows when there’s enough safety, and enough successful experiences, to start trusting yourself.
For your dog. And for you.
🔎 Not Sure Where to Start?
If your dog has been struggling — shutting down, avoiding things, reacting — and you’re not sure how to help them move forward, you might not need to ask more of them. You might just need to find where you both can succeed. Even in very small ways. The Find Your Path Quiz can help you figure out where your dog actually is right now — and what kind of support will make the most difference.
Take care of your dog’s nervous system — and your own. We’re healing together — one regulated moment at a time. 💛