It was the first full spring we had Izzy.
She’d been with us about a year. The beach was empty — early spring, still cold enough that she’d been wearing her winter coat for our walks. But that particular morning it was warmer than I’d expected, and once we got out there under the full sun I could see her starting to pant. So I called her over — recall practice! — and took her coat off.
The relief on her face was immediate. And then, because she was Izzy, and because she was off-leash, and because the sun was warm and the beach was empty and life was suddenly very, very good — she got the zoomies.
I love watching her zoom. She has this natural grace when she really gets going — fast, fluid, fully herself. Like a greyhound. Like a thoroughbred.
Here’s something you should know about Izzy and me: we are foils. You might remember that term from English class — a character who sets off another character by contrast, highlighting specific qualities by being their opposite. That’s us. Izzy is the athlete. She has more energy than I know what to do with. She loves to run and chase and tussle and be out in the world doing all the things.
Me? I’m the artsy-fartsy homebody. I would genuinely rather be on the couch with a good book. My embroidery is better than my recall training, if I’m being honest. The great outdoors is lovely, and I will take my dog there every single day — but if you catch me looking wistfully toward the house at the end of a long walk, that’s just who I am.
So when that thoroughbred of mine wanted me on her team — well. We’ll get there.
First, the pigeons.
I saw them up ahead on the beach. A little cluster of birds. We’d chased birds before — usually the little sea birds that fly in huge flocks just along the waterline. They’d go down the beach, Izzy would chase, they’d eventually turn around and come back. A reliable loop. Safe enough.
These were not those birds.
These were pigeons. And I did not register that distinction until it was too late.
I pointed them out. I said — and I am not proud of this — “Go get the birds!”
And off she went.
Pigeons, I have since learned, do not go up and down the coastline like sensible shorebirds. Pigeons circle. Up over the dunes. Back toward the street. Back toward the houses. Off into the great unknown.
So Izzy chased. And the pigeons circled. And she followed them straight up and over the dunes — and disappeared from view.
I did everything you’re not supposed to do. I called her name. Over and over. I chased her — up through the soft sand, which, if you’ve never tried it, is essentially the best StairMaster workout of your life, except you’re panicking the whole time and your lungs are on fire. I knew I wasn’t supposed to do any of it. And I did it anyway, because when the fear kicks in, all the training goes right out the window.
Which, by the way — remember that the next time your dog goes reactive and won’t respond to your carefully practiced cues. The heat of the moment is real. For both of you.
This all happened in maybe thirty seconds. It felt like considerably longer.
And then I saw her.
She crested the top of the walkway through the dunes — coming back toward the beach, toward the water, toward me. And she stopped. And she started scanning.
She was looking for me!
And when she found me? Her face lit up!
She came running!
Now. I need you to understand what this moment meant to me, given everything I just told you about us. I’m not the athlete. I’m not the one with the energy or the grace or the speed. I am the person who was never, not once, picked in gym class — and not second to last, always the very last, the one a team captain would squint at and say “I guess you have to be on our team.”
And here was Izzy — this thoroughbred, this greyhound, this creature of pure joyful athletic instinct — cresting that dune and scanning the beach for my face.
I may have swooned. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
And then she ran right past me toward the pigeons.
She did glance over her shoulder on her way by, though. It was very clearly a “Come on, let’s go get those birds!” look.
I spun around and watched her finish the chase. Eventually Izzy ran herself out, slowed to a stop, stood watching the pigeons from a distance. And I walked calmly up to her, snapped on her leash, and we went home together.
I could have framed it as a failure. I chose not to.
🧠 Trust Doesn’t Look Like What You Think
When rescue parents ask me, “Does your dog trust you?” — what they usually mean is: does my dog behave? Does she come when called? Does she stay calm when she’s supposed to? Does she do what I ask?
But, that’s not trust. That’s compliance. And they’re not the same thing.
A dog can comply out of fear. A dog can follow rules because the consequences of not following them feel worse than the discomfort of following them. That’s not a trusting relationship. That’s a managed one.
Trust looks different. It’s quieter. It shows up in the spaces between the behaviors — in what your dog does when nothing is being asked of them.
It looks like checking in. It looks like choosing to be near you when they don’t have to be. It looks like recovering faster after something scary. It looks like a dog who, after going halfway over the dunes after a flock of pigeons, crests the walkway and scans the beach — not for an escape route, not for the next interesting thing — but for you.
Trust isn’t built in perfectly executed recalls. It shows up in the spaces between the behaviors — in what your dog does when nothing is being asked of them.
🐾 The Micro-Signals Most People Miss
Not the big moments. The micro ones.
The glance back at you mid-walk — that quick check-in where your dog just wants to know you’re still there. That’s trust. The soft eyes when you sit down near them. The exhale. The way their body settles when you enter the room. Trust. The dog who used to press against the wall when you reached for their collar — who now just lifts their chin. Trust. The dog who used to shut down entirely after a stressful moment — who now recovers in twenty minutes instead of two hours. Trust.
None of these are Instagram-worthy. No one is going to stop you at the dog park and say “wow, your dog really exhaled when you sat down near her.”
But they are the real thing. They are what connection actually looks and feels like in a dog’s body.
And here’s what I’ve learned: these micro-signals go both ways. The small ways you show up for your dog — the patience when they need more time, the choice to let them investigate rather than drag them along, the moment you notice they’re uncomfortable and you actually do something about it to help them — those are micro-signals of trust from you toward them.
My micro-signals of trust toward Izzy allowed her to show me those micro-signals of trust back.
💛 Emotional Trust vs. Behavioral Trust
Behavioral trust is when your dog does what you ask. Sits when you say sit. Comes when called — most of the time, under most conditions. This is trainable. It’s important. It’s also the part most people focus on almost exclusively.
Emotional trust is something different. It’s the felt sense your dog carries about you — about whether you’re safe, whether you’re predictable, whether being near you leads to good things or uncertain things. Emotional trust isn’t trained. It’s built. Through repetition. Through consistency. Through thousands of small moments where you showed up the way you said you would.
Behavioral trust can look solid on the surface while emotional trust is still fragile underneath. You can have a dog who comes when called in your yard but who is still fundamentally braced around you — who flinches at sudden movements, who appeases before you’ve done anything, who can’t quite relax.
There was actually a moment early on — watching Izzy perform perfectly while being completely emotionally absent — that cracked something open for me. She’d comply completely and look at everything except me, as if to say: I’ll do what I’m told. I’m a good girl. But don’t think for a second this means we’re friends.
That’s what made me want to find a better way. Not to get better behavior. To tear down the emotional wall she’d built so high and so thick between us.
The work of Connect is building emotional trust. Not performing it. Actually having it. And the way you’ll know it’s there isn’t from a perfectly executed recall. It’s from a dog who crests that dune and scans the beach for your face.
🐇 What Trust Looks Like When It’s Fully Arrived
Fast forward to just recently. Izzy is almost four years old now.
We were coming down off the boardwalk onto the beach, passing one of the walkways with fencing and dunes alongside it. She started sniffing hard under the fencing — focused, curious. Something moved. Then it darted out. A mouse. She could have gone after it. She didn’t. I told her it had to go back to its house. She accepted that. No drama, no tension. We moved on together.
Once we were on the beach I took her off leash, like I usually do. She was sniffing her way down the sand, following her own invisible map. She drifted toward the dunes at the edge of the fencing, stopped to do her business. I stayed back to clean up and asked her to wait. She did — just stood there, patient, near the boardwalk path.
When I finished and started toward her, she headed forward figuring correctly the wait was over and we were continuing our walk. She then slipped down into the dunes, went under the boardwalk.
And that’s when she found the rabbit.
There are rabbits that live under there. And when she caught the scent, her whole body lit up. She took off after it — off leash, fully alive, chasing but contained within the space of the block. But it wasn’t reckless. It wasn’t frantic. It was a chase, but a controlled one.
I called her. I wasn’t sure she’d hear me. I wasn’t sure she’d be able to respond while she was so deep in it.
And… She didn’t stop immediately. She was still chasing, still excited.
But she heard me. She turned. And then she ran toward me with this look that felt unmistakable.
Come on! We’ve got a rabbit! Join me! Be part of this!
It wasn’t defiance. It wasn’t ignoring me. It was an invitation.
She turned back toward where the rabbit had gone but was no longer there, paused — and because she was still connected to me, still including me — I was able to catch up. I walked calmly to her, took hold of her collar, put her leash on. She seemed to understand the moment had passed. The rabbit was gone. The game was over.
And then she led me — confidently, cooperatively — back up out of the dunes, out from under the boardwalk, onto the path.
No resistance. No frustration. Just together.
She didn’t come the way an obedience textbook would demand. She came the way a teammate does.
The artsy-fartsy homebody. On the rabbit-chasing team.
I’ll take it.
🔎 What to Look for Now
Start looking for the small things.
The check-in glance. The chosen proximity. The soft exhale. The dog who recovers a little faster this week than last week. The moment they come to you — not because they have to, but because they wanted to see where you were. The moment they look at you mid-chase and say come on, be part of this.
These are not nothing. These are everything.
Trust is not dramatic. It doesn’t announce itself. It accumulates quietly, in the spaces between training sessions, in the way your dog moves through their day, in the thousand small choices they make about whether to move toward you or away.
That’s what you’re building. And if you look — really look — I think you’ll find it’s already there.
🔎 Not Sure What Stage You’re In?
If you’re not sure whether you’re still in Stabilize, working through Rebuild, or starting to see the first signs of Connect — the Find Your Path Quiz can help you figure out where you and your dog actually are right now.
Take care of your dog’s nervous system — and your own. We’re healing together — one moment, one breath, one walk at a time. 💛