Let It Be Easy: The Smarter Path to Healing for Dogs, Horses—and You #131

Whether you’re helping a senior or injured dog regain mobility, encouraging your horse to move more freely, or looking to ease discomfort in your own body, real, lasting improvement begins with curiosity, comfort, and a sense of safety—not with pressure or force.

What if your horse or dog could improve—if only their nervous system felt safe enough to try?

In this episode of Easier Movement, Happier Life, Mary shares how curiosity—not force—creates the conditions for real recovery and lasting change. Through stories of dogs like Scooter and Sunny, and horses like Sweet Pea, you'll discover why pushing through discomfort shuts down the very learning you're trying to promote.

You'll discover how to engage your animal’s (and your own) nervous system in a way that sparks curiosity, builds confidence, and opens the door to joyful movement. Whether you're helping a dog recover from surgery, supporting an aging horse, or trying to move better yourself, this episode offers a compassionate, science-backed framework that invites ease—and lasting progress.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why safety and curiosity are essential for healing and improvement
  
  
• How the nervous system responds to force versus gentle exploration
  
  
• A simple method to simulate standing using the “false floor” strategy
  
  
• Why forcing weight-bearing can backfire in rehab—what to do instead
  
  
• How to support your horse, your dog, or yourself through curiosity and trust
  
  
• The link between emotional safety and physical movement
  
  
• The question Mary asks herself (and you can too): How could this feel easier?
  
  

Mentioned in this episode:

Sonny recovers from his CCL (ACL) knee ligament surgery  

Scooter, the dog who broke his back and pelvis, learned to walk again.

Sweet Pea, the horse who healed her chronic suspensory ligament injury

Resources:

💥Learn how the Feldenkrais Method can help improve your seat, position, and balance on your horse! Free rider videos masterclass: https://www.marydebono.com/rider 💥

Grab your FREE video training to help your dog. 🐕 https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

Want to help your dog move more easily and feel their best—at any age? Join the waitlist for my upcoming program, Easier Movement, Happier Dogs, and be the first to know when doors open. Spaces are limited. 

Get Mary’s bestselling, award-winning book, “Grow Young with Your Dog,” for a super low price at: https://tinyurl.com/growyoungwithyourdog. Demonstration videos are included at no extra cost. ⬅️⬅️⬅️

All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and doesn't constitute medical or veterinary advice or professional training advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you, your horse, or your dog are unwell or injured.  Always use extreme caution when interacting with horses and dogs.

About the Host:

Mary Debono is a pioneer in animal and human wellness, blending her expertise as an international clinician, best-selling author, and certified Feldenkrais Method® practitioner. With over three decades of experience, Mary developed Debono Moves, a groundbreaking approach that enhances the performance, well-being, and partnership of animals and their humans.

Mary's innovative approach draws from the Feldenkrais Method®, tailored specifically for horse and dog enthusiasts.  Her methods have helped animals and humans:

• Improve athletic ability and performance
• Enhance confidence and reduce anxiety
• Reduce physical limitations and discomfort
• Deepen the human-animal bond

Mary's flagship online programs, "Move with Your Horse" and "Easier Movement, Happier Dogs," provide animal enthusiasts with an innovative approach that combines the concepts of Feldenkrais® with her signature hands-on work for horses and dogs. Through this transformative method, both people and their animal companions discover greater harmony, ease, and connection.

#Feldenkrais #DebonoMoves #horses #dogs 

QUOTES (with timestamps)

• "Curiosity drives improvement. Fear shuts it down." — 00:33:22
  
  

• "What if this could feel easier? That’s one of my favorite questions." — 00:34:44
  
  

• "When you slow down and feel more, your nervous system feels safe." — 00:33:09
  
  

• "Healing begins when we stop pushing and start supporting." — 00:28:42
  
  

• "Movement associated with comfort and curiosity leads to true improvement." — 00:35:03
  
  

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello. If you would like your horse, your dog, or yourself to improve, to feel more balanced, flexible and coordinated, then what's important is that you encourage curiosity rather than discomfort. So I'll explain this with a whole bunch of examples in just a moment, but in case we're meeting for the first time, my name is Mary Debono, and this is the Easier Movement, Happier Life podcast is for you, your horses and your dogs.

We're going to cover all of them, all species today. So here's what I propose to you to. If. If you would like your horse, for example, to be more balanced, more flexible, maybe more enthusiastic about moving forward, about doing things with you, or if you would like your dog to maybe maybe have a senior dog, and you notice your dog is slowing down, maybe getting some stiffness, or maybe you're in that boat that you're starting to feel stiff, tight, things are hurting.

So today I'd like to talk to you about this whole idea of how we can build a sense of curiosity for our animals and ourselves rather than discomfort, because a lot of us, as well meaning as we are, are actually creating discomfort, both physical and emotional, with our animals and with ourselves, and we're kind of squashing curiosity. So let me give you a couple of examples. Now you might think, well, these examples don't apply to me, my dog.

I'm going to start with a dog with a fractured pelvis. However, they're all about healing and improving, okay? Learning and growing. So some time ago, someone asked me to work with their dog. Their dog had a broken pelvis, was broken a couple of different places. Of course, they had immediately taken the dog to the vet. The dog was found on the side of the road. He had been hit by a car.

So this wonderful person took him to a vet on her own dimension. She did all the vet work, you know, had everything done to help this dog. Of course, she also looked for his people, but it was obvious he had been astray a long time and nobody ever claimed him. However, so here he is, he has fractured pelvis, fractured in more than one place. Several weeks go by, a couple of months go by, and the dog just was not using his hind legs.

He. He just, you know, the woman did everything the vet told her to do as far as keeping him confined and doing all, like, the rehab type stuff. But he still was not using his hind end. So she asked if I would work with him. I was teaching a clinic, actually, at a stable where she kept her horses. And so I was like, sure, of course. And it was Very interesting because here, this dog had had months now of not using his hind legs.

And what was important was that I kind of encourage his sense of curiosity and not cause him any discomfort. Like, the last thing you want to do in that situation is try to get the dog to stand on the hind legs, right? To kind of prop him up if he's not ready for that, because his nervous system, even if physically the bones have healed, his nervous system is going to be like, oh, we don't do that.

I'm not using my hind end for a reason. Okay. So I had to work with him under those constraints that it was important that I keep him feeling safe and that everything I did would feel comfortable for him and engaging in a way of like gentle curiosity. Okay. That he wasn't overwhelmed. And so I did, I worked with him on his side as he was lying down. And one of the things I did is something that we do a lot in the De Bono moves work with small animals.

It's a bit different with the horses. So I and I will go into some horse stories too. But with dogs, what's so awesome is that they're small enough and they lie on their side easily enough that you can do something that I call, or we call actually false floor or artificial floor. And this is a concept I learned from the work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, who created the Feldenkrais method for humans.

And his idea was that when you put something firm and flat against the bottom of the foot, the individual's nervous system organizes as if it was standing up. However, the individual is not standing up, so they don't have to contend with the challenges of gravity, with that fear response that this might hurt, et cetera. So it's a really kind of like a backdoor way of starting to introduce a sense of safe standing to a dog.

I've done this with cats too, and I've done it with many humans. Okay. Like I said, it's a bit different with horses, but I do use things against the horses hooves as well. So, okay, let's get back to this dog. His name was Scooter. The broken pelvis. So I did all this with him. The other thing I did, and I've done this with many, many dogs, is when they're on their side in that way.

You can put either like a rolled up towel or a small roller, like a foam roller, that's just a small diameter one. And I usually put some padding over that, like around it. And if you put that between the dog's legs, then those legs are separated about the width they would be if the dog were standing up. In other words, when the dog is standing upright, the legs are a certain width.

When they're lying on the side, the legs fall into each other. So to help the nervous system simulate this idea of standing, it can be helpful to do that. Now that's another thing though. Is the dog comfortable with that? Not all dogs are not even that because it's a physical discomfort. They just might be. What are you putting there? Like, what are these things? So I'm always very cautious about introducing like props, like supportive props.

I always want to make sure that the dog is totally okay with it and that there's no anxiety about it. Okay? So that's really, really important because remember, the nervous system isn't going to have positive learning, right? Like learning things that are useful if it's in a state of anxiety, if it's, if it's anticipating pain or you know, if there's fear, anything like that. So it's super, super important that we introduce these things in a way that we're very mindful of the dog's physical and emotional states.

And this is true again with the horses and the humans as well. Okay, so, and this is because. Well, first of all, to me it's just kinder. It's like I don't want to do anything that's going to, to intentionally cause discomfort to anyone. That's of course right there. But also if you think about it, you know, it's that state of curiosity that promotes learning and growing and that the animal then will want to figure things out and explore.

When there's anticipation of pain or actual pain or any kind of discomfort, again, it could be physical or emotional. What happens is that curiosity gets shut down. The animal or the human Orville four legged animal then is less likely to want to explore on their own to discover. Like, like with Scooter not wanting to stand on his hind legs, it was like he was convinced that was going to hurt.

So it's very important that we introduce this concept of you can stand on your hind, hind legs in a way that promotes curiosity and not anxiety, not any kind of discomfort. Okay, this is true in my opinion. This is true with all kinds of training methods with your animals as well and also how you treat yourself. We're going to get to that in a little bit. Okay, so, so that was.

Oh, so, so to finish up with Scooter. So I gave him that session, right? And the woman goes home with him, she calls Me up later and says he actually started walking when they got home, which is kind of crazy because he had been months without walking. But anyway, and he got stronger and stronger and he. There's a picture of him. I think it's on my website or it's maybe in the, the website associated with my book, grow young with your dog.

I don't talk about Scooter specifically in the book, but a lot of these approaches, these strategies are outlined in my book. So anyway, he, he was cool. That was great. So just let me tell you a couple other quick dog stories and then we'll move on to the horses and the humans. So. And they, but they're all, they all apply. Now, the exact strategies might not apply to horses because again, you're probably not going to be lying down with your horse, you know, but the, the concepts, the underlying concepts are the same.

This idea that we want to build curiosity and eliminate anxiety. Okay, so Sunny, now he is a dog. He's a. He was a yellow lab. He is. I explain him in my book. I talk about the whole strategies I used with him. He was a really cool dog as well. He was one of those enthusiastic labs that just was in love with everybody, including me. And he had had surgery to repair a torn knee ligament, his CCL, some people call it the ACL, technically the CCL, the cranial cruciate ligament.

He had had that surgery nine or maybe was 10 months prior and he still wasn't weight bearing on that leg. His surgeon, his primary veterinarian, also said there is no reason why he's not standing on that leg. It should be healed by now. And they did all the testing, all the imaging, but again, in Sonny's nervous system, he wasn't feeling safe. And so he did this. He still was very active, but he would barely touch his toe down.

And what I was feeling in him because know, his person asked me to come work with him is that he had this whole compensation dynamic built up in his body. You know, his back was really tight, his shoulders had gotten tighter in his neck. And over time that could be really, really damaging. He's putting a lot of wear and tear on himself as well as overusing the opposite hind leg, which then would be a, a big risk factor for tearing that ccl.

So I worked with him very similar to how I worked with Scooter. The difference was Sunny was very lively and wanted to stand up and lick me in the face constantly. So we had to do a, you know, some time with a lot of positive reinforcement with Food. I don't usually use food in my work, but we used food to help him realize, oh, lying down is rewarding, reinforcing, and you know, labs and their food and then this is key.

I helped him feel how the hands on work I was doing with him was rewarding in itself. So that became the reinforcer once he started to feel the relief from the soreness in his back and shoulders, et cetera. So that was really, really key. So this debona moves work that I do and that I teach can be used. I often use it as a reinforcer. It's like a positive reinforcer.

So anyway, just to put that out there. So again, I wanted to also associate the whole work, the whole experience with a sense of curiosity and comfort and ease rather than the anxiety about the leg might hurt. So I won't go into all the details again. He's, I wrote about him in my book grow young with your dog. But I did a similar strategy as I did with Scooter, helping him feel that, oh, you know, the parts could, number one, be more organized and that little by little I could help him feel how putting pressure through that leg like he would have to do when he was standing could be, could feel comfortable and safe.

Safety is a big thing. Safety is a huge thing for the nervous system. And I've, I know I've spoken about that in previous episodes as well. So now another thing I did with Sunny and I do this with horses a lot too, is that once then we kind of graduated because I did a few sessions with him to standing up. I helped him feel how he could shift his weight from leg to leg.

Now I, now I want to contrast this with something because many well meaning people that are doing, you know, helping their dogs recover from injuries, they may have even been told this by professionals. So for example, if the left hind leg was the surgically repaired leg and the dog doesn't want to use it, the owner, the, the guardian might say, oh, I should pick up the right one and force my dog to stand on the left hind.

I don't, I don't suggest that. What I have found is when you, when people do that, their dogs might then of course stand on that repaired leg and maybe, yes, technically they should quote, unquote, should be able to stand on it. But by doing that, their nervous system, if it still has red flags about it, it still will have red flags about it. So it'll do something else to compensate.

Again, just like Sunny, it might start stiffening in the back and the neck and the shoulders. And it may seem like the dog is weight bearing on that leg, but it may not be even. In other words, when the dog then is walking on his or her own, there might be still overuse by the non repaired leg. Okay. Which then of course will lead to problems over time.

So this is a very important thing. So I wanted. And, and now let me bring it into the horse world as well. We have to remember that horses, dogs and humans. Yes, you and me, we tend to use our limbs unevenly. We have imbalances. And so for example, you see people and I can't help myself. You know, like I look at people when they're walking and I think, oh, look how just this morning I was watching a woman walk her dog.

I was out walking Tony. And it's like she comes down so heavy on that. Right. I almost said right hind on her right leg. And she was, she would do this little bending of her ribs at the same time. So she was short in that whole right side. I'd say, I don't know, maybe she was in her mid-40s or so. And I thought, imagine how long she was probably doing that for.

And that, that sets up a whole cascade of potential issues going up into her neck and down into her feet. I mean, like all the things get affected because, you know, we're a connected whole. So our animals do this too. They may be walking and running and you know, doing things in a way that they're not. They're not loading their limbs in an appropriate way in a. In a appropriately symmetrical way.

So we see this with horses a lot. So, and, and many people don't notice it because the horse or the dog is not lame or the person is not quote unquote lame. Right. They may not have reached a point where something really hurts, but they're making all these compensations that set them up for an injury, for even a very long term chronic problem, for increased wear and tear.

So. And Sonny was doing this to his own degree based because he had had the CCL injury, then the surgery, and he wasn't trusting it. He didn't have confidence, confidence in his body. So what do I do? I don't pick up the opposite leg and force him on it. But again, I prepared him when he was lying down, then when he was standing, I started to help him explore how he could shift his weight through the other three legs.

And we kind of bypassed the repaired one. And then little by little, I started just briefly going on that leg and off of it again. So his nervous system was starting to get positive, safe experiences of that, which then gets the attention of the nervous system in a positive way, in a way that invites curiosity. So then he could start exploring that on its own because ultimately it feels better to be weight bearing in a.

In a more functionally appropriate way. Right. So it's going to feel a lot better on him. And he started to gain that confidence in his body back, and he went on to make a full recovery. Now, with the horses, it's the same thing again. I see many, many horses. I've been doing this work for well over 30 years professionally, and I see many horses who are not loading symmetrically.

And yes, that can lead to a problem, often like a suspensory ligament injury, some kind of tendon injury. It could even be an injury somewhere else in the body. Doesn't have to be in a, in a lower leg. It could be something with the back. Right. It could be something with the neck or the shoulder or an SI joint or something. It doesn't have to be in the legs that it shows up.

But we want to do the same thing. We don't want to force the horse, like try to get them to be, you know, more balanced in their limb loading and their limb use, but instead to invite them to feel how different it feels to just like, briefly be on a leg and then off of it again once we've prepared them for that. Okay, that's important. I, and I can't describe everything in the, In a little podcast episode like we're doing today, but I do teach this in my Move with your horse program, and I teach it for the dogs with the easier movement happier dogs programs.

So those are just to give you a little insight into why we want to promote and facilitate a sense of curiosity with our animals and ourselves and reduce anxiety. Okay. This is really, really important because now with that horse, for example, and I'll link, I'll make sure I link in the show notes to some of these things. I, I have few things, both for horses and for dogs, where I explain it in more detail about what I did.

Okay. So you can go to those blog posts or whatnot, but one of them is a horse named Sweet Pea who had a, an, an injury, a suspensory ligament injury that was also not healing. And I discovered that when she was at rest, she was actually weight bearing heavier on it. And once I taught her how to shift her weight in a circle and that she could have a positive experience of loading the other limbs, she stopped doing that.

And her leg healed completely, and three different vets had said, by the way, that she would never be sound because it just wasn't healing. Her ligament was calcified and all kinds of things. However, she learned because, again, I didn't try to force her to do anything. I was helping her have a sense of curiosity about it. And this is where, you know, that sense of safety comes in.

Because the nervous system will not feel safe to explore if you're doing something that causes a red flag to go up to say, there's a reason we're not doing that. No. So we want to avoid that. Okay, now let's talk about you. How is. How does this happen with you? Right? It happens with you when you are doing. Maybe you're doing an exercise program. You want to get strong.

You want to be more flexible. So you push through discomfort. And I'm not talking about discomfort in the sense of what I call healthy effort. I'm talking about pain. Because what happens when you start to push through your. Through pain? Your nervous system associates movement with pain, right? And that shuts down your curiosity, your nervous system's innate ability to discover healthier options. You're, like, clamping down on that, and you're going to use willpower, misguided willpower, instead of skill, power.

Hey, I'm borrowing that from Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, by the way. You're going to rely on willpower to force yourself. And yes, then you're setting yourself up for potential injury wear and tear damage down the road as well. So when you slow down and feel more and really think about, like, you're curious about how you're doing something, it makes all the difference in the world. Your nervous system feels safe.

It's. It's more likely to explore you. You have greater learning. It's just a much kinder and more beneficial approach. Okay? So, you know, if you just remember that. So it's like curiosity drives improvement. Fear or discomfort shuts it down. And when I say fear, it doesn't mean you're like, oh, I'm afraid of that kettlebell. It's like, no, you're. You're pushing maybe, you know, to. To lift a heavy kettlebell even though your neck hurts, right?

Instead of taking a step back and feeling, well, how can I be more organized? And this is where the Feldenkrais method for you comes in. You know, I teach de Bono moves for the horses, the dogs, et cetera. And I teach the Feldenkrais method for you humans. So something you might want to look into. But, but this is just. Again, so if you think about it, for how you can take this now into a, an actionable thing you can do today is you can ask yourself, like, am I creating a sense of safety for my horse or for my dog?

Maybe, maybe you're in a, you know, a training situation. Is there a sense of safety? Or is your animal, your horse, your dog complying? Because there's a fear of retribution, you know, there's, there's fearful consequences attached to it. Because we don't want to attach discomfort, fear, anxiety, all those more negative sensations to training or to movement. Okay? We want to associate a sense of ease and pleasure and curiosity.

So. And again, I'm going to encourage you to take this approach with yourself because first of all, it's more beneficial. It's, you know, you'll move more easily. You'll have to be more flexible, stronger, all those good things. Well, so will your animal. And another benefit when you do this is that you're deepening your relationships. So, for example, when you take this approach with your horse or your dog, you're deepening your relationship, your connection with that animal.

And when you do this with yourself, when you treat yourself with kindness and compassion, you're also connecting more deeply with yourself and, and really living. I know it's an overused word, but authentically, you know, you're. You're living, you're. You're allowing your true nature to shine and you can learn and grow and grow in a much healthier way. Okay? So, you know, you might want to consider, are you creating an environment for your animal that promotes curiosity and associates your training, or maybe the dog's or horse's movement with ease and pleasure, and are you doing that for yourself as well?

And, and think about what would it be like to guide, to let. Like to guide with a sense of ease rather than effort to think. I am going to allow this to feel easy rather than maybe our habitual patterns, which many of us have, of always pushing, pushing, pushing, and having. We get so comfortable with that sense of strain, of really efforting. What if we flip that and thought, what if this felt easy?

What would that be like? That's one of my favorite questions, actually, is whatever I'm doing, I think, how could this feel easier? So something you might want to think about as well. And you can ask yourself as well, how could I offer support and create the conditions for learning and improving? And again, think of this in relation to yourself as well as to your animal, because, you know, again, when movement is associated with comfort and curiosity.

That's when the nervous system feels safe and supported, and that's when true improvement happens. So if this episode resonated with you in any way, please let me know. I'd love to hear from you. You could always email [email protected] also, if you're looking at this on a podcast app, you know if you're listening to this, there should be a line in the very top of the description that says send Mary a text.

You can send me a personal message. So love that. So thank you so much for listening, subscribing, and reviewing the podcast and sharing it. If you think there's someone who could benefit from this, please share it. I would so appreciate that. Well, thank you so much and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye for now.