Book Review: Emotion to Motion by Kate Titus
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Emotion to Motion: How the Mind Impacts Your Dog’s Mobility is a must read for any pet parent who thinks about their dog’s quality of life.
In the foreward for this second title in the Loyal Companion series, licensed psychologist, registered play therapist supervisor, and certified dog behavior consultant Risë VanFleet states, “Kate Titus explores how emotions inform and influence motion. She views quality of life as a lifelong concept, and much of the wisdom in this book can be applied at any time in a dog’s life.”
While Kate focuses on helping pet parents learn more about how the emotions of their senior or mobility-challenged dogs will affect their behavior, any pet parent who makes the effort to improve their dog’s quality of life will find value in these pages.
Kate explains how to better understand your dog’s emotional life by paying attention to and interpreting their emotions.
She certainly helped me connect a few dots about our dogs. There were also several times in the book where I paused and considered how Bernie and Lizzie show me their emotions, and how I could use my observations to improve their lives.
Full disclosure wherein I share what an amazing resource author Kate Titus is…
Before I continue this review, I do feel compelled to disclose a few pieces of information.
First, I was provided with a free review copy of this book in exchange for my honest review of the book. Thank you Dudley Court Press and Kate Titus for making the ebook available on NetGalley.
That being said, I’ve also preordered the paperback version which will be released on October 20, 2020. I want a physical copy of this book for my growing library of “all things canine.”
Second, I am biased when it comes to Kate Titus and everyone at her Canine Mobility and Swim Center A Loyal Companion. I’m looking at you too Nikki Frahm and Kim Deon:)
Watch the video below to see the care Kate takes to teach Bernie how to swim on his second visit to A Loyal Companion. Kate knows that Bernie has atypical Addison’s Disease so stress is not his friend. She also knows how nervous I can get about our special boy.
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Tucson pet parents are incredibly fortunate to have A Loyal Companion here. Here’s how Kate describes her area of expertise in Emotion to Motion:
“I am not a scientist or a behaviorist; I am a canine mobility specialist, a fitness professional, a massage therapist, and a lifetime learner. For more than a decade, I’ve studied how moblity-challenged dogs move, from swaying hips and head bobs to crabbing and bunny-hops. My hands have found the compensatory changes in their bodies, soothing the trigger points and tension rippling through their hard-working muscles. My fitness plans don’t build star athletes, they enable senior and mobility-challenged dogs to posture to eliminate, to eat dinner standing on all fours, or to walk across the tile with confidence. I look at every dog through a mobility lens, then I recognize challenges and opportunities to create a better quality of life for those dogs. That’s my superpower.”
Reading this paragraph gave me pause for personal reasons. Pack McSquare has planned a major move in 2021, which means that as our two pups age, we won’t have Kate nearby.
Thankfully, Kate shares a great deal of her expertise for free in Mobility Chats on A Loyal Companion’s Facebook page.
Learning the low-down on dog emotions…
Kate gives an overview of the research of neuroscientist Dr. Jaak Panksepp, who identified that all mammals posses seven emotional centers: SEEKING (expectancy), FEAR (anxiety), RAGE (anger), PANIC/GRIEF (sadness), PLAY (social joy), CARE (nurturance), and LUST (sexual excitement).
Our dogs experience these emotions.
Our job as pet parents is to recognize these emotions without projecting our own into the picture and mucking it all up.
To help us, Kate breaks down each of these seven emotional centers and explains how each one plays a role in the decisions your dog is making about her choice to move or not. At the end of each section, she also gives common words and phrases that pet parents may use to describe the behaviors we see for each of these emotions.
For instance, Kate included the words frustrated and annoyed as words that describe RAGE behaviors. Those two in particular struck me because I frequently comment on how frustrated and/or annoyed Lizzie seems when we practice certain tricks.
Lizzie barks at me as we practice her back up trick. She’s choosing to move backwards when I tell her, but she’s not happy about it.
No worries, though. Kate compares the seven emotional centers to a color wheel to help pet parents imagine how these emotions blend into more subtle emotions, which would be the common words we’re using.
Lizzie’s probably blending RAGE with SEEKING to exhibit her frustration and annoyance as she moves away from me because she’s always keen for her treat reward.
Within this chapter on Sweet Emotion, I also learned that “As the mammalian brain evolved, some of the feel-good chemicals necessary for reproduction were redeployed to establish maternal care in both male and female dogs.”
And that was all I needed to read to better understand why Bernie seeks Marvin Moose after his meals. He’s nurturing and caring for his best moose friend.
These common words are repeated in one convenient “cheat sheet” if you will toward the end of this chapter.
The book’s most important lesson…
In both Sit. Stand. Go! and Emotion to Motion, Kate stresses that pet parents need to pay attention to what their dog is telling them.
While acute pain may be easier for pet parents to identify because our dogs will often vocalize their pain, chronic pain seems to be more difficult for pet parents to recognize.
Kate shares a list of self-limiting behaviors that dogs in chronic pain often display, She even breaks these behaviors into the categories around activities of daily living:
functional mobility
grooming
eating/drinking
elimination
mental engagement
Revealing the emotional toll of chronic pain…
Just like people, dogs in chronic pain move less, sleep more fitfully, and experience mood swings. Kate outlines how chronic pain crushes your dog’s confidence in four stages of what she calls a confidence cascade.
She describes how Shrinking World Syndrome stems from frustration, loneliness, and boredom in a mobility-challenged dog.
Providing solutions for dogs in chronic pain…
The next two chapters focus on helping pet parents reverse the confidence cascade through actionable steps.
Kate lists five suggestions to help improve the quality of life for your dog. Kate describes how pet parents can achieve success with all five of the suggestions and includes several concrete examples as well.
She includes instructions on how to lift and move your dog without causing further pain.
Making her content relatable and enjoyable…
Throughout the book, Kate sprinkles in inspiring stories of different dogs she’s worked with and helped over the past 10+ years as a canine massage therapist, fitness expert, and mobility specialist.
I dare you to read about Rose and the Harvest Moon, and not tear up.
Not all of the stories will tug at your heart. Within these vignettes Kate’s humor also shines. She’s a fellow introvert with self-deprecating humor that draws you into her world.
Making her content accessible and practical…
At the end of the book Kate includes several worksheets, a list of 37 source materials, and six books on a recommended reading list. Thank you Kate for distilling that source material into your top six picks!
As much as I love reading, let’s talk about the worksheets at the end of the book. While all of the worksheets offer unique value, two in particular struck me.
The Quality of Life assessment chart is particularly easy to use.
Kate really gets to the core of what you need to consider if you’re worried about your dog being in pain or in any stage of a mobility challenge. Most pet parents will be able to fill out this chart quickly and have a solid overview of their dog’s quality of life.
I plan on adding this chart to my Evernote Notebook about Bernie and Lizzie’s healthcare. I can always use it if I start suspecting either is in pain. Plus I can use it before their annual veterinarian visits to help me prepare my list of questions and concerns. The assessment table is short enough that scanning it into Evernote would be easy, so I keep a record of their quality of life over the years.
The daily journal reflection worksheet was my favorite.
I’m not into bullet journaling, but if you are, I could see some absolutely gorgeous dog pages in your future using Kate’s formatting. I haven’t decided how I’m going to integrate Kate’s ideas into my daily planner, but my mind is brewing.
Right now I track some basic information about Bernie and Lizzie, like daily activities, enrichment games, training time, and appointments. I have a separate composition book that I keep to track of daily input (meals) and output (the poops and the pees) along with any health concerns like vomiting or diarrhea.
If you’re more of a digital person, then you may be inspired by the wellness log that one of the dog trainers I follow on Instagram created using the digital planner Good Notes. Alix uses this log to track how her dog’s allergies and mast cell cancer change when she adds or subtracts different supplements.
Kate’s incredibly thorough in presenting the various questions you need to be asking yourself about your dog and your own ability to care for your dog. I could see some people using Kate’s various worksheet formats within Good Notes.
Who’s this book for?
Any pet parent will find value within the 150 pages of this book.
You’ll learn more about how your dog processes emotions and you’ll be better prepared to support your dog as she ages.
Every responsible dog parent I know worries about their senior dog.
Instead of feeling anxious about how your dog may be feeling, arm yourself with information. Learn the signs of chronic pain in dogs. Get familiar with how to help your dog, including how to enrich their lives even when their mobility may be impaired. And finally, make use of the worksheets to make the work load of assisting your dog easier to manage.
If you want to learn more about Kate Titus,
this virtual book launch features Kate being interviewed
by her publisher Gail Woodard, CEO of Dudley Court Press.
The interview begins about 11 minutes into the video.
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