When You (or Your Dog) Are About to Emotionally Detonate, Here's What to Do

What to do at this point in your emotional elevation is best summed up by this scene from Season 3 of Parks and Rec:

https://youtube.com/shorts/k8YZFLWeaA8?si=mSGTKFFPYMxNj0Wn

When Chris brings a vegetable loaf instead of cake to a surprise wedding, Ron gets increasingly wound up. Before he's about to pop the top off his muffin, Leslie tells him to take a walk. There's a moment where Ron blinks and you can see the internal conflict playing out: "I WANT TO BE MAD AT THIS GUY because he's ridiculous!!!! But also.... he's super nice and trying to do the right thing so... I really shouldn't...." Ron still has the wherewithal to think even though he is pissed; he ultimately makes the right choice and walks off.

Leslie did the two exact things that I am trying to work on in my dog training:

• Interrupted the unwanted behavior (said Ron's name)

• Gave the dog a better behavior (Take a walk)

This--the moment when your feelings are about to boil over but you still have a modicum of awareness-- is the precise moment we are looking to catch in ourselves and our reactive dogs if we have missed the early warning signals. This is the last possible moment to salvage the situation before it turns into a unrecoverable tornado with barking, lunging, and flying teeth.

For The Humans

Let's start today with what this moment may look like in humans and why, if you are aware enough to catch it, you should bail from the situation as fast as possible and give yourself a break.

The advice that has come up over, and over, and over again in my communication books about what to do in those last few seconds before you are about to crash out is universal: DO NOT SPEAK when your emotions are as unruly and out of control as a 100-lab that has just escaped his mom's 4Runner after ignoring her commands and is now chasing bunnies all over the new neighborhood!!! DO NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I came across this counsel while I was Mad-Max style driving to my first day of preservice week in 2025, all souped on my leftover anger from the year before. I was listening to Crucial Conversations because I had set a goal to communicate more effectively, when I got to a part where the writers were preaching about not letting your adrenaline brain get the best of you. Hm. As I ran over a few curbs and probably a stop sign, I decided to blow off said advice. Sure, grandpa, I'll make sure to do this--NOT!!!

I then came across this idea again later in the year when I was listening to The Next Conversation by Jefferson Fisher. Again, I just ran that idea over with 4Runner and made sure to back up to really squash it. I was NOT going to shut up when I was pissed off at work: I was, IN FACT, going to do the opposite-as a conscious choice!!!!! I loved the adrenaline because everything I had been keeping buried inside and had wanted to say before (but didn't) got said-AGGRESSIVELY. YAY! Eat that, JEFFERSON.

But then I came across the idea AGAIN towards the end of the year in Brene Brown's Strong Ground which, sigh because I have a crush on all of her work, I decided to TRY and listen this time. (For the record, I completely failed and I ended the year threatening a superintendent that I was going to the school board, and then the union and the state with my complaint.... and/or quit and then TBD from there...)

BUT, it was the first time all year that I didn't feel great about it. I wanted to say everything I said, but I wish I had said it more purposefully, more from my core, when I was totally rational, rather than when I was finally pushed to the edge of the edge. That would have been way more powerful than to just be lumped with the rest of the screaming crazies and dismissed.

And that was how I ended the school year.

I used the first few weeks of the summer to get paper copies of the books I had listened to during the school year so that I could go back through them and process some of the advice about what to do in this specific moment.

I did not want to NOT say what I said, but I wanted it to come from a proactive place rather than a reactive place. Being able to do that is probably a whole other blog post but now, learning to temporarily shut down the reactive response in order to buy myself is what I am looking for.

Here are the different pieces of advice garnered from Crucial Conversations, The Next Conversation, and Strong Ground that I felt were relevant for me in these heated moments.

The Advice (for Humans)

In Crucial Conversations as well as The Next Conversation, the writers describe what is happening in the brain and body when humans get worked up. These explanations are helpful to me because, like a toddler I always need to know why? why? why? why?

Why can't l JUST logically and rationally behave in these moments? Because your brain is just about to go over the falls of the adrenaline wave, which sends it into panic mode and that makes it almost impossible to think rationally:

In Crucial Conversations, the authors address the effects of the adrenaline take over: "When adrenaline does our thinking for us, our motives flow with the chemical tide. In a sense, you don't choose the motive; it chooses you.

But I liked the play-by-play description from The Next Conversation. Even after reading Crucial Conversations, I was convinced I just needed more rational thinking and more self-restraint and I would be fine. But, really, there are so many systems firing off in the body the moment someone blinks at you too fast, your best hope is just to recognize it before it's too late.

Here is Fisher describing what happens in the body when a person, Grace (in this case) is fighting with her husband:

"Her amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions, is yelling at her nervous system that a threat is near: she is being undermined.

Her body has released the hormone epinephrine, or adrenaline, putting her into fight-or-flight mode...

Her pupils have dilated, allowing more light to enter her eyes so she can focus.

Her breathing has quickened and shallowed, increasing her oxygen levels.

Her heart rate is elevated, pumping blood to her body and away from less essential areas, preparing her muscles for action.

Her shoulders, neck, and jaw go tense.

And most of all, her prefrontal cortex functions are suppressed. That's the area of teh brain used for higher-order thinking like rational though, decision-making, and emotional regulation" (page 78).

After I listened to this play-by-play of what was happening, I realized that-YES-I do need more than self-control and rational thoughts in these moments to reign in the pack of bucking and wild thoughts that my hormones have just let loose.

Potential Solutions

In all cases, the fix starts with recognition and beyond that, you have myriad choices.

The writers of Crucial Conversations advise people to try, the best they can, to name their emotions (page 87) and then question what exactly it is they were trying to achieve from the discussion by asking their brain some higher level questions to force it back into its logical state.

In a section titled "Reengage Your Brain" (page 67), the authors write: "When you post complex and abstract questions to yourself, the problem solving part of your brain recognizes that you are now dealing with intricate social issues and not physical threats. When we present our brain with a demanding question, our body sends blood to the parts of our brain that help us think away from the parts of our body that help us take flight or a be in fight.

The 4 Questions:  

• What do I really want for myself?

• What do I really want for others?

• What I really want for the relationship?

• What should I do right now to move towards what I really want?" (pages 65-67)

In The Next Conversation, Fisher advises the ubiquitous calming breath, and Brene Brown advocates for stopping the meeting in the moment and taking a break. (This is after the company she is working with has been trained on identifying hot moments and creating the norm of taking a break. Whenever I want to try this it feels weird, but I think it would work if this was a more normal thing that people did.)

Lots and lots of books going to tell you to start breathing deeply in these moments, but that's never really worked for me. I don't really know why, but the moment is usually gone and over with before I remember to breathe.

What's worked for me is just studying these moments over time and looking for my "getting triggered" patterns. I will literally sit with my journal at the end of the day, write out the situation in which I lost my temper or got impatient, and then I identify the steps that led up to it. Had I slept the night before? Had I eaten? Had I communicated clearly? Was someone questioning my actions? Did I get my workout? Did my dogs drag me after a bunny and tweak my back AGAIN even though we have been working on not chasing bunnies? When I notice that things that make me cranky are piling up (I am looking for patterns), then I know I have entered a reactivity zone and there's potential for a blow up.

Doing this over the last 9 months or so has gotten me to the point where I have a little teeny tiny bit of awareness. I'm starting to have brief moments where I realize I am about to be annoyed before anyone else can tell...I have noticed a pattern-I know I'm about to be annoyed, and I have that moment to salvage what comes out of my mouth next...and then because I haven't trained myself on the next step-I've never made it this far!!!- I usually just crash out, anyway.

BUT I am starting to having those moments of recognition. I think the next step for me now that I am noticing my patterns that preclude me feeling peeved (my PPP's) is to script what I would have liked to say instead of what I did actually say...or maybe I'll just go through it in my head at night and see if that helps in the future. I'll let you know.

These tips were all in my personal books about communication, but the messages were very similar in the dog books.

The Advice (for Dogs)

One of the main tenants is to try not to get the dog in these types situations in the first place, where they are going to be at the edge of there emotional capabilities, but the world is unpredictable. Try as I may, even when we walk the dogs on the edge of Siberia, or at 5:00 am, there is always another dog owner with the same problem trying to do the same thing.

There will also be times, when, because of my dumb, human, wishful thinking, I will put my dogs in these situations and it's going way worse than expected. Either way, if you have a reactive dog, chances are that there will be many moments where they run right up to the edge of their emotional capacity or even hurdle right over.

For those times when they are still in bounds, but barely, and you can see they are about to choose their next decision, and its on trajectory to be a bad one, here is the advice:

• Intervene and/or offer a distraction: "If a calm low-pitched "No!" or even "Hey!" doesn't stop the aggression (or threat of it), then getting louder probably won't either. In fact, yelling often adds to the drama and in most cases makes things worse. A distraction such as saying 'Let's go for a walk,' or putting both dogs into a long down-stay is more apt to stop trouble then yelling." (Page 41 of Patricia McConnell and Karen B. London's book Feeling Outnumbered.)

• Intervene/Ask for Alternative Behavior/Treat: "Correct by snapping your finders or saying 'Uh-uh!" Request a new behavior-"Let's go this way!" and Reward by giving praise or treat" (From page 54 of the Canine Strategies Workbook). This is the handiest little book about reactive dogs. If you don't have it, I highly recommend.

• Use Body Language: This sounds woo-woo, but use dog body language to tell your dog to calm down. If you yawn at your dog, stick your tongue in and out like you are trying to touch your tongue to your nose, or turn sideways, you are telling your dog to CALM DOWN. This did actually work with Porter and it blew my mind, but he is also a very smart/perceptive dog. I learned this from On Talking Terms with Dogs by Turid Rugaas.

• Recall: Recall them off of the distraction (from Molly Arvin's Pete's Adventure Pack recall modules)

  
  

• Space: Move the dog a little bit farther away from the trigger until they are under threshold. (Behavior Adjustment Training 2.0)

We are not so different from our dogs in that we need some practice and support to get these moments right.

What are strategies you use for yourself and/or your dog in order to make a good decisions in a stressful moment? Let me know in the comments!