Dog Wisdom: What Animals Teach Us About Trauma

So this morning on our daily walk, my beloved little rascal of a pup Henri, got blindsided by another aggressive little dog in the neighborhood. I’ve known this dog to not like other dogs - his owner, who walks him regularly, has acknowledged and apologized for this every time we pass her and he is pulling on a leash, snarling at (the ever-friendly and lovable) Henri that “let me at 'em” way. But today he’d clearly escaped and was off-leash and gunning for Henri. It all happened so fast, and initially, both Henri and I were just so startled and dazed.

Canine crisis averted
Luckily my Mama Bear (is the the term for when it’s your puppy?!) sprung into action such that after a few runs at Henri, I was able to quickly scoop Henri up, and ward off the dog (luckily since he does like humans - did not try to bite me)…instead, he fled back home to his owner who was calling out for him (though she was on the other side of the house so did not see the commotion know about the altercation).

Keep calm and carry on
While my puppy-mom instinct was to carry and coddle Henri, my trauma-tending training kicked in, and I rememberd what I had read in a book by trauma expert Peter Levine - Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma that it’s what happens immediatley after a traumatic event that determines whether or not the body will register and hold the energy of the event as trauma. As such, I remained calm, held Henri (…all 15 pounds of him) close to me and continued walking and speaking steadily and soothingly to him - even celebrating in an upbeat tone how brave he’d been!

Shake it off
Then, as soon as I was sure the coast was clear, I set him down and once I made sure he didn’t have any critical injuries that needed immediate attention, I (in spite of my heart still racing - and aching! - b/c of what had just happened!)…just (inhaled-exhaled…) and pretended to act like all was well. I simply encouraged Henri to carry on as usual.

He paused, looked around a bit dazed, and then gave himself a massive, really rigorous SHAKE. Then, in an effort to reassure him that all was well and encourage him along back to normalcy as quickly as possible, I sang an out of key version of Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off”…and Henri continued trotting along on his typically merry way, as though nothing had happened (though for the record, he did his #2 f-aar earlier in the walk the way he typically does! )

Trauma 101: The Basics
So, let’s take a pause on the hullabaloo with Henri and get real about the mechanics of what happens when we experience what are often referred to as “adverse life experiences,” - which most commonly gets colloquially translated as “trauma.” 

Trauma technically happens when our body perceives something as a threat that it cannot escape from - which cues the reptilian part of our brain (the oldest part that all animals have) to trigger our fight-flight–freeze-or-faint (or, impalas often fake playing dead!) reaction. That trigger is accompanied by a rush of survival-and-stress-related chemicals to help produce the adrenaline needed to do whatever is required to survive. And, in the moments right after, if those chemicals are not processed and flushed out of our system, that tangle of amplified energy gets stuck in our systems. Animals know exactly what to do to burn this energy off. As a college professor of mine (Robert Zapolsky) details in his book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,  zebras run their tails off to escape the lion, and that physical activity processes the cocktail of chemicals. The impala plays dead to fake out the predator…then, when it isn’t paying attention, it jumps back to life and flees to escape.and then, it shakes itself vigorously once it’s reached safety. Very much like how Henri shook himself silly to effectively “shake it off.” Then, the memory gets filed as over and done, and life goes on.

How trauma gets a hold on humans
In the book I mentioned above, Levine shares a personal story where he was in a critical car accident and credits the care he received immediately from a passerby who held his hand to calm and soothe him, reassured him he was not alone, that she would stay with him, and that help was on the way. Leveine explained that for humans, since we don’t know to run-or-shake like hell immediately after a frightening or life-threatening event, it’s actually what happens in the moments immediately after the event that determines whether or not the chemical cocktail will get “stuck” in our body as trauma.

By stuck, I mean that it does not get processed and filed away into the memory banks as over and done and something that you survived. It gets stuck in the brain that can’t tell time, and can get triggered in the future during any event that even somewhat reminds our brain of that episode. Because our brain’s foremost primal function is to keep us alive, it may give us a false alarm anytime in the future, any event happens that even so much as smells like the original event.

So, for example, if the original event was a house fire, then later anytime your mid-brain smells say burnt toast or a smouldering candle wick, it will sound the red-alert “mayday - fire!” alarm. This often manifests as anything from anxiety you feel in your body to a full-blown panic attack or even complete dissociation (which one is determined by whether, during the original event, you fought, fled, froze, fainted, or played dead).

The body stores & keeps the score
Put simply, the body remembers and remains fiercely vigilant - regardless of what our logical thinking brain tells us. So much so that sometimes, when we feel anxious, it doesn’t make sense. We may say: “But, there is no lion about to eat me, there is no fire blazing, there is no snarling, nasty dog here about to tear into the (cute-as-can-be) haunches of my beloved Henri.” But the physical effect of panic persists (perhaps as a tight chest or a gnarled up gut). We commonly know this as PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)…and it can be anywhere from mildly uncomfortable to life-alteringly debilitating.

Therapeutic TLC for trauma
The good news? (Other than that, Henri is napping next to me as I type this and seems to have escaped relatively unscathed)? There is plenty of evidence-based therapeutic modalities that have been proven to help us reprocess past traumas to get that energy “unstuck” so that it is not so chronically distressing and/or debilitating. EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Dialectical Reprocessing Therapy) is a therapy that has been clinically proven to have great success in treating and averting PTSD in populations ranging from military veterans and first responders. You can learn more here in my previous blog series on EMDR >.

However, EMDR is just one of many therapeutic modalities…and as with everything, one size does not fit (or work for) all…there are other modalities ranging from Internal Family Systems, Coherence Therapy, and somatically-oriented modalities that aim to accomplish the same level of healing. So if this is something that resonates with you, I encourage you to inquire and work with your therapist to discern what an appropriate and effective approach may be if you are struggling with trauma and not sure what a next step could be.

Jen Slaski and Henri