Redefining Aging: How You and Your Dog Can Grow Young Together

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Ever wondered if aging has to mean an inevitable decline for you and your dog? Discover how adopting a positive mindset and gentle methods such as Debono Moves can revolutionize the aging process for both you and your furry companion. Drawing from insights in "Grow Young With Your Dog," we debunk common misconceptions about aging and explore how providing your nervous system with proof that improvement is possible can transform lives. Imagine feeling more agile, youthful, and vibrant as the years go by—it's entirely within reach.

Discover how introducing novelty and variation into our routines can stimulate neuroplasticity, slow down time, and promote healthy aging for you and your dog. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone eager to redefine what it means to grow older.

Resources:

Show notes for this episode: https://www.marydebono.com/blog/d23

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Join our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DogHealthAndVitality

Mentioned in episode:

Princess - spinal arthritis: https://www.marydebono.com/blog/help-arthritic-dog

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. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you or your dog are unwell or injured. 

Transcript

Mary Debono : 0:31

Today I'd love to talk to you about aging. Now, i t may not be everyone's favorite topic, but it might be on your mind whether you're concerned about your dog getting older and wondering what's ahead, or how to cope with what your dog is experiencing right now, or maybe yourself. You know, I get a lot of people in my orbit, so to speak, and they talk about you know how they feel really stiff and sore and they can't keep up with their dog because they're having their own issues with aging. So I want to talk to you today about how we can redefine aging and have this process, this journey that we're taking through life, to be a bit smoother, a bit easier and maybe a lot more fun at the same time. So, in case we're meeting for the first time, my name is Mary Debono and this is the Easier Movement Happier Dogs podcast. So, yeah, aging, I actually wrote a book called Grow Young With your Dog and that book has done really well. I first published it 10 years ago and it continues to sell, and it was an Amazon number one bestseller, won a few awards, and what it's about is this idea that, yes, aging happens. Right, we get older, our dogs get older, but there's so many things we can do as the process unfolds to help ourselves and our dogs feel younger, to have more vitality, to have greater mobility, flexibility, better balance. You know all those good things that keep us feeling young.

Mary Debono : 2:18

So let's talk about some common misconceptions about aging. A lot of people think that degeneration is just inevitable and, by the way, what I'm talking about concerns you as well as your dog, so it's pretty interchangeable. Of course, dogs have generally a shorter lifespan than us, unfortunately, so the aging process does take a different shape with them. So but if you think about it like I know, when I was in my late 20s, I started already thinking that, oh, I have to expect these aches and pains because I'm getting older. Because at the time I did have a lot of aches and pains. That actually started when I was a teenager and they plagued me until I discovered, or stumbled across, something called the Feldenkrais method, which then I took a deep dive in, went to school for four years to learn it, and I've been practicing it ever since, and that was more than 30 years ago. So you know, we have to think about that. So aging in many ways is relative, right. So I meet a lot of people. I've met a lot of people through my practice that have come to me with aches and pains and again have that same attitude that I had. That well, this is inevitable. You know, I'm in my thirties. Before you know it, I'll be 40. I have to expect this kind of wear and tear and, you know, breakdown if you will.

Mary Debono : 3:54

And I have to say that in so many ways I feel younger now than I did when I was in my late twenties, and other people have told me the same thing. You know, I work with a woman who's 75. She's amazing, she's incredibly fit, you know active. You know she's a big time hiker, she travels, she does all these things, and when I first met her almost 30 years ago, she was a lot quote unquote older than she is now. She had a lot of aches and pains. She thought that they were just going to get worse. But through, you know, helping her learn how she could take ownership, if you will, of how she moved, how she felt right, she changed the trajectory of her life, and that's what I want to do for you and your dog as well.

Mary Debono : 4:51

So, so again, some misconceptions about aging involve, like we just think, oh, it had, like, once we start feeling stiff or sore or things start to, you know, have issues, that it's all going to be downhill, and I have to say that, based on my experience and the experience of many, many, many individuals, human and non-human, that I've worked with individuals, human and non-human that I've worked with, that doesn't have to be the case. Okay, there's a lot of precious things that come out of the aging process, I might add as well. So think about, though, when you have a negative mindset around aging, if every birthday is like, oh no, not another one, right. Think about what that does to you psychologically, but also physically. It's like you're telling your nervous system that things are going to get worse. I'm a big proponent of giving your nervous system evidence that things can get better, okay, and to help train your brain to look for those things and to do more of those things, okay. So you know, we have to remember that our brains are prediction making machines. So if we're telling ourselves over and over again that things get worse as we get older, well, what do you think is going to happen? Right? But instead, if we can give ourselves evidence, experiences that we can improve, we can improve our movement, for example, we can improve how we feel, we can improve how we think about things. Right Now you're giving your brain evidence that things can get better and aging is not as scary Now, luckily, our dogs are not encumbered by at least as far as I know, they're not encumbered by this constant chatter that we have in our own brains, like telling us things like oh no, another birthday, as it's such a negative thing.

Mary Debono : 6:56

So they don't have that, which I find very, very helpful. So you know, over the years I have worked with lots and lots of senior dogs younger ones too, of course, but many, many senior dogs that had different things going on with them. Some it was they had a stroke. Some they had really severe arthritis in the spine or the hips or the elbows or wherever. Others had injuries, knee ligament injuries, things like that, or muscle strain or just overall stiffness. And I have to say, in so many ways it's a lot easier to help your dog feel younger than to help another human feel younger, because the dog doesn't have all those preconceived notions that, oh no, things have to get worse. You know that I'm getting older, so in some ways they really have it a little bit better than us in that regard, okay, but we can change our thinking around aging better than us in that regard, okay, but we can change our thinking around aging. We really can. We can change our thinking around it. And as we go through the rest of this episode together, I would love to share some ideas about how you can do that. So, again, let me give you so I just gave you a human story about how a woman who's now 75 is kind of younger than she was 30 years ago.

Mary Debono : 8:18

So let me give you one about a dog. There was a dog who she was a senior dog and she used to love to go on walks, loved, loved going on walks, and she would actually wake up her person every morning. With you know, she would wake her up to go for a walk and the dog would already have the leash in her mouth, like she was so excited to go on a walk. And then, as she got older, she stopped wanting to go on walks. She stopped waking up her person in the morning with the leash in her mouth and she had to really be coaxed to go on walks and they got shorter and shorter. She seemed to just be happy lying in the sun in the yard and of course her person took her to the vet and there wasn't anything that they could do medically really there wasn't anything really definitive and she was on proper food and she had the right joint supplements and all the things they could do to support the dog. But you know, this is just kind of how she was and it was just expected while she's getting older.

Mary Debono : 9:25

And then this woman had heard about my work and so she asked me to work with her dog and it was really interesting because I was able to help this dog just have more time flexibility in her back and it's a very gentle approach and again I introduce you to that approach in my book Grow Young With your Dog, but I'll also link to the story about this dog. I did a blog post about it so I will link to that in the show notes. So I really helped her feel like how she could use her back more effectively, which then freed up her legs to be more comfortable, and I didn't take away any arthritis that the dog had, but just by helping her learn to use her body in a different way, to distribute the effort of moving in a more equitable way, a more efficient way. The dog just perked up. It's like she felt so much better. And the very next morning she came to the bed in the morning with a leash in her mouth and said let's go for a walk. So it's stories like that that really inspire me.

Mary Debono : 10:39

Now we didn't change her chronological age right. Of course I didn't have a time machine and probably if we took radiographs her spine would have looked the same as far as the amount of arthritis she had. But it was that ability. Now I kind of reminded her nervous system that she could move differently system that she could move differently. So that's another example of how she got younger. And what was really fun about that was because the person who owned the dog hate to use the word owned but her guardian I'll say her human guardian, a human person was in that age as well where she's thinking about her own aging process. And I introduced her to some Feldenkrais method movements for herself and she also felt better and she said I can't believe how much more fun walking is now for both of us. So that's really cool and that is always.

Mary Debono : 11:42

My idea is that you and your dog will improve together right, and just experience life differently. With that idea that there's this hope, what we call biological optimism, that things can get better. Now some of you may say well, my dog is 16, 17, 18, I don't know, 20. I've worked with dogs at 20 years old. Well, how much better can they get? And there is definitely a limit. So I don't want to sugarcoat, to mislead you in that you can always have this dramatic turnaround of the clock. But what I will say is this I have personally worked with dogs and humans that were very, very close to the end of their lives, and so have other people that I've trained or other people that have read my book and applied the methods, and there is some very significant improvement in quality of life, despite maybe the dog not being able to get up and start running or even walking with vitality again. But there is a very, very beautiful change that can happen.

Mary Debono : 13:00

You know, I'm thinking about a dog who was a golden retriever and she was 16 and a half almost 17, I think, and that's pretty old right, especially for a golden retriever. And at the very end of her life she was pretty much bed bound. You know, she wasn't getting up and walking very easily, she needed a lot of help, and her person asked me to come and work with her and what was so rewarding about that was I could see the relief in the dog as I, you know, gently, gently worked with her and moved her limbs very like, in a very intentional way, and helped her relieve any discomfort that she was having in her body and we were able to breathe together and have this just wonderful, relaxing time together for her and it was so gratifying because her person just could see, also like the relief she noticed, how the dog's breathing got more relaxed. So there are a lot of things that you can do to relieve discomfort, to relieve a sense of effort that your dog may be experiencing as they get older and of course I do this with humans as well and horses and all kinds of animals. So there are definitely things we can do.

Mary Debono : 14:22

Another story I'm thinking about is a woman who I never met. I never met her or her dog, but I saw a picture of her dog and she read my book and the dog was 17 and dying of liver cancer and they had done all the treatments, the surgeries, all that stuff already, but things were going in a certain direction and the dog was having difficulty breathing, not to the point that it was time to let the dog go, but enough that it was definitely disconcerting and definitely interfering with quality of life. And she applied something that I teach in my book, which is connected breathing thing that I teach in my book, which is connected breathing and she was just so blown away with how it helped her, you know, really feel even closer to her dog than she already did. But also it could calm them both and help them both have this more relaxed, comfortable breathing and it brought her so much peace. She felt it brought a lot of peace to the dog. And then the dog did transition after a period of time. They had to make that decision, but it was very peaceful and her last weeks were very peaceful.

Mary Debono : 15:35

So this is something that, again, it's not about necessarily obviously turning the clock back totally. Things happen in life, right, and we all will meet that end at some point, but it's improving the quality of life for you and your dog all along the journey. So there's so many things you can do to make it easier. So, if we think about, if we think about what it means to feel youthful, you know, and that may mean something different for you than it does to me. But when I think about a feeling of being youthful, it's, it's a time of curiosity, it's being really curious about things, it's being very creative, it's being very playful, it's, you know, having a lot of vitality, it's all of those things. It's having a lot of optimism, a lot of hope, right, a lot of planning for the future. So these are things we can bring into our lives at any age, into our lives at any age. And again, we can apply this to our dogs. Luckily, as I said earlier, our dogs aren't encumbered by a lot of the chatter that goes in our own heads, right, a lot of the beliefs that we have or misconceptions we may hold about things. But we can also purposely think about embracing more curiosity.

Mary Debono : 17:05

I like to use the term compassionate curiosity, which means curiosity without the judgment attached to it. You're not criticizing something, you're just noticing it and you're just like, oh well, that's interesting. And then you get really curious about how, if it's something that you'd rather not have, you'd rather not experience, or your dog for you, or your dog, how would you change that, how could you improve that? So you get really curious about it. That, in turn, drives different processes in your nervous system to search for solutions. Your brain then will want to search for solutions Again. This leads to more of a youthful state. It's a learning state. We're learning so much when we're young, so we can continue that at any age age.

Mary Debono : 18:08

I had a client years ago who, her grandfather, was 96. He was a medical doctor and at the age of 96, he was working on his third PhD. Now how cool is that? How cool is that and that's something I can talk about too with my own dad, who's since passed away and he lived to be over 96. And he was always learning, always learning. There was always something else to learn, so he was always diving into textbooks and different things. He was so curious and to me he was always youthful, always youthful.

Mary Debono : 18:40

And I'll tell you a quick story about what happened to him. He was in I think he was 94. Yes, he was 94 at the time. He broke his pelvis two places, so it was pretty bad, and we were told he would have to be in rehab for like six to eight weeks and all these other things. And what he did was really interesting, because he decided that he was going to really harness his mental energy to imagine that he was fully healed. So he was like imagining his pelvic bones being fully healed and he was also imagining all the things that he normally did. He was extremely active, he lived independently, he had a property and he did everything himself. And he was imagining all that. So he harnessed his mental energies to not be complacent and say, oh, I have to be here for X amount of weeks, but instead he did something about it.

Mary Debono : 19:44

So to me that was youthful and the fact that, oh, and he did all the PT and the OT that they were giving him and he was just like doing all the things. And he was released incredibly early, like I think he was there just a week or so. It was amazing and he went on to live independently again and I just think that was such a good example of how he wasn't going to just accept the fact that he had this injury because many people, many professionals, told him and told us, oh, he'll never be able to be independent again. That wasn't the case at all. Now your mileage may differ. So again, this doesn't the case at all. Now your mileage may differ. So again, this doesn't apply across the board. But you know, my dad was a great example, and how he embraced curiosity, he embraced learning, he embraced optimism. So he harnessed his mind to work in his favor. Now you might be harnessing your mind, which I hope not in the opposite direction Many people are, because they would just take all that information and say, oh my goodness, I will never be able to do those things again.

Mary Debono : 20:53

And again, you need to be realistic, okay, but you need to be use you know, use your brain to help you, use your brain to be you know. Yes, you take in the advice of the professionals and then you also help yourself. You know, there was no harm in imagining that his bones were knitting back together perfectly. There was no harm in imagining that he was out shoveling snow again or raking leaves or cleaning horse corrals or whatever. There was no harm in that and it, in my opinion, probably helped him, probably helped him and certainly was really good for his mental outlook. And again he went on to fully heal from that and to go back to being independent. And again he went on to fully heal from that and to go back to being independent. So these are things that are within our control, okay. So you know, it's just a different way of looking at life.

Mary Debono : 22:04

So the other thing I want to say is another way to increase this feeling of youthfulness for yourself and for your dog is to bring novelty into your life and into your dog's life. That means you change up the routine, not in a way that's going to alarm your dog, but simple things. You go new places, you do things a little differently, you start to look at your routines. That might be keeping you stuck, and when you do things a little bit differently, you know might be something simple, like putting the leash on with your non-dominant hand or something like that. I mean, it could be anything. But when you start doing things differently, that really gets the attention of your nervous system, of your brain. So new neural connections are formed and it stimulates your brain. It stimulates this process called neuroplasticity, where our brain is constantly adapting to the environment. So we want to keep that going right, so that you're aging, if you will, in a very healthy direction. Right as you go along, you're still creating new neural connections. New movement opportunities can come up. In other words, you're not stuck in the same old routine.

Mary Debono : 23:17

The other benefit of this, by the way, when you bring more novelty into your life. It slows down your perception of time People often talk about. As they get older, time seems to go faster, and it is based on our perception, because it's like when you're a little kid and you're waiting for Christmas, for example, right, that seems like a really long time if it's the summer or something like that. And then, as you get older, it's like, oh, thanksgiving is here before you know it, and then Christmas and then New Year's and you know, the year just flew by. But when you bring more novelty, more variation into your life, your perception of time can slow, which is really pretty cool. It's like you get deeper into the experience of living right, more like you did when you were a kid, and this is good for your dog as well, like doing things non-habitually, because it stimulates and enriches your dog's life as well, and again, they're forming new neural connections. So maybe, instead of walking around the block like you normally do, you go a different way, or you put your dog in the car and you go somewhere completely different. You walk over different surfaces, you go around things, you meet different people, you do things that, of course, are safe for you and your dog, but different, different. So that's another thing that you can do.

Mary Debono : 24:47

And then the other thing is really thinking about bringing more play into your life, and this could be true again, at any age for you or any age of your dog. I've seen a lot of people do this and I love it. Some dogs are really into playing with their ball and they want you to throw the ball over and over and over again, and that's great when the dog is five years old. But what happens when the dog is 15? And that's not really an option, maybe for your dog, and you know, you see, people do all kinds of wonderful adaptations, like maybe the dog is lying down and all you can do is really like roll the ball to your dog and the dog loves it, right, and you can still play different enrichment games with your dog, maybe like food puzzles and things like that that bring a sense of play.

Mary Debono : 25:40

Or you, you can teach a dog and believe it or not. Despite that saying you can't teach an old dog new tricks, you can certainly teach your dog things at any age, so something like nose work, for example, that's gaining in popularity. You can teach that to a dog even when they're much older, right? So for the most part. So these are things that you can do, and it also again, it's maybe novel for you, right? Maybe you have to learn all about how to you know, teach nose work, and it's something fun that you can do with your dog. So so these are different things that you can just bring more into your life to help with this idea of like being more youthful despite whatever chronological age you or your dog may have.

Mary Debono : 26:31

So I would say a couple of ideas. If you haven't gotten my book, grow Young With your Dog, you might want to get it. Maybe it's available at your library. You can find it wherever books are sold online, or Barnes and Nobles has it, as well as Amazon. I also sell a PDF version of my website and I'll link to all that in the show notes. So that's one idea. The other thing I'd recommend, too, is I have a free video training. By the way, when you purchase the book, it does come with online videos to support you, so you'll have access to that and it'll tell you how in the book. But if you want a different free training, I do have one. All you need to go to is marydebonocom forward slash love dog. That's all lowercase, all one word and that'll be in the show notes, so don't worry about writing it down, especially if you're driving right now.

Mary Debono : 27:32

So, yeah, so let's kind of redefine or reframe how we think about aging. Can we think about aging as an opportunity to experience life in a different way, in an exciting way, in a way that gives us more joy, more enrichment? We can let go of a lot of things maybe we used to worry about when we were younger. Things we were concerned with that we realized over time are really insignificant. And can we use this time with our dogs to deepen our connection with our dog? If you're anything like me, you find great joy, like a blissful feeling in that feeling of connection with your dog, and you can have that at any age, in any condition of you and your dog.

Mary Debono : 28:24

So I hope you found this helpful. Let me know what fun thing that you're doing. That's novel. Like maybe this is really, you know, piqued your curiosity and you're like, oh see, curiosity, that's another sign of youthfulness, remember. But think about, oh, you know. So like a little challenge, like what can you do different today? What can you do differently tomorrow? And then let me know. I would love to hear from you. You can always email me, mary, at marydebonocom, and let me know what you're dealing with, let me know what you're adding into your life and your dog's life to make it more novel, to have more variety, to have more stimulation. Okay, thank you so much for joining me. I so appreciate you listening. I love sharing this work with you and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye for now.