Inner Reflections w/ Grisha Stewart

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Dogs Mirror Back Our Behavior

About The Episode

Grisha Stewart grew up in Oregon, where she resides today after traveling the world throughout her life. As a child, her family had plenty of dogs – and, at one point, their dogs had about 20 puppies at one time (luckily, they had enough land and were able to re-home many). The concept of canine companions was cemented early, as the dogs would join Grisha for her young activities and adventures.

When attending university, Grisha initially was studying mathematics. She studied it in undergrad and grad school, eventually leading to a tenured position as a math instructor at a college. However, while she was getting her Ph.D. she had rediscovered her intense love for dogs again. After reading 50 dogs book in summer and continuing going down that path, she decided to take a leave of absence and try becoming a dog trainer. She never looked back.

A few years later, Grisha founded Ahimsa Dog Training in Seattle. "Ahimsa" is a Buddhist doctrine of nonviolence to all living things, which reflects Grisha's focus on force-free methods to promote the well-being of dogs and their humans. She also wrote The Official Ahimsa Dog Training Manual. Buddhism was part of her life growing up and to this day she draws inspiration from it, in addition to yoga traditions and other spiritual practices. In particular, she enjoys meditating with her dogs and has found a powerful practice for grounding in paying strong attention to the breathing of her canine companions as they sit next to her.

Her biggest breakthrough to date is her Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) technique, which originated from a personal place. Grisha’s furry soulmate, Peanut, was a whippet and border collie mix who she got as a puppy. When starting to train him, she noticed he wasn’t acting like a normal dog. Peanut was very reactive to people and afraid of interaction. After trying out traditional methods to help socialize him to no avail, Grisha realized she had to figure out an alternative solution. She developed BAT and helped him work on his fear of people and other dogs. It worked out as Peanut went from barking at everyone to being a therapy dog in an elder care facility and would finally play with his fellow canines.

In the bigger picture, BAT is a technique to socialize dogs that focuses on the concept of letting them have their space to go at their own pace of curiosity. The human companion is still there, monitoring and helping as needed, but mostly trying not to intervene often. This is contrary to more common methods that focus on prompting, treating, and correcting head-on instead of letting your dog be curious and organically work towards their own unique healing and transformation path.

How do we fit into the picture? From Grisha’s experience and expertise, she believes that our dogs’ behavior does not reflect on us as much as the way we treat them does. While in general any relationship we have is a reflection of our inner world, she thinks how we treat our dogs specifically connects to our inner child. Whether this be overprotecting them, because that’s what one went through, or giving them endless freedom, because that’s what one desires, it can present a mirror to ourselves.

About The Guest - Grisha Stewart

Grisha Stewart is an author, international speaker, dog trainer, and online dog school facilitator based in Oregon, who specializes in dog reactivity and canine empowerment. She has been training dogs for two decades and counting. In 2003, she founded Ahimsa Dog Training in Seattle, using empowerment and positive reinforcement to meet the needs of dogs. In 2010, she developed BAT (Behavior Adjustment Training) to find an efficient rehabilitation technique that would work with her own dog's fear issues and help gain confidence, social skills, and improve behavior overall. Today, Grisha presents dog training and behavior seminars around the world and with over 70 different online courses in her digital dog training school.

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