The five-point Likert type scale is different for two of the 10 questions, including ‘How often do you tell your dog things you don’t tell anyone else? Once we understand that unwanted behaviour is a simple mistake and that those mistakes give us information we can act on, we can take a deep breath and start to figure out what to do next. Participant group allocation was decided according to a predetermined, pseudo randomised and counterbalanced chart. We can see from the qualitative reports that participants did feel a subjective feeling of attentiveness, focus, engagement, or mindfulness when participating in both tasks, and the presence of after-effects suggest that this feeling was able to be maintained for some time after the cessation of the task.

While there was no quantitative support for an increase in mindfulness, owner–dog emotional closeness or reduction in loneliness in the two active intervention groups, qualitative insights revealed that there were several common themes between the two interventions—including the owner feeling happiness/enjoyment and relaxation/calm while completing the task, as well as feeling a sense of engagement and/or focus while completing the task, and enhanced emotional/spiritual connection with their dogs. Living with a sentient being that has thoughts, feelings, and emotions creates space for us to have these mindful interactions, and really understand how our body language and communication are influencing something else,” Nieforth-Bomkamp says. This is stressful for them, it’s stressful for you, and this lack of canine down time can lead to behaviour issues. While this isn’t part of any sort of meditation, looking at your dog interact with their surroundings can help you become far more mindful and in the moment with your dog, calm and discover things you didn’t know about them, like how they experience the world around them or what brings them pleasure.Do they really not think about climate change, Covid 19 or whether they have left the kettle on the hob? Our focus is on creating a world where every dog and owner can experience a life enriched by mindfulness and joyful companionship. This measure asked participants to rate how often they had felt lonely in the past two weeks, and was again rated on the same 4-point Likert scale as the UCLA-LS. Although, it is difficult to know if the restless behaviour observed during talk time was in response to their owner’s feelings of discomfort with this task.

From a qualitative perspective, we also explored how the experience of a DAM intervention compares with a DI intervention over a six-week study period. Think back to how your dog wakes you up for walks, or how your cat stares you down in anticipation of dinner at five p. For the sake of presenting a summary, only those themes that were endorsed at a rate of 10% or greater for three or more weeks have been included in each Table. For example, 25% of owners in the DI group endorsed a feeling of discomfort with the ‘talk time’ task: “This one felt a bit strange to me.

If you find your mind wandering, go back to thinking about your breathing so you can re-focus back on your dog. I have realised that there are strong parallels between what I do in my work with animals and mindfulness training for humans.

Hockenhull and Furtado [ 2] have suggested that this is an opportune time to reflect on the confinements and lack of choice we offer to domesticated animals, and whether such self-reflections could lead us to improve their welfare. The relationship between trait mindfulness, loneliness, regulatory emotional self-efficacy, and subjective well-being.These feelings are normal human emotions and we’re not here to tell you that you’re bad for feeling them – we are, in fact, humans! The resulting loss of human freedoms can be an important reflection point for standard pet keeping practices. The other was a dog interactions intervention, whereby participants spent at least 7 min of undivided attention interacting with their dog in different ways each week.