Why Love and Training Aren’t Always Enough: 2 Things That Change How Your Animal Listens, Engages, and Responds

By Arlana Tanner-Sibelle
Certified Holistic Wellness Practitioner • Interspecies Relationship Guide • Speaker • Author of Moving Beyond Words — Our Shared Journey

Love and training are an essential part of good communication between guardian and companion — but they aren’t always enough. In this article, Arlana explores two often-overlooked relationship skills that influence trust, attention, and responsiveness in our animal companions. By understanding how advocacy and agency support nervous-system safety, guardians can shift from frustration to deeper connection, engagement, and ease.

Many animal guardians are loving, committed, and doing everything they’ve been taught to support their animal companion — yet still find themselves struggling with attention, responsiveness, or engagement. When training doesn’t seem to stick and connection feels inconsistent, it’s easy to assume more effort is required.

But often, what’s missing isn’t love or skill.

It’s an understanding of the relational conditions that allow animals to feel safe enough to stay present, attentive, and responsive in the first place.

This is where two rarely discussed — yet foundational — relationship skills come in: Advocacy and Agency.

They are not training techniques.
They are not permissiveness.
And they are not abstract ideas.

They are the conditions that make trust, attention, learning, and responsiveness possible.

When Animals Can’t Stay Present, Learning Can’t Land

When an animal doesn’t listen, disengages, or seems “unreachable,” it’s often assumed they’re distracted, stubborn, or insufficiently trained. But beneath the surface, something very different may be happening.

If an animal does not feel safe enough to stay present, their nervous system shifts into survival mode — fight, flight, or freeze. In this state, attention narrows. The brain prioritizes scanning the environment, protecting the body, or shutting down altogether.

In survival mode:

• Listening is compromised

• Learning is interrupted

• Memory retention decreases

This is why lessons don’t stick.
This is why cues seem forgotten.
This is why responsiveness disappears in stimulating environments.

It’s not that the animal won’t listen.
It’s that they can’t.

And no amount of love or training can override a nervous system that is focused on survival.

The Two Things That Change Everything

When we stop asking animals to push through stress and instead change the conditions of the relationship, something remarkable happens.

This is where Advocacy and Agency come in.

1. Advocacy: Helping Your Animal Feel Safe and Supported

Advocacy is your animal knowing, at a nervous-system level, “I’m not alone. Someone is paying attention. Someone has my back.”

When an animal experiences consistent advocacy:

• They don’t have to escalate behavior to be heard

• They don’t have to stay hyper-vigilant

• They don’t have to manage stress on their own

Advocacy might look like:

• Recognizing early signs of overwhelm

• Adjusting environments before stress escalates

• Intervening when situations exceed the animal’s capacity

• Communicating for the animal when they cannot

When animals feel advocated for, their nervous system no longer needs to stay on high alert. Scattered attention switches to focus. Presence returns.

Not because the animal was commanded to focus —
but because they finally can.

2. Agency: Restoring Choice, Voice, and Participation

Agency is often misunderstood. It does not mean a lack of boundaries or structure. It does not mean animals “run the show.”

Agency means the animal has a voice within the relationship.

When animals are denied agency:

• They resist or shut down

• They disengage

• They comply outwardly while disconnecting inwardly

When animals experience agency:

• They participate rather than comply

• They stay emotionally available

• They remain curious, engaged, and responsive

Agency might look like:

• Offering choice whenever possible

• Allowing communication signals to be honored

• Creating opportunities for consent and participation

• Adjusting expectations to meet the animal’s capacity

Choice is not a luxury — it is a biological requirement for learning and engagement.

When agency is present, animals don’t need to fight or flee. They don’t need to freeze or disconnect. They stay with us.

“Applying this insight is what makes everything else fall into place.” Arlana Tanner - Sibelle

Why Trust, Attention, and Responsiveness Are Linked

Trust allows attention to settle.
Attention allows learning to occur.
Learning makes responsiveness possible.

Advocacy and Agency support this entire sequence.

Without them, animals are left managing stress alone — and no amount of repetition, reward, or correction can create lasting change.

With them, something shifts.

Animals become:

• More attentive

• More interested

• More engaged

• More responsive

Not because they were trained harder —
but because the relationship became stronger… feels safer.

Beyond Love and Training

Love is essential.
Training can be helpful.

But love alone does not regulate the nervous system.
Training alone does not create emotional safety.

Animals don’t become responsive because they are controlled.
They become responsive because they feel safe enough to stay present.

When we understand this, the entire relationship changes.

Exploring This More Deeply

For those who learn best through spoken teaching and real-life examples, I explore Advocacy and Agency more deeply in this video:

▶ Watch the video on YouTube:

Click HERE to Watch: Advocacy and Agency: How they can help transform your relationship with your Animal Companion.

These principles are also explored in greater depth in my book, where I examine the human–animal relationship as a responsive, living partnership rather than a hierarchy of control:

📖 Click HERE to Check out my Book: Moving Beyond Words: Our Shared Journey

A Closing Reflection

When animals don’t listen or respond, it’s rarely because they don’t care.

More often, it’s because they don’t yet feel safe enough — or supported enough — to stay present.

Advocacy and Agency don’t ask animals to try harder.
They ask us to relate differently.

And when we do, everything else begins to fall into place.

About the Author

Arlana is a holistic animal–human relationship guide, author, and educator who helps guardians understand the deeper nervous-system and relational foundations behind behavior, trust, and connection. Through her work, she supports people and their animal companions in moving beyond control-based approaches toward calmer, more responsive, and mutually supportive relationships.

Learn more at www.arlana.ca
Contact: arlana.wewellness@gmail.com

© 2026 Arlana. All rights reserved.
Please credit the author and link back to www.arlana.ca if referencing this work.

Originally Posted in Brianz Magazine