Why Your Pet Wants You to Read Beyond Belly Rubs

< Updated 2026-04-06 >

< The link to this page – https://forcefreepets.com/readbeyondbellyrubs/ >

Welcome to Why Your Pet Wants You to Read Beyond Belly Rubs: The Compassionate Pet Guardian.

I had the honor of reading a pre-publication version of Beyond Belly Rubs while caring for my dog, Muppy, during the last weeks of her life. I’d read a section of the book and reflect on how it was related to our mutual relationship. When I finished the book, I knew I needed to share and recommend the book to as many people as I could. This marvelous little book provides a clear recipe for creating a relationship between a person and a dog like the one I shared with Muppy. It is the most important book anyone with a pet can read.

This blog post and series of three short videos is made available for free to give you a sample of our educational materials and to encourage you to read this wonderful book.

This book is included with the Puppy & Rescue Headstart-ONLINE and Basic Manners classes offered by ForceFreePets at Green Acres Kennel Shop. 

I know different people learn in different ways, so I have provided this material both as an article you can read and as three short videos you can watch. The links to the three videos are below, followed by the article.

This 11-minute video is the first in a three-part series in which Don Hanson discusses why he believes all pet parents will benefit from reading Beyond Belly Rubs: The Compassionate Pet Guardian by Niki Tudge and Louise Stapleton-Frappell. Don reflects on his life with his dogs, Gus and Muppy. He reveals how bad advice from pet care professionals damaged his initial relationship with Gus. Don then discusses how the kindness-first philosophy described in Beyond Belly Rubs shaped his relationship with Muppy.  https://vimeo.com/1180474086

This 8-minute video is the second in a three-part series in which Don Hanson discusses why he believes all pet parents will benefit from reading Beyond Belly Rubs: The Compassionate Pet Guardian by Niki Tudge and Louise Stapleton-Frappell. In this video, Don starts by reviewing what we know about a dog’s cognitive abilities and emotional range as compared to a human toddler. He then describes our responsibilities as our pet’s guardians when caring for a dog from puppyhood through old age and into their passing. https://vimeo.com/1180474654

This 19-minute video is the third in a three-part series in which Don Hanson discusses why he believes all pet parents will benefit from reading Beyond Belly Rubs: The Compassionate Pet Guardian by Niki Tudge and Louise Stapleton-Frappell. In this video, Don reviews the five skills one needs to be a trusted and compassionate pet guardian as outlined in Beyond Belly Rubs.

• Recognizing when our dog is experiencing either distress or eustress.
• Creating optimal conditions for your dog to learn.
• Understanding that a dog “misbehaving” is not being defiant or dominant.
• Being patient and teaching your dog at a pace where they can best learn.
• Controlling the environment to minimize stress and distractions to optimize learning. https://vimeo.com/1180474876

The Article

My dog Muppy passed on March 24^th, 2026. As I was caring for her during her last month of life, I was also reading Beyond Belly Rubs: The Compassionate Pet Guardian, by my friends Niki Tudge and Louise Stapleton-Frappell. I’d read a section of the book and reflect on how it related to my relationship with Muppy. When I was finished, I knew I needed to share and recommend Beyond Belly Rubs with as many people as I could. This marvelous little book provides a simple recipe for creating a relationship between a person and a pet like the one I shared with Muppy. I believe Beyond Belly Rubs is the most important book anyone with a pet will ever read.

This book is not about training your precious pet; it is about something even more important: living a full, harmonious life with them, mutually beneficial to you and your pet, as family members and partners for life. This should be the book you read before you bring your pet home, and anytime you are unsure how to best meet your pet’s needs.

After reading the first quote in the introduction to Beyond Belly Rubs, I knew it would be an important read for everyone who shares their life with a dog.

This is exactly the attitude we must all strive for with all of our pets. They deserve no less.

We brought Muppy home from her rescue foster family on May 1^st, 2013. I knew that if Muppy and I were to develop a lifelong relationship, I would need to be kind and gentle in order to build trust. That meant going slow and allowing her to decide when and how she wished to interact with me. Near the end of our first day together, she chose to hop onto my lap and take a snooze. I was delighted that I had made her feel safe and welcome so quickly. If I had tried to force her to interact, it might have been days before she chose to do this.

In my opinion, our failure to consider how our pets feel about the things we ask of them and do to them has been a major flaw in how humankind approaches our companion animals.

Gus was the first dog my wife Paula and I raised together as a puppy. We brought him home in April of 1991. Because we wanted to do everything right, we enrolled in a puppy kindergarten class where we were told we had to be dominant and exert total control over Gus. The message was “good dogs” were ALWAYS quiet and compliant. On the first night in class, I did what the instructors told me to do. When I asked Gus to sit, and he just stood there, I forcefully “alpha rolled” Gus and held him down. I understand why Gus bit me that night; he was afraid for his life. It took weeks for Gus and me to trust each other again.

Early in my career as a pet care professional, I learned that a dog is a sentient, emotional being like me and that a dog’s feelings matter as much as mine. Their feelings affect their physical and emotional well-being, as well as their ability to learn. Sadly, there are still people calling themselves pet care professionals who would tell you to do the same things I was told to do to Gus in 1991.

I want you to read Beyond Belly Rubs: The Compassionate Pet Guardian to help you avoid the mistakes I made. It summarizes the most important things I have learned in my thirty-year career.

We cannot be kind to our dog if we do not first understand how they express emotions and how an emotional response in a dog, just as in humans, can stop their ability to learn. This is not something you consider only when training your dog; it MUST be considered in every interaction you have with your dog every day.

It can take weeks or even months to build trust, but as I have already noted, trust can be destroyed in a single instant. The relationship between Muppy and me has lasted because we trust each other and work at it, just like a couple, nurturing it every single day.

As part of that relationship, Muppy let me know when she was hurting and trusted me to do what was necessary to help her cross the Rainbow Bridge.

The fact that kindness is a skill set that must be learned and practiced is one of the most important lessons in Beyond Belly Rubs. I do not doubt that most of us believe we are always kind to our pets. I enrolled Gus in a puppy kindergarten class because I wanted to do the best for him. My intentions were good, but my understanding of what was kind and ethical was limited, and I made a mistake that harmed our relationship.

Neuroscientists and animal ethicists agree that the animals we choose as companions are far more like us than different from us. The cat, dog, and horse are all emotional, sentient beings with their own specific set of normal behaviors and emotional and physical needs.

A puppy, or even a senior dog, has the mental abilities, social intelligence, and emotional range of a 2 to 3-year-old human toddler.

While the human toddler will continue to develop as they age, the two dogs will reach a plateau and remain cognitively and emotionally equivalent to a human toddler for their entire lives.

Living with a Canine Toddler

Your number one priority is to ensure your puppy feels SAFE. Ensuring your puppy feels safe is more important than:

• Your desire to cuddle with your puppy.
• Showing off your puppy to friends and family
• Taking your puppy for a walk
• Teaching them things like shake, fetch, or sit

Like a human toddler, your dog, regardless of age, will require you to meet their most basic needs. Feeding them a diet natural for their species and providing them with access to adequate amounts of fresh water. Dogs, just like people, do better on whole, fresh food.

Pet obesity is a huge health crisis in the US, and no one is more to blame than humans who are either overfeeding or feeding food that is too high in carbohydrates. Yes, exercise plays a role, but in most cases, obesity in dogs is due to bad food choices.

FMI – Pet Obesity Is A Major Health Issue for Our Pets – Please, Do What You Can to Help!

Your dog, like you, will need to urinate and defecate throughout the day. You will need to kindly teach them where to go, and then make sure you take them out as needed, no matter the weather or whatever else you have going on.

Your dog is a family member and, as such, will need a safe, secure spot to sleep indoors. Whether it’s a doggie bed, on your bed, a doggie crate, or some combination of several places, it is ultimately up to you and, yes, your dog. If your dog does not feel a resting place is safe or comfortable, you need to provide one that is.

Dogs like us also need annual medical care and, at some point in their lives, emergency medical care.

Just like a toddler, most dogs will require some level of active and direct supervision and management throughout their lives. Crates and baby gates can be especially helpful in the first couple of months. As well as a fenced yard and working with a professional dog trainer who uses positive reinforcement training, as we do at ForceFreePets and Green Acres Kennel Shop.

Dogs, like humans, are social animals. That means they like to interact with other living beings. As the one who added the dog to your family, you have a responsibility to provide companionship throughout your dog’s life. Whether that’s going for a walk or some silliness in the backyard, your dog appreciates every moment of time you spend with them.

If you want to learn more about your dog’s most basic needs, I encourage you to read this article on my blog, Helping Your Dog Thrive – Brambell’s Five Freedoms.

Beyond Belly Rubs also includes, in Chapter 7, sections on the Five Domains for dogs, cats, and horses.

The Skills One Needs to Be A Trusted and Compassionate Pet Guardian

Beyond Belly Rubs lists the following skills one needs to be a trusted and compassionate pet guardian. They include:

• Recognizing when our dog is experiencing either distress or eustress.
• Creating optimal conditions for your dog to learn.
• Understanding that a dog “misbehaving” is not being defiant or dominant.
• Being patient and teaching your dog at a pace where they can best learn.
• Controlling the environment to minimize stress and distractions to optimize learning.

Recognizing when our dog is experiencing either distress or eustress

As your pet’s guardian, it is absolutely essential for you to be able to recognize when your dog is experiencing either distress or eustress. This ability is also necessary for any friend, family member, or pet care professional who might interact with or care for your dog, yet this knowledge is lacking among many.

Stress exists in two forms: distress and eustress. Distress is often associated with negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, fear, frustration, helplessness, and sadness. Whereas eustress is often associated with positive emotions such as anticipation, excitement, happiness, hope, and joy. Both types of stress, eustress and distress, can trigger a physiological reaction, leading to a heightened state of arousal in your pet that, in turn, can limit their ability to learn and can make behavior less predictable. The same things can happen to us.

For example, have you ever been in a class or at work and not feeling well, or worried about a loved one in the hospital? You were likely experiencing distress and, if in class, were not learning as easily as you usually do; if at work, you were probably less productive than usual.

The parts of our body that handle stress are virtually identical in our dogs, so they often experience the same feelings we do when under any type of stress.

A video, How Would YOU Like It?, was released by the San Diego Humane Society in 2023, and it is brilliant. It illustrates things people do with or to dogs that cause dogs’ distress, yet many continue to do them because they do not know or do not care.

So that no dogs would be unnecessarily harmed in the production of this video, the dog’s part is played by the woman in the grey hoodie, and the human causing the distress is played by the man in the blue sweater. I encourage you to watch it at https://forcefreepets.com/shared-video-howwouldyoulikeit/

To understand when our dog is experiencing distress or eustress, we need to read their body language. Dogs use their entire bodies, including their ears, eyes, mouth, and tail, to silently communicate how they are feeling, whether they are neutral or experiencing stress. Since it is a visual signal, you MUST be watching your dog to see it.

These signals, averting the eyes, licking the lips, and yawning, are all ways a dog communicates they are uncomfortable. You’ll learn more about them if you take ForceFreepets Puppy and Rescue Headstart-ONLINE or Basic Manners classes.

Canine communication will be a major topic in any reputable dog training class. If it’s not covered by your trainer, you need a new trainer. However, if you want to learn more, these three books are excellent resources.

• A Kids’ Comprehensive Guide to Speaking Dog, Niki Tudge, 2017, 978-0999262092 [Also appropriate for adults!]
• On Talking Terms with Dog: Calming Signals, Turid Rugaas, 2005, 978-0954803216
• Doggie Language: A Dog Lover’s Guide to Understanding Your Best Friend, Lili Chin, 20978-178783701020,

All three of these books are available at Green Acres Kennel Shop as well as many other places

Creating optimal conditions for your dog to learn

I think we would all agree that neither person in this image is feeling happy. Our emotional state, if we are experiencing distress or eustress, can also affect our dog’s response to us. If we are angry, our dog can detect our anger in our facial expressions and in changes to the pheromones we produce. Remember, your dog’s sense of smell is much more sensitive than ours and is one way they can detect whether we are safe or a threat. You smell differently when you are angry, sad, anxious, happy, etc.

So please remember: if you come home angry or upset, you may look like these two and give off a scent that suggests you may not be safe. Remember, your dog does not know why you’re angry, just that you are, and thus may not be safe, and so they may choose to avoid you.

If you are not in a well-balanced emotional state, you will not be an effective teacher, so don’t even try to train the dog until you are in a good mood.

Neuroscientists have learned that a dog is cognitively and emotionally equivalent to a 2 to 3-year-old human toddler. Toddlers, like dogs, can be easily distracted and may be prone to unexpected emotional outbursts. While most humans outgrow these traits, most dogs do not. This is important to remember when training and setting expectations for our dog.

Just as a child who is distracted or in the middle of an emotional outburst is unlikely to learn, so is our dog.

Both humans and dogs learn best in an environment with little or no distractions. The best place to start teaching your dog is in a quiet room in your home, with no other pets, no other people, and no toys or other interesting things in the environment; just you, the dog, and some meaty treats to use as rewards.

PLEASE Be Patient – You will need to train your dog in a wide variety of environments and scenarios, slowly increasing the level of distractions, before they will understand that what you are teaching them applies in many situations.

All animals, yes, even goldfish, are subject to this golden rule of behavior.

A behavior that is rewarded will be repeated, and the more it is rewarded and repeated, the stronger it becomes.

Just like us, dogs are more likely to repeat a behavior when they are rewarded for it. The more times they are rewarded, the stronger it becomes. If the rewards go away, like you no longer getting your paycheck, the behavior may go away as well. If you stop rewarding your dog for coming to you, that behavior may become less reliable.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is failing to reward a behavior they want and like when they did not ask for it. If you see your dog calmly lying several feet away from the dinner table as the family eats, and you like that behavior, don’t ignore that behavior – REWARD IT!

IF YOU WANT AND LIKE CALM BEHAVIOR. REWARD IT AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY

Why does Muppy stay by my side on a walk? Why does she race back to me when I call her? Why does she dance with me in a field? Muppy does these things because she was trained with food and because I made training FUN for both of us. It’s why we are both smiling in these photos. The best trainers, whether amateur or professional, ALWAYS make training fun for both you and your dog and use food rewards.

And recognize if training the dog is fun, that means you’re more likely to do it. That’s positive reinforcement for you.

Canine Behavioral Experts agree that a dog will not learn if they do NOT feel safe. Pain and force make dogs feel threatened or unsafe, which is why the use of techniques and tools that were designed to cause pain or fear or to require force are considered unnecessary, unethical, and may cause aggression.

These 5 organizations: the American Animal Hospital Association, the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior, the Pet Professional Accreditation Board, and the Pet Professional Guild are the leading authorities on dog behavior and humane practices in the US.

Understanding that a dog “misbehaving” is not being defiant or dominant

The idea that our dog would dominate us and think it’s the Alpha is utter nonsense.

The animals we call dogs and grey wolves evolved from a common canine ancestor about 130,000 years ago. Although the grey wolf and my dog, Muppy, share the same ancestor, they look and behave very differently. The common ancestry and flawed research on wolf behavior have led to many myths about wolves and dogs, the most detrimental being dominance. Unlike the wolf, the dogs are not even pack animals.

The American Animal Hospital Association, the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior, the Pet Professional Accreditation Board, and the Pet Professional Guild all agree that dominance theory, the idea that dogs compete against humans to be the Alpha of the household, is outdated and was based on poor research. Later research has demonstrated that a pack operates like a cooperative family unit.

Unsurprisingly, research has also demonstrated that dogs respond well to kindness & rewards. Being dominant destroys the trust and the bond between you and your dog. This seems to be common sense, but sadly, many people today lack what should be common.

Being patient and teaching your dog at a pace where they can best learn

It is essential to be patient when teaching your dog and to adjust the pace of training to suit them best.

Dogs, like human toddlers, can have short attention spans and be easily distracted. For that reason, I recommend that training sessions be no longer than five minutes. If you’ve trained for two minutes and your dog is not into it, just end the session and do something fun that you will both enjoy.

An hour later, after the 2-minute training session and a fun walk, you close the window and the drapes to eliminate any distractions, and your dog remains focused for 5-minutes of training. Afterward, you reward the dog’s attention by again doing something fun!

Thank you for reading this article and/or watching these videos!

However, for the benefit of you and your pets, please read the entire book, then encourage every family member in your home to watch the videos and read it as well. If your children are too young, explain the book’s basic principles as best you can.

Next, you need to make a list of people who might interact with your pet. As your pet’s guardian, it is ultimately your responsibility to ensure they treat your pet kindly. This might include:

• Other family members not living with you,
• Friends and Neighbors,
• People Who Work in your Home or Yard,
• Delivery People,
• and More!

Next, you need to make a list of professionals who might work with your pet. Do not presume that just because they are professionals, they know the material we’ve just discussed and will always treat your pet kindly. To treat a pet kindly and with compassion does take knowledge and patience. Not everyone in the pet care profession has those qualities. As your pet’s guardian, it is ultimately your responsibility to ensure they treat your pet kindly.

When selecting the following, make sure they are and always will be kind and compassionate:

• Veterinarians and their team,
• Boarding & Day Care Facilities,
• Pet Sitters & Dog Walkers,
• Groomers,
• Trainers & Animal Behavior Consultants,
• Shelters, Rescues, & Breeders,
• and More!

I sincerely hope that you have found this presentation enlightening and that you will go on to read Beyond Belly Rubs. You will learn much more than the few items I have chosen to highlight here. Lastly, I hope your relationship with your dog is as wonderful as the one shared by Muppy and me.