Welcome to the Soul Touched by Dogs Podcast, the show for dog lovers who
see dogs not as toys or tools, but wise souls worth our respect and care.
I'm an Herrmann, and I'm your host.
I talk to poor some humans, people who do great work for dogs and their people.
So come and join us for today's conversation.
Anke: Hello and welcome, Jodi.
I'm super excited to have you here today.
Jody: I am super excited to be here, Anke.
Thank you so much for having me.
Anke: My pleasure.
Let's just start out with a two minute bird's eye overview.
Let people know where you're based and what's
Jody: your business.
Great.
So, I'm based in Austin, Texas.
And, um, I'm a New Yorker, a transplanted New Yorker in
Austin, and I am a health coach.
I'm a certified health coach for people and pets.
So I help pet parents, because this is all about pets.
Um, I help them solve problems with their pets, health related problems, emotional,
which is also health related issues.
Um, I help them become more connected to their animals and I
do it all through natural means.
I'm also an energy medicine practitioner.
So, things like homeopathy and frequency scanning, um, those are tools that
I've learned over many, many years and developed, um, but as a coach,
because there aren't very many health coaches, certainly pet health coaches
around yet, um, but I do think that I'm on the early end of something
that's going to become very popular.
Um, pet parents, what I've seen is Pet parents have become frustrated
with what's available to them in the conventional medical system.
And going to the vet, Getting prescribed, uh, pharmaceuticals, the
pharmaceuticals, working for a period of time when the pet is on them,
then once the pet is off, the problem returns, or it doesn't work at all, or
it creates more problems than it fixes.
There's always fallout from pharmaceuticals.
And that's not to say that sometimes pharmaceuticals aren't necessary, but I
look for, and I have learned and developed over the years, tools to address issues
without pharmaceuticals, naturally.
And these are tools that actually can help not only make conditions better.
But cure, whereas conventional medicine, vets are not taught to cure
and they're not taught prevention.
They're taught triage.
They're taught to give something to make a symptom go away.
So that's my job.
My job is to help educate and empower pet parents and help them solve
problems and learn tools to work naturally with their animals for
more vibrant health, longer lives.
Anke: Oh, couldn't love it more.
I could not love it more.
And it's, it's literally what you just explained, you know, the frustration,
like that's exactly what I felt when I first, you know, got my first dog.
You know, little puppy found in the streets, now there I was, no idea,
and the advice I got from the vets, it was like, what on earth is that?
Right, so it just made no sense, and it felt, it left me doubting always.
You know, there was always a strong sense of, hey, there's a
conflict of interest here, right?
So I, and is that really necessary?
Like that constant vaccination and that constant, like, take this
and fill the pill there, you know?
And so I was looking for more holistic approaches, you know, on all ends, you
know, be it health, be it behavior.
And more connection based, you know, because I'm thinking, well, I have
a part in the story here, right?
So I'm so glad.
And I do agree there is, it seems that there is a bit of a wave.
This is still, people start talking about this a lot more now, which I think
is just the most delightful time to be
Jody: in, right?
And all those ends, the behavior is connected to the
physical, very, very much so.
We have a Vegas nerve.
And so do our animals that run from the gut to the brain.
It's the hotline.
They talk all day long.
Really, 80 percent of your dog's serotonin is manufactured where?
In the gut.
Not in the brain.
Serotonin is one of the happy hormones.
Um, 80 percent or 90 percent of your pet's immune system is in the gut.
So balancing the gut microbiome, balancing hormones, in the body.
We spay and neuter from such a young age.
If you equate that with giving a hysterectomy to a 10 year old girl, people
would never dream of that for humans.
But in animals, it is those hormones like in humans are very necessary
with proper development and also protecting that animal from certain
diseases as That animal gets older.
So balancing the hormones, um, all of the things that we do
also creates a happier animal.
And there are tools that I've learned over the years that work on anxiety for dogs.
75 percent of all dogs here in the U.
S.
have anxiety, one form or another.
75%!
I mean, how crazy is that?
That is,
Anke: yeah.
Right?
So what are ways, how does that show up apart from the obvious, obvious kind of,
you know, are there hidden ways that this shows up which somebody might overlook?
Jody: Absolutely.
Yes, there are the obvious where a dog, you know, the body language, the tail
under the legs and the slinking back and the ears and the eyes expression or in
the going in the corner facing the wall.
I mean, those are heartbreaking, but there are things like, um, destroying.
Things like separation anxiety can present by an animal destroying the
house or something when you leave or, um, chewing their skin or, um, not eating.
Uh, dogs can be sensitive to everything from someone who wears a certain,
a hat or skin color or, um, men.
Or women, or children, or types of surfaces that you walk on, textures,
um, there's a whole host of things that create anxiety in various animals.
And most of that, they're based on past experiences, just like us, imprinting of
What we call paradigms that we've created in our subconscious, same with them.
If it was during the imprinting phase of, I think it's six to fourteen weeks,
um, it's very hard to get over that, but I've learned and developed tools
that help dogs, especially, um, become more calm and comfortable, desensitized,
and Um, they're the pet parent and the animal becoming more connected.
Hmm.
Anke: So, um, I mean, given that, you know, three out of four of my, of my
dogs were like found in the street.
Not even, they didn't even make it to a rescue place.
It just literally is wandering around, wandering around the street and,
um, it was, yeah, yeah, no, like.
You know, the first one, he was like horrible with separation
anxiety for the first few years.
He would,
yeah, he'd, he'd eat stuff.
Little tissues and socks and stuff like that.
And, but I mean,
Jody: initially, There's no shame.
These are like Individuals, you know, it doesn't mean that we're bad pet parents.
They come with their own baggage, especially street dogs or dogs that
have been in a shelter in Miami.
You could tell
Anke: with him, you could really picture the scene because obviously,
you know, where he, where we lived, you know, he would have
found food in rubbish bins, right?
So when I found him, he was like sucking when there's male voices.
Oh, well, like, you know, you, you know, the uniforms of the guys
who clean the street at night.
Jody: You can picture it.
You could just tell the whole story right there.
Anke: Yeah, yeah.
And it took a while for him to get to get over all of that, right?
So it's, yeah, yeah, it is possible.
That's the, that's the good news, right?
That it is possible because I think so often people hold back from adopting
a dog from a shelter because they're, you know, they're worried about all
the trauma things, the trauma baggage, and who knows, you know, what, what the
dog will, will display in one way or
Jody: another.
Yes, it takes time, patience.
Consistency and love.
Those are the four elements that I think if you're able to, and we're all human,
nobody can do all four all the time, but if you do it more than not, those
four elements, you will have success.
There are, there are very few dogs that just not able to be rehabilitated.
They're just so far gone.
Those dogs, it's tragic.
It's absolutely tragic and, you know, they, sometimes it's more
painful for those dogs to just exist.
So, I mean, that's a case by case basis, but most of the
time, that's not the case, so.
Oh, well,
Anke: I moved away, like, I moved to calmer places, you know, and people always
say, well, you're nuts, you moved for the dogs, well, yeah, you know, and it made a
lot of a difference when there wasn't this constant overstimulation where we used to
live, right, in this, you know, historic part of town where the widest street was
like two yards wide and there'd be, like, cats and dogs and scooters and tourists.
And, you know, and there was constant noise and, and, you know, smells and like
they would have suffered from constant, you know, stimulation, like overload, you
know, because you could really tell when we moved away where it's nicer and calmer,
all of a sudden there's no pulling on the leash, there's no separation, anxiety,
you know, all these things just drop
Jody: away.
It makes such a huge difference.
It's, you know, one of.
Um, our dogs, I was telling you earlier when we were just chatting that, um,
I got separated and divorced about a little over a year ago and, um,
one of our dogs, Jasper, a terrier mix, every crazy terrier you can
imagine was in Jasper, is in Jasper.
He was always reactive, um, my ex husband Stanley and I, uh, adopted him from
animal control in Harlem, New York, when we were living in New York City.
And we didn't know it when we met him at the shelter, but as soon as
we got him home, imagine living in the middle of New York City with a
dog where every man, woman, child, An animal, dog, that he saw, he would
lunge, shriek, bark, and try and bite.
And there are a gazillion of them.
I mean, if you put your city that you used to live in on steroids,
then you have New York City, right?
So it was an absolute nightmare trying to live with Jasper in New York and
then even moving to Florida with him and then ultimately to Austin.
He got a lot better over the years between training and other
things that I did with him.
But he still, I always had to watch him.
And then when Stanley and I divorced, Stanley moved back to the UK, but
he moved to the English countryside.
So fields and woods and just absolutely gorgeous expanses and not a lot
of people, not a lot of animals.
And we talked about this a lot when we were together that we always felt
Jasper would do better as an only dog.
So a couple of months after he went back to the UK, I met him.
At the airport in Atlanta, like sort of partway between where he was living
overseas and where I was with Jasper.
And it, it broke my heart to say goodbye to Jasper.
And I just knew, first of all, he was going to be with his dad, Stanley.
He loves the dogs, all of them.
I mean, we're still in touch, obviously, because he has our
child and I have his children.
And so, um, and literally it changed Jasper's life.
Jasper is never on a leash.
He has plenty of exercise running through fields and woods and chasing
rabbits, and he's on a beautiful diet.
People cannot believe that this dog was a reactive dog.
He meets all kinds of dogs, big and small, all kinds of people.
And he's never far from Stanley.
So he's living his best life.
And that too made a huge difference in, in his life in terms of the reactivity.
So yes, environment.
And who their person is, makes a huge difference.
And one of the things that I teach my pet parents is energy.
We all are made of energy, our dogs and us and everything around us.
And the energy that we bring to the table, our animals are so intuitive.
They pick it right up and they respond to it.
So if you're bringing anxious.
anticipatory energy to the table, or stressed energy, or, or sad energy.
Um, this is what they're going to pick up, and they are going to internalize that.
So, same with the flip side.
Yeah,
Anke: I mean, that's the beauty of it is that it goes both ways, right?
Because, you know, my second one, he was, he became even smaller.
He got taken away from some guy who was literally about to kill him off at like,
I don't know, not even two months old.
And he was always like super, he was a tough little dog to
deal with in the early days.
Until some, there was one piece that I never forgot where.
I heard the message, your only job is to help your dog relax, right?
And I was like, Oh, and then I realized to see that he wasn't, you know, that
he was just like, he's super sensitive.
And it occurred to me that he really, he was kind of nervous and whatever.
And there was a thunderstorm like miles away, you know?
And I'm like, Oh my God, if he can sense that.
You know, and if you look at everything he
Jody: did,
Anke: through the lens of, he's just like overstimulated.
He's just stressed because it's too much.
You would interpret his behavior in a whole different way, you know, and,
and I would always be able to tell when I'd go out for a walk with him and he'd
be pulled like crazy and he was like, like literally super highly strung, you
know, and I'd be like, I'm all right.
No, you're not.
You're worrying about this.
Like literally the moment I checked in with myself, you know, I know chill down.
Next thing you know, the dog was like halfway down karma, you know, it was
so, because I'm thinking like, he's so sensitive and I can, you know, I might be
able to, you know, trick another person to say I'm okay when I'm internally
boiling, but I can't trick my dog.
Jody: No, you can't fool them.
And you know, it's interesting because Trainers, some trainers
used to say the leash is like, you know, a connection, like a lightning
rod between you and your dog.
But it goes deeper than that because it's not only the leash, it's really Everything
around you, your energy, um, your dog picks up your energy from everything
around you, your aura, everything.
And when people come to me for help with intestinal issues, tummy problems
for their animals or with, um, skin issues, it's all part of the same thing.
Yes.
We deal with nutrition.
I'm certified in nutrition for dogs as well.
So we deal with nutrition as the foundation of the house.
That is super important.
Um, because you can be feeding your dog certain food that
creates anxiety and depression.
People don't realize that, but then We talk about energy and energy
medicine and various forms of energetics and how to help your animal.
And sometimes that would be homeopathy, which is energy medicine.
Sometimes that would be frequency scanning, which is energy.
It's literally a database.
You can do it on your own computer or phone.
And if you have access to this database, it scans the body, you or your pets.
It tells you what frequencies are out of balance, and then it optimizes those
frequencies to be back into balance.
Your pet feels better.
You feel better.
And the more you do it, the more in balance your frequencies
are for longer periods.
I mean, we live in an ocean of motion, so our frequencies are constantly changing.
Um, but because Every cell vibrates on its own frequency.
This machine is super cool because it goes by chromosome.
So you, and it spits out reports for every type of scan that it does.
So you are able to see what could be brewing.
Only energetically at this point, not an actual condition yet in
your body or in your pet's body.
So you can see if it keeps coming up.
You can do things, lifestyle changes and whatnot to head things off at the
path so they never become illnesses.
So we have a lot of beautiful, beautiful tools.
That I use to help pet parents, uh, with their animals and themselves
because there are, there are clients where I, um, they're pets, health
coach, and I'm also their health coach.
That's
Anke: such a cool combination.
So where can people go find, find out more about you, get in touch with
Jody: you?
Um, you can reach me through my site, which is Jodi.
J O D Y, L like Linda, Teich, T like Thomas, E I C H E dot
com, Jody L Teich dot com.
And if you put that into your browser, you will come up with my pet site.
And before too long, um, because it's in the works, I will also
have my, um, people, my person, uh, health coaching site up.
And, uh, you'll be able to reach me from my pet site through to that as well.
Awesome.
Anke: Well, that's going to be, if you're listening in the show notes,
if you're reading it in the, in the blog or newsletter, it's going
to be directly below this video.
So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom.
I definitely want to hear more about you.
So I can't wait to continue the conversation.
So for today, so much,
Jody: Anke.
It's been my pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks so much for listening.
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Email me at Anke.
That's A N k E at Soul touched by dogs.com.