Calm humans can transmit subtle cues that help relax animals, related to polyvagal theory and co-regulation.

“And I also think that that nice slow stroke if you're sort of in a calm emotional state yourself then we might tap into another interesting uh emotion theory which is the poly vagal theory and this concept of co-regulation. So if you're really calm and relaxed then you're sort of sending out these cues these um um subtle cues that other individuals are reading and picking up on. And it seems that we do that with visav also our dogs and uh certainly also horses it seems. So that just being calm and relaxed yourself can really help relax the dog.”