The Healing Power of Dogs with Erin Jorich

I love hearing how longtime yoga teachers make this career work. This week’s guest, Erin Jorich, has figured out how to use her skillset as a yoga teacher and combine it with her love for dogs.

Along with her dog, Wallace, Erin works part-time for Canine Inspired Change, an organization that brings dogs into schools, juvenile detention centers, and other settings to improve the well being and social emotional skills of the people there.

On this episode, Erin talks about how her yoga skills are transferable to the dog therapy work she does: Her years of teaching yoga make it easy for her to communicate clearly and effectively with the dog/human “teams” she trains. Her trauma-informed yoga certification means she understands the importance of giving kids choice and agency when they’re working with the dogs.

Erin finds that splitting her time between Canine Inspired Change and working as a yoga teacher afford her balance and stability that she might not have if she chose one over the other. Most importantly, as the folks she works with gain a variety of skills — from more confidence to self-compassion to self-regulation — she gets to witness the healing power of dogs firsthand.