Sit With Me: Meditations to Do With Your Dog
Discover how guided meditations with your dog can calm your mind, regulate your nervous system, and deepen your connection.
How Dogs Are Natural Healers
Working with therapy dogs has led me to witness many miracles in hospital rooms and classrooms. At some point, I realized something simple: I’ve been turning to them for my own mental health, too. That’s when I created Sit With Me, a way to intentionally connect with the emotional benefits dogs already offer—without training, commands, or trying to fix anything. Just sitting together can shift something.
Dogs don’t just comfort us.
They regulate us.
They bring us back into our bodies.
Into the present moment.
Into something steadier than whatever we’re carrying.
Why This Happens
There’s a reason for that. Research shows that being near a dog can reduce cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, while increasing oxytocin—the hormone linked to bonding, safety, and connection. Heart rate slows. Blood pressure drops. The body begins to move out of fight-or-flight and into a more regulated state.
This is co-regulation—when one nervous system helps steady another.
Dogs do this naturally.
Quietly.
Without asking anything from us.
Healing With Your Dog
I wanted to create something that helps you experience that on purpose.
Not as a technique.
As a practice.
It’s called Sit With Me.
A collection of guided audio meditations you can do with your dog—for anxiety, overwhelm, sleep, and everything in between.
Each one is designed to help you:
- feel calmer
- settle your body
- return to yourself
These are simple.
Quiet.
Grounded.
You don’t need to do them perfectly.
You don’t even need to feel ready.
You just need to show up—
and let your dog meet you there.
Where to Begin
The first meditation is now available inside my Substack: https://blissdog.substack.com/
Over time, I’ll be adding more:
- grounding
- sleep
- anxiety
- everyday regulation
So you have something to return to whenever you need it.
If this speaks to you, you can join me there.
Sit With Me gives you a way to receive that intentionally. Take a listen here and let me know your thoughts: https://blissdog.substack.com/p/sit-with-me-your-first-meditation
BlissDog by Susan Hartzler is a reader-supported publication. Paid members receive access to Sit With Me—dog-centered meditations designed to help you pause, breathe, and reconnect with your dog beside you. Seven would like it noted that this arrangement helps keep the treat jar properly stocked.
Life is better with dogs.
Seven and Paige Turner are living proof. 🐾
Sit With Me: When Everything Feels Like Too Much
A guided meditation to help you settle your body with your dog beside you.
This is the first Sit With Me meditation, and there are many more to come—each one created to help you settle, reconnect, and feel supported with your dog beside you. I would truly love to know how this felt for you, so please feel free to share your experience or leave a comment.
Thank you for being here and for supporting this work. It means more than I can say. Seven and Paige Turner would also like to remind you that sitting quietly with your dog is highly encouraged—and may be followed by snacks.
