How To Use Feel Felt Found

This is a powerful technique to share your opinions: Feel Felt Found

"I can feel how you are saying that you....."
"I felt that way to in this similar situation...."
"What I found is this...."

Here's an example: Yesterday I met a woman who had a small four month old chihuahua puppy. I was trying to look at some cats up for adoptions, and her dog was really barking at me as I was trying to walk by. The dog was exhibiting what is called guarding behavior. It is one of the biggest problems shelters have a problem in adopting out small dogs.

I saw that they also had two small kids, and I felt I needed to share this with them, since shelters receive many puppies with this behavior problem when the dog exhibits it against a child.

I mentioned about the guarding behavior to her husband. I told them they should consider getting some training on how to deal with that guarding behavior in their small dog. He said that they thought the guarding behavior was cute.

I told them the problem is that the behavior in small breed dogs can get worse if not dealt with. He still was still thinking it was ok.

I then used more of a Feel Felt Found approach.

FEEL: I told him it is definitely cute. I like fiesty dogs that have spirit.
FELT: I told them how a friend had tried to adopt a small dog from a shelter and the shelter would not adopt to her unless she took a class in how to deal with guarding behaviors.
FOUND: I looked into the issue and found that it is the biggest problem shelters have on doing adoptions of small dogs, and that the behavior can get very bad, to the point where the dog is guarding the wife against the husband, or the puppy is guarding its food against the children. They will get used to guarding whoever or whatever they are closest to, and they do this the more they are allowed to do it. But when a dog is young it is much easier to teach it not to do guarding, and to deal with this behavior so the dog can be a good dog. When the problem is allowed to progress into adulthood, it is much more difficult to deal with.

He came away saying he was going to do some research too, and they both thanked me very much for sharing that with them.