Poppy and Panda – serious communications professionals
People who don’t have dogs sometimes assume it’s a pretty simple relationship: you feed them, walk them, love them, and they love you back. What nobody tells you is that being a dog mom is also a masterclass in communication. I have two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels (Poppy and Panda), and while they are the same breed, both have distinct personalities and needs.
It took me a while to connect the dots, but at some point, I realized the instincts I was using while holding their leashes are not so different from the ones I rely on in my work.
Reading the Room
Cavaliers are expressive dogs, but they can’t tell you what they need. You learn to pay attention. For example, the way Poppy pulls on her leash hanging up by the door when she’s ready to go out, or the shift in Panda’s energy when he isn’t feeling well. I had to get fluent in a language with no words.
That kind of attentiveness matters a lot in PR. So much of this work is about picking up on what isn’t being said; whether it’s a client who’s nervous about media exposure, or a journalist whose questions are starting to go somewhere unexpected, or a conversation that’s shifted in a way that tells you it’s time to adjust. The same way I’ve learned to read Panda and Poppy, I’ve learned to stay tuned in to the signals that don’t come with a clear label.
Patience as a Practice
Anyone who has spent time with a dog knows there’s no rushing them. Panda will find a bush or a patch of grass that requires a full investigation, and no amount of gentle leash pressure is going to speed that process up. So, in those moments, I’ve learned to take a breath, wait, and get ready to move along when he is ready.
Patience is not something that comes naturally to me, so it is helpful to have this practice. Some of my best decisions have come from taking a beat before responding – whether it was a response to a tricky reporter email, or a campaign that wasn’t landing, or a situation that needed more thought than my gut reaction was offering. A dog walk, it turns out, is one of the most productive things I can do when I’m stuck. Time outside has a way of solving problems that staring into a screen can’t.
Working Under Pressure with Competing Priorities
Here is the reality of a morning in my house: Panda wants breakfast, Poppy wants to play fetch, and my phone is already buzzing. There’s often a pitch that needs to be reviewed ASAP, a client call in an hour, and three unread messages that all start with “quick question.”
Dogs are remarkably good at mirroring your stress back at you, and why it is important to learn to stay calm when everything is happening at once, because the moment you spike, everything around you spikes too. Staying grounded when the priorities are piling up is a muscle that I have learned to train, and I have Panda and Poppy to thank for that lesson.
The work we do at RebuttalPR is fast-moving, high-stakes, and rarely follows a tidy schedule. It requires the same things that Panda and Poppy have been quietly teaching me for years: pay attention, slow down when you need to, and don’t let the chaos throw you off.
I’m not saying my dogs are the secret to good PR. But they’re very cute, they’ve never missed a deadline, and at this point I’m pretty sure they’ve earned a spot on the RebuttalPR team.
