Dogs, Butterflies and Reiki

I spent most of last spring "tutoring" Kino on yard etiquette - repeating over and over again "The butterflies are our friends" and "We don't eat the butterflies" - because my darling boy couldn't stop himself from trying to devour our lovely visitors each day.

Fortunately, by the time summer rolled around, Kino finally understood and for the rest of the summer and all through the fall, we peacefully co-existed with our daily butterfly visitors.

So, you can imagine my disappointment when the butterflies reemerged a few weeks ago and I found Kino chasing after them. Once again I was reminding him again and again to leave the butterflies alone.

Last weekend, we were out in the yard and Kino gave in to his instinct to go after one of our beautiful visitors but amazingly, before biting down on the butterfly, he suddenly remembered that he wasn't supposed to and he backed away from the butterfly and then looked at me as if he deserved a treat for remembering.  :-)

Unfortunately, he had already slobbered all over the poor thing and because his wing was bent, the butterfly wasn't able to fly away. Sitting down on the ground with the butterfly, I began to give him Reiki in the hopes that he could recover from his German shepherd encounter.

After about 10 minutes of Reiki, the butterfly climbed up on my hand.  He stayed there for a while and then he decided to walk up my arm, and eventually made it up to my shoulder.  He sat on my shoulder for another 10-15 minutes, which was fine with me, as it was much safer for him to be up there where Kino couldn't reach him.

Eventually he tried to fly off my shoulder but he didn't make it very far and ended up on the ground.  Putting my hand down next to him, I offered him some more Reiki and once again he climbed up on my hand.  When I looked at the clock and realized I had to leave soon for an appointment, I placed him in one of the flower pots in the yard so he would be safe.

When I got home, I was delighted to find that he was gone and since Kino was tucked away safely in the house while I was away, I know the only way the butterfly could have left was on his own. It was a really cool experience to give Reiki to a butterfly - and while I feel blessed to have had the opportunity, I don't want to have to do it again, so Kino's refresher course will have to continue.  :-)