Supporting Our Pets Through the Holidays

Here is a little PSA from your pets.  :-) 

The holiday season is a crazy time of year, not just for us but for our animals as well. For animals who live in our homes, it can be very confusing. WE know what's going on, but they don't always understand and it can make the holidays even more stressful for them. This is especially true for animals that are new to our home, but it still applies to animals who have been with us a while and have been through a few holidays seasons.

Many people talk about how their animals behave strangely during the holidays and most of the time, I believe it is because they don't understand what is going on. Their regular routine is changed up and they often feel ill at ease because of it.

What if a group of people unexpectedly showed up at your home and didn't bother to tell you how long they would be staying? Would that potentially put your nose out of joint? Especially if those people set up camp in your bedroom. There can be so much chaos going on around your pets that they become overwhelmed / overstimulated during much of the holiday season. 

If you think about it from their perspective, this is what they see:

- People coming and going, regular schedules and routines being different

- Packages being brought into the house, that they aren't supposed to touch

- Trees being dragged into the house that get a lot of our attention

- Lots of smells coming from the kitchen as we cook but don't necessarily share with them

- People coming over, sometimes spending the night, often displacing them from their usual hang out and sleeping spots

They often get yelled at or spoken to in a firm voice. We say things like:

- Get out of those packages, those aren't for you

- Get out of the tree, you are going to break the ornaments

- Stop drinking the water from the tree stand - you have a water bowl

- Don't you dare pee on that tree

- Go in the other room, Aunt Gertrude is allergic to dogs/cats

- You can't lay in the kitchen when I am cooking

All of it can be very confusing to them and they often don't end up enjoying the holiday season at all. I think the holidays could be much more enjoyable for everyone if we talked to our animals and explained what was going on. It would also be wonderful if we made some accommodations for them so that they can enjoy the holidays as well.

It is my belief that if we can communicate with them and manage their expectations, they can be a positive part of the celebrations, instead of adding another element of stress to it. 

Here are some holiday tips that might make the season "brighter" for your pets:

- If you are going to have a house full of people, let your animals know. Tell them . . . this many people are coming and this is how long they are staying. 

- If you want your animal to do anything different, please let them know. If your animal is going to have to sleep somewhere where they aren't used to sleeping, tell them that and explain why. Let them know how long this new arrangement will last and please make it as comfortable and inviting as possible for them. (A bed or comfortable blanket? Some special toys? Access to their food and water if appropriate?) 

- If your animal is used to having quiet time to rest in the house and you know that isn't going to be easy when you have a house full of people, tell them where they can go to be "alone" if that's what they need. Give them a specific room or place in the house they can go to if they need to "get away from it all." Again, make it as comfortable and inviting as possible for them. 

- Tell them you are bringing a tree into the house if that is part of your holiday routine and explain to them that it is for decoration. Let them know you are making sure it has water so they don't feel the need to water it themselves. :-) Explain to them that the things hanging on the tree or placed under the tree are not for them to play with or eat. Then make sure they know where the things are that they CAN play with and eat. 

- Set them up for success whenever possible. Think about things from their perspective. If your cat will have a difficult time resisting the urge to play with the ornaments, maybe you can avoid putting your most treasured ornaments where they can reach them? If any of the gifts under the tree are for your dogs  or cats and they have any kind of scent, maybe you can put them some place safe until it is time to open gifts. If their food and water are normally located in the kitchen but you don't want your pets under-foot when you are cooking, can you relocate their food and water to a place that is easy for them to access? If so, make sure they know where that location is. 

- Include them in the celebration in whatever way you can. Whether that is feeding them at the same time the rest of you are sitting down to eat so they feel they are participating in the celebratory meal too, or giving them something to unwrap when the rest of you are unwrapping your gifts. Let them know they are part of what is going on too. 

I believe the holidays can be happier for all of us - 2-legged and 4-legged alike, if we can set everyone's expectations for how things are going to be different for a few days or weeks. I bet  your animals will thank you - in their own special way!

Communication Nuances

As an animal communicator, I relay information I get from an animal to their guardian, often with the goal of helping them solve behavioral issues or get to the bottom of medical mysteries. Animals give me information by actually sharing what they they feel, so that I feel what they feel in my own body, whether they are physical sensations or emotions.  From there, it is often up to their guardian and myself to interpret what I am picking up to make more sense of it.  

Sometimes, it is straight forward . . . I feel pain in my knee and the guardian might say "I noticed Rocco was limping a little bit on our walk yesterday."  Or I may feel a sensation of being overwhelmed by noise and feeling afraid that the noise was over my head and the guardian can piece it together by saying something like "Oh, we were having work done on our roof last week, and that is when Misty started acting so strangely." 

Sometimes, it isn't quite as straight forward and often it is because the animal doesn't know how to explain what is happening.  They can't tell me "I have this type of medical condition and this is the name of it" so we have to work at interpreting what I am getting and do a bit of our own detective work.  With one recent case, I was working with a rabbit who was losing his fur. My skin felt itchy when I was working on him but that was all he could give me.  I sensed that he was allergic to something but he couldn't tell me what it was.  His 'mom' and I did some brainstorming and she remembered that she had changed the type of hay in his hutch about the same time he had started losing his fur, so she decided to try cleaning out his hutch and going back to the old hay she had been using before.  After a short while, we didn't see any improvement in his fur loss, in fact, it seemed to be a little worse, so we went back to the drawing board.  We were looking for other things he could be allergic to and wondered if it was something he was eating.  Each of the new things that had been introduced about the time he started having problems was removed from his diet and still there wasn't any improvement.  

The next time I came to see him, my skin was itching even more.  I told his 'mom' that I felt like things were crawling on my skin this time and it gave us an idea . . . maybe he had skin mites. We did some research and found pictures of rabbits who had similar fur loss, caused by something called "Walking dandruff."  When treatment for "walking dandruff" was administered, he finally started to improve.  

I know that he was giving me all the information he could.  If he knew the word "mites" and what they were, I am sure he would have given it to me sooner.  All he knew was that his skin was itching so that is what he was showing me.  It was up to his guardian and I to interpret what he was showing me.   Similar to Misty, the dog that was so frightened by the work being done on the roof.  She told me what she knew . . . that there was noise over her head and that it was frightening her.  It was up to her guardian and I to figure out what it was from there, since I don't think Misty knows a lot about roofing contractors.  

And while the 'interpretation' part can take a while to sort out sometimes, the beautiful thing about animals is that they aren't upset with us for not figuring it out sooner.  They know we always do the best that we can.  After we finally figured out what was going on with my little bunny friend, I apologized to him for taking so long to get to the bottom of it.  I told him I was sorry we couldn't figure it out sooner and wished he didn't have to suffer for all those additional weeks with itchy skin.  What I picked up from him was that he knew we'd figure it out eventually and that he wasn't worried about it.  He didn't hold anything against us for not figuring it out sooner. 

I often talk to people who are beating themselves up for not being able to figure out what was wrong with their animal sooner but I know their animals don't blame them.  Animals don't want us to be hard on ourselves.  They do the best they can to communicate with us and then trust that we'll figure it out when the time is right.  

Just this week, I spoke with a woman whose dog had a cancerous tumor in his neck.  She knew something was wrong for many months, as he wasn't interested in eating and when he did eat, he would often throw up.  She told me that she kept saying to him "Please help me understand what is wrong so I can make it better" and each time, her dog would come and sit right in front of her with his head tilted up.  She thought he was just wanting to be petted and she would continue to say "I don't understand what you are telling me but if you can show me what's wrong, I will do everything I can to make it better." When the tumor was finally found, she realized that he had been doing just what she asked, in the best way that he knew how.  She kept asking him what was wrong and he kept showing her his neck.  He wasn't upset with her for not figuring it out sooner.  Animals seem to be more peaceful about that part of communication, trusting that eventually the pieces will fall into place, never holding it against us.

So, if you have ever beaten yourself up over not figuring out what was going on with your animal, I hope you will be kinder to yourself.  Animals understand that we do the best we can to interpret what they are showing us.  And even if we get it wrong, or miss the clues they are giving us, they love us just as much.   

When I 'talk' to animals, I don't hear full sentences.  I feel sensations and from there, I partner with their guardian to piece together what I am picking up with what they have noticed as well. The guardians play a very important role in helping me understand what their animal is communicating to me, so it is paramount that I communicate well with the guardians too.