Positive Squirrel Experiences

On Father’s day, we were sitting around the table sharing stories, when we got on the subject of animals.  I told a story about a friend of mine who couldn’t figure out why the almonds she kept in a small bowl on the coffee table kept ending up on the floor.  One day, she discovered the answer when she saw a squirrel coming through the sliding glass door that she had left opened, and helping himself to her almonds.  Apparently word got out that a) my friend had almonds on her coffee table and b) that she often left the sliding glass door opened, because she now has a whole host of squirrels who come by her house for a snack. 

My dad said, “That reminds me of another squirrel story” and he proceeded to tell us about the day he found a baby squirrel in the yard. He was a black squirrel, which are pretty uncommon in our old neighborhood.  Thinking he was dead, he put on a pair of gloves and when he went to pick him up, he realized the squirrel was still alive, although just barely.  My dad told us about how he gave water to the little guy, by using a dropper and how he continued to do so all day long.  My jaw was hanging open, as I listened to my former Naval Academy “I-don’t-do-feelings” dad talk about how he doted on this little squirrel.  I always thought I got my compassion for animals from my mom.  After all, she was the one who took care of stray cats, not just feeding them but knitting them blankets to go in the beds she would make for them in the yard.  I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.

My dad continued to tell us the story . . . After nursing the squirrel all day, he put him up on the top of the fence, hoping that it would be easier for his family to find him up there.  When he went out a little while later to check on him, he was gone.  My dad didn’t know if his family had come to find him, if he was well enough to walk away on his own or if he had fallen off the fence and landed in the neighbors yard on the other side.  He said he thought about it quite a few times and wondered what ever happened to the little black squirrel . . . and then one day, almost a year later, my dad was in the yard and a black squirrel came hopping down the fence, stopped right in front of my dad and stared at him for a while . . . and then continued on his way.  My dad said he suspected it was the same squirrel stopping by to let him know he had made it. 

I couldn’t think of anything else to say besides “Wow.”  It was “wow” on so many levels. My dad didn’t believe I could communicate with animals when I was a little girl and quite honestly, I don’t think he believes I can do it now, but he was pretty sure he got a “message” himself from the black squirrel, who wanted him to know he was OK.  Maybe he isn’t as closed off to what I do as he likes to make me think.  It was also a sweet realization for me that my compassion for animals didn’t just come from my mom, I got it from both of my parents.  

New Opportunity to Practice Gratitude

Last week, I sat down in the backyard to relax after a long day and saw a young rat walking slowly across my patio.  Initially, I was shocked at the guts he had, sauntering across my yard like that, and I'll admit, I'm never excited to see a rat running through my yard.  My irritation that a rat was in my yard gave way to compassion though when I realized he was dragging his back leg a bit and seemed disoriented.  Seeing that something was wrong with him compelled me to start sending him Reiki, as soon as he settled behind my lawn chair.  I stayed several feet away, as I didn't want to scare him, and for about twenty minutes, I sent him Reiki.  When I got up to go inside, he disappeared into the crack in the fence.  I felt relieved and hoped the energy had helped him.

The next afternoon, I was in the backyard making a mental note of the fact that I had exactly enough time to shower, get dressed, have a bite to eat and get to an appointment, when my little rodent friend appeared from behind a potted plant.  I watched him as he tried to walk across the patio and then collapsed.  I saw down on the ground next to him and started to send him Reiki, this time from less than a foot away.  I was worried about him and wasn't sure what to do to help him.  I thought maybe he was thirsty or hungry, so I got some water for him and some bread.  He drank some water but didn't touch the bread, so I went back inside and got some cheese for him.   He didn't seem interested in that either and it was then then I looked at the clock and realized how late it was.  After a very quick shower, I assured him I'd be back soon if he needed more Reiki, and flew out the door with wet hair and an empty stomach.  I hoped that he'd feel better by the time I returned.

Rushing back from my appointment, I ran straight into the backyard to find my little rodent friend laying on his side, gasping for breath with little drops of blood coming out of his nose.  I couldn't stop the tears from flowing as I realized the Reiki wasn't going to make him better, but instead was going to help him make his transition.

I don't know why it upset me as much as it did, but my heart was breaking for this little guy.  I called a friend of mind and tearfully told her what was going on, knowing she would understand since a baby crow had died in her yard a few weeks earlier.  She reminded me that everything is always in Divine order and that if he was going to die in my yard, it was because he was supposed to.  She suggested that I try to focus on gratitude, which we both agreed felt like an impossible feat at that moment and yet we were equally sure it was the right things to do.

For the next four or five hours, I sat with him and gave him Reiki.  I sat on the ground next to him, with my hand cupped over his little body and I could feel how much he appreciated the energy. The Reiki would help him get into a very peaceful state and he would fall asleep for a little while.  A few times, I wondered if maybe I needed to give him more space, so when he was asleep, I would get up and sit down somewhere else in the yard. When he would wake up, he'd try to move again, and each time, he would make it over to me and then collapse at my feet.  As I continued giving him Reiki, I kept telling him he was safe, that he was loved and that he was not alone . . . and I cried.  I realized it is the thing that we probably all want to know and my heart swelled with love, compassion and sadness.

I tried to focus on what I was grateful for . . . I was grateful that he felt comfortable enough to make his transition in my yard and I was grateful that I didn't have anywhere else I really needed to be so that I could hold the space for him and honor him on this last part of his journey here on earth.

Finally around 7pm, I decided the headache I had was probably not just from all the crying I had been doing but because I still hadn't eaten.  I went inside to make myself some dinner and when I returned to the yard, he was gone.  I suspect he went under my deck to finish his transition there.

After as emotional as I had been all day, I was surprised to find that I felt nothing but peace.  I knew I had done all I could for him and I trusted that it had unfolded the way it was supposed to.

It reminded me of the importance of honoring all life . . . even the lives of beings that we may not normally be drawn to.  I felt comfort in a deep knowing a had, that things really had unfolded in Divine order.  And I truly felt gratitude, for the opportunity I was given to play a role in this sweet little rat's transition.

Fun with Flashes

I recently went over to a friend's house to visit with she and my god-dogs, Mingus and Nina.  I was humored by what I saw playing out before me . . . sibling rivalry as strong as I have ever seen it in human form.  It brought me back to my own childhood and the memories I have of my siblings and I, and how intense our sibling rivalry could be.  At Christmas time each year, my mom went out of her way to make sure us kids had exactly the same number of gifts under the tree, as a way to avoid the pouting and declarations that "so-and-so was the favorite child."

The entire time I was with my god-dogs, if I pet one of them, the other one would push their way in to make sure they got a pet too.  It had to be even the whole time.  I marveled at how many "human" behaviors are exhibited by animals and wondered how people could believe they were "just dogs."

After dinner, I wanted to take some pictures of the dogs but since we were inside and my flash kept going off, their eyes were changing color, but not in a way I had ever seen before.  I have seen dogs and cats end up with red eyes in pictures, or green eyes, but this was something I had never witnessed before.  Each picture I took, one eye turned glowing green and one eye turned glowing blue.  My friend and I were laughing so hard, I could barely hold the camera still.  I kept reassuring the dogs that we weren't laughing AT them, because I didn't want them to feel bad . . . and yet with each picture, our laughter got more intense.

I asked my friend what kind of radio-active dog treats she was feeding them and that made us laugh even more.  Then I tried to say, with a straight face, that I was concerned about my god-dogs and wasn't sure I should leave them there with her, given that she must be feeding them toxic substances, and that made us laugh again.  I finally gave up trying to get a normal picture and told my friend that next time I'd come back in the day time to photograph them.  :-)

In case you have never seen an eerie blue eyed/green eyed dog before, I am including a few of the pictures.  I don't know if it will make anyone else laugh.  You might have had to be there.  But just in case you don't, enjoy!!

Trying To Be In Gratitude

I have mentioned the importance of being in gratitude in my blog before, as I believe that when we are in gratitude we attract more into our lives to feel grateful for.  It is a concept that I thought I understood pretty well, but my eyes were recently opened to what I WASN’T getting . . . and that is, we need to be in gratitude all the time – even when things are really bad.

I heard a story about a man who was sawing some trees down with an electric chain saw.  The saw went through the tree trunk and then half way through his leg, and the first words out of his mouth were, “I am SO glad my leg is still there.”  Consequently, even though he should have bled to death within minutes, the blood flow slowed long enough for him to get the medical attention he needed.  I was in awe, as I am pretty sure if I ran a saw through my leg, the first words out of my mouth would be rated MA for Mature Audience and that gratitude would be the last thing I would be able to access at that moment. 

While I find it pretty easy be in gratitude for the positive things that occur in my life, I have yet to master the art of being grateful for the things that aren’t so positive and I wondered if I would ever be able to reach the point where I could be in gratitude when I was in the midst of something really unpleasant.

I was thinking about this the other week when I was working in the yard.  Several large limbs needed to be cut from some trees in my yard and not wanting to take any chances, I used a hand saw instead of borrowing my dad’s power saw.  No sense testing my ability to be grateful if an accident happened. J 

While I was out there, I got a call from the service center where I had brought my car that morning.  I was told that my car would need a new drive shaft.  For as much as I tried in that moment, I couldn’t find anything to be grateful for.  I jokingly thought to myself, “Wow, I am SO glad that isn’t going to cost four-thousand dollars.”   But I knew it wasn't a genuine feeling of gratitude.  I felt like I was getting a “D” in spirituality. 

Throughout the day, I continued to try to find something I could genuinely be grateful for.  I came up with a few small things, such as I was glad that I could sense something was very wrong with my car and get it in to the service center before it broke down on the side of the road.  I was also glad that I trusted all the people at the service center, knowing they would be honest about the work that needed to be done on my car.

When I went to pick up my car the next day, I found out that the service manager had given me a pretty significant discount on the parts required for the repair.  I hadn’t asked him to do that, in fact I hadn’t spoken with him at all.  It definitely felt like a gift from above.

It gave me the inspiration I needed to continue striving to find gratitude in every challenge I encounter—no matter how big or small.  Are you inspired to give it a try?  My sense is that we have nothing to lose by trying.

The Craggy Hole In My Heart and The Cat Who Fixed It

Last fall, a good friend of mine gave me a book, by Geneen Roth, called The Craggy Hole in My Heart and The Cat Who Fixed it.  Since then, it has been sitting in my reading pile on the side of my bed.  Since I can't ever seem to find the time to sit down and read a book, the stack which starts on the floor is now taller than my bedside table.

This week, I decided to treat myself to some book reading and on one of the wonderful sunny days we had, I grabbed Geneen's book and headed over the hill.  After a nice long walk on the beach, I sat down with the book and was instantly enamored with it.  So much so, that I was already 3/4 of the way through the book before I drove back home from Santa Cruz later that day . . . and by the next afternoon I had finished the book.  I just couldn't put it down.

Geneen has a wonderful sense of humor, so even though many of the topics she writes about are deep and heartfelt, you can't help but find yourself laughing as you are reading it.  She takes you on a journey as she falls deeply in love with her cat, finds love in human form, learns about her own fears and limitations and through her father's death, learns about the misconceptions she had about both of her parents and the ways those misconceptions had shaped her as well as her fears.  As an added bonus, if you ever thought you were a little crazy when it comes to your animals and the things you'll do for them, this book will help you feel more normal than ever.  :-)

If you are looking for a good book to read this spring, I highly recommend The Craggy Hole in My Heart and The Cat Who Fixed it.

And on a totally unrelated note, several months ago, one of my best friends sent me this picture.  She sent it primarily because the dogs were German shepherds and she knew that would make me smile, and secondarily because she thought it was funny.

Every time I looked at it, it made me laugh out loud.  I decided to save it on my desk top so that I would see it every time I opened my laptop.  Amazingly, after all this time, it still makes me laugh.  I don't know why exactly, I'm just happy that it does.

I figure it's always good to have a reason to smile or laugh, so my hope is that this picture will make you giggle too.

Others Can Learn From Our Mistakes

The other day,  when Angel and I were out for a walk, we ran into an old friend of mine from my "dog park days."  We hadn't seen each other in years so we gave each other the "Readers Digest" version of what had transpired since we saw each other last, and expressed sympathy to one another for the dogs that are no longer with us.

Then the gal said, "Over the years, I have told SO many people the Oleander Story.  You have saved so many lives.  No one I have told the story to knew how poisonous oleander bushes were."  Then she proceeded to tell me about the time her horse grabbed a mouth full of oleander and how quickly she jumped into action to fish every bit of it back out of his mouth, and how grateful she was to know about me and Lucky's experience.

Inside I cringed, as I flashed back to "the story" . . . part of me still holds it as "the time I almost killed Lucky" . . . so it is difficult for me to see it in the positive, but I did my best to focus on the benefits.  If Lucky and I hadn't gone through that terrible ordeal, and if people hadn't continued to share the story, many animals lives might have been lost.

It was many years ago, when Lucky was still struggling with her fear of sounds.  I thought having a fountain in the backyard would help soothe her and possibly drown out some of the neighborhood sounds that we couldn't avoid.  It definitely helped because Lucky was able to spend more time hanging out in the backyard with me, so I was pleased with myself.  One day, I had this "bright" idea that I would dress up the fountain by floating flowers in it.  I picked some pretty white flowers from the bushes in my complex and put them in the fountain.

A couple of days later, Lucky became sick . . . and I mean sick.  She was throwing up hourly, she couldn't even keep water down.  She was becoming so weak that I had to help her walk to the backyard, and there were more and more incidents of her not making it to the backyard before she threw up.  We were both wiped out and sleep deprived.

I called my vet and he said it definitely sounded like she had been poisoned.  He quizzed me about all the places Lucky and I had been in the previous few days to try and figure out what she could have possibly gotten into.  I couldn't come up with any answers and I was scared.

That night one of my friends came over.  I was blathering on about what was happening with Lucky, and how frightened I was, then continued to ramble about how I had made a fountain to help Lucky with her sound fears and how I had been floating flowers in the fountain but had removed them before she got there and hadn't replaced them.  She asked me what flowers I had used and I mentioned the bushes out front.  Her eyes nearly popped out of her head and she said, "Mo, those are OLEANDERS"

I thought I was going to throw up.  I was so upset with myself for the fact that it was ME that had made Lucky sick.  I called my vet immediately and he said if I could bring over some of the oleander, he could make an antidote for Lucky . . . which I did and the antidote worked . . . and within a day or so Lucky was fully recovered.

Once Lucky was out of danger, my vet wanted to know how Lucky came into contact with oleanders.  I confessed that I had put them in the fountain to make it "prettier."  He asked if Lucky was drinking the water in the fountain and I flashed on images of Lucky dropping her tennis ball in the fountain and then fishing it back out.  He said I was basically making "Oleander Tea" and that we were lucky that Lucky hadn't died.

So I learned what an oleander bush looked like (Growing up, we had just referred to them as "the freeway flower" since they were planted in the median and on the sides of the freeway).  I learned that every part of an oleanders is equally poisonous (flower, stem, leaves), and I also learned that the darker the color, the more poisonous they are (so I was grateful that I had at least picked the white ones instead of the hot pink ones).

It took me a long time to make peace with myself over the fact that while trying to do something to help Lucky, I actually hurt her.  I thought I had forgiven myself for it but I could tell from my reaction, when my old dog park friend mentioned the story, that I still hold some guilt and shame over it.  I had made it my mission to help Lucky recover from what other people had done to hurt her.  Never in a million years did I think that *I* would end up hurting her as well, even though it wasn't intentional.

In the hopes that others can continue to learn from my mistakes, I am sharing this story . . . feel free to pass it on to others.  The more people who know about the dangers of oleanders, the safer our pets will be.

My New Friend Angel

Last week, I met a wonderful German Shepherd named Angel.   Originally, I went to meet her with the intention of determining if I should adopt her but I realized very quickly that we were meeting for another reason.

Angel's guardian had to move to an assisted living facility that doesn't allow large dogs.  His son and his girlfriend are now Angel's guardians but because of their long work hours, Angel is alone too much each day.  Consequently, she is bored, she is anxious  . . . and she is running rings into the lawn in the backyard.  They are looking for a new family for Angel so that she will receive the love and attention that she deserves.

I sensed that Angel and I weren't supposed to become roommates but I immediately felt like I should offer to take Angel out for exercise whenever I had some free time.  Fortunately for both Angel and I, they welcomed it and have given me permission to come by anytime I want and take her out.

On our first walk, it felt so good to be walking with a German shepherd again, I couldn't stop smiling.  She was thrilled to be out for a walk and quite honestly, the exercise is really good for me too since I got a little carried away eating Girl Scout cookies last month.

The next time I went, I made sure I wore tennis shoes instead of flip flops, since Angel really wants to walk FAST and I could barely keep up with her on our first walk.  I have found myself scanning my calendar for openings in my schedule where I can go visit her because I can't wait to see her again.  Being around her makes me very happy.

So, it seems that Angel and I need each other right now.  We both need some exercise and we both need some companionship  . . . and so we have the ingredients for a perfect friendship.