Preparing animals for change

Many of my animal appointments in recent weeks have been focused on helping prepare them for upcoming changes, whether it is a foster dog going to a new home or a family moving to a new house.  I am always happy to assist with these types of communication sessions because I know how much easier it is on animals when we set their expectations and help them mentally prepare for how things are going to be different.

The animals always appreciate knowing how things are going to change and often times, they have very sweet requests, like the dog who was moving from a house with two other dogs to a new house where she would be the only dog.  Her mom wanted to make sure she understood and that she would be OK not having the other dogs to play with while she was at work.  This sweet little girl asked if her mom could buy her a stuffed dog that she could hang out with, so that she wouldn't be lonely.

With one of the foster dogs, we needed to explain that his new family didn't want to have a dog sleeping in the bedroom with them, as he had been at his foster home and asked him if he would be alright with the different sleeping arrangements.  His question was "But will it mean they don't love me as much as my current mom if I am not sleeping in the bedroom with them?"  I assured him that it was no indication of how much they cared about him and reminded him of how excited they were to have finally found the perfect dog for their family.  That seemed to calm his concerns and he said he would be OK with the new sleeping arrangement.

Helping them understand how things are going to be different - from the lay out of the house, to the sounds they may hear in their new neighborhood, to how their daily routines may take shape - all help them make their transition go more smoothly.

Over the last few weeks, I have had the pleasure of receiving updates from all of these clients and it warms my heart to hear how smoothly all these transitions have gone.  The animals are adjusting quickly to their new surroundings and new circumstances and there hasn't been any problems at all.  It reaffirms my belief that the more we can do to manage an animals expectations about upcoming changes, the easier it is on everyone.

And as a bonus, my client whose foster dog was initially concerned about not sleeping in the bedroom with his new parents emailed me the other day to tell me that the adopters were so touched when they heard about his concern, they decided to change their rule of "no dogs in the bedroom at night" and their new boy is now happily sleeping in the bedroom with them.

Communication Challenges

Even though I am confident in my abilities as an animal communicator, I am tickled by the instances when Kino doesn't seem to understand what I am telling him.  Many of our miscommunications lately have occurred around people visiting the house.  Since nothing makes Kino happier than having company, I don't know if it's his sheer excitement of someone coming over that makes him less able to understand me or if it's something else entirely. All I know is that when these moments occur, it's hard not to be entertained by them.

I have learned that Kino doesn't understand what the word "later" means.  Several times I have made the mistake of telling him that someone is going to come over later, thinking that it would be helpful to set his expectations for that day.  The first time I did it, I said, "Today we're going to do this and that, run this errands and then after that, Joe is going to come over."  He dropped his toy and immediately ran to the window.  I said, "No, Kino, he's coming over later" which only made him stare out the window more intently.  No matter how many times I told him that Joe was coming over "LATER" he wouldn't budge from the front window.

There are times when even though I haven't said anything, Kino thinks we might be having a visitor and he will excitedly run to the front window and start looking for the mystery person to arrive.  I have learned that if I say, "Kino, no one is coming over" he gets even more wound up and I finally came to the conclusion that he must think we have a friend named "No one."  Each time I say, "No one is coming" or "No one is visiting us today" the frenzied excitement at the front window escalates.

Another one of our communication pitfalls happens because Kino can't seem to distinguish between an in person visit and a phone call.  I discovered this error on my part when I said, "We're going to take a break from playing because I need to call Karin."  He immediately ran to the front window to look for her.  No matter how many times I showed him my cell phone and said, "No, I am going to CALL her" it didn't make a difference.  He continued to sit at the front window looking for her car.

I'm not sure if this is an indication that I need to invite people over more often or if Kino just needs a little more time to learn that we don't actually know anyone named "No one."  If nothing else, it provides some comic relief at our house and since I always welcome opportunities to smile, I can't really complain too much about this particular set of miscommunications we've been having.

Kino and Reiki

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know that my relationship with my dog Kino has come with some challenges, and that during the time I was still fostering him, I even asked the rescue group to find another foster home for him because he had bitten me several times and I didn't know how to deal with his aggressiveness.

Fortunately, he has made great strides since then but in some ways Kino was still acting like a feral cat.  He doesn't liked to be touched, unless it is his idea, so basic grooming (baths, brushing, nail trimming, flea treatments, etc) were still high drama activities.  No matter how sweetly he kisses my face when I wake up in the morning, if I attempt to do any type of grooming, it quickly dissolves into barking, wild flinging of rope toys, growling and an overuse of teeth.

At the beginning of the year, I decided to try giving him daily Reiki treatments to see if that would help.   Of course, the treatments had to be "distance treatments" from across the room, given his sensitivity to being touched, but I figured it couldn't hurt to give it a try and see what happened.

I'm happy to report that four and half months into this experiment, I have seen a dramatic change in Kino's behavior.  I had to trim the hair around his ears the other day and the whole activity took less than 5 minutes and didn't involve a single tooth.  :-)   His last bath, while he didn't necessarily enjoy it, did NOT involve him growling at me, baring his teeth or attempting to bite me, which was a huge and pleasant change from previous baths.  Putting flea treatment on him, which used to take about 35 minutes because he wouldn't sit still and had to run around the house barking in between each small application of medicine, took only 3 minutes last month, all in one sitting.

I have been amazed by how much the energy has helped calm him down.  It is as if it took the edge off and he no longer believes that I am out to do him harm whenever I touch him.

Just the other day, I experienced yet another pleasant surprise . . . a saw a cat walking across the fence and I immediately braced myself for what I knew was coming . . . . a bark/howl/wail combination that was about to emanate from Kino's throat.  It is so loud and so unsettling it sounds as if someone is ripping one of Kino's limbs off.  I cannot adequately describe how horrid this sound is, but he's been making it for a year and a half now, whenever anything is on the fence (cat, squirrel, rat, opossum, bird, etc) and it has always unnerved me.

Yet this time instead Kino only let out a small little whimper before running towards the fence to chase the cat away.  I was shocked that he didn't let out that overblown sound and I was also overjoyed!  I have a feeling my neighbors will appreciate this quieter method of yard protection as much as I will.

When I began this experiment, I didn't know what to expect and I have to say, I am astounded by all the positive changes I have seen in Kino.  To think that I can now groom him without all that drama - it truly feels like a gift.  And after all these years, I love that I can still be surprised by what healing energy can do and how much it can assist us and our animals.

Lending a helping hand

A client of mine recently shared an experience she had and I was so touched by how the story ended, I just had to share.

She was on her way to a shopping center, in the hopes of unwinding from a stressful couple of days.  She was on a frontage road that has a lot of traffic, but no houses, shops or gas stations near by, when all of the sudden her car died.  Fortunately, she was able to coast over to the side of the road and mostly out of the way of passing cars but when she looked in her purse for her cell phone to call for help, she realized she had left her phone at home.

A recent knee injury prevented her from walking a few miles to the closest gas station, so she sat there, trying to figure out what to do, all the while hoping that one of the passing cars may stop to help her.  For over twenty minutes, she sat there while car after car drove past but not a single person stopped to see if she needed help.  She even noticed that people seemed to avoid having eye contact, as if they didn't want to be bothered and thought it would be easier to pretend they didn't see her.

She was beginning to feel really discouraged when a homeless man walked up to her and asked her if she needed any help.  He has seen her on the side of the road from a little ways down the road and wanted to make sure she was OK.  When she explained that she didn't have a phone and thus couldn't call AAA for assistance, he said that one of his friends had a cell phone and offered to go find him.  She couldn't believe how generous he was being but she welcomed the help.

The man walked far out into a nearby field until he found his friend and returned with both his friend and the phone.  When she called AAA she was told it could be an hour, or possibly two hours before anyone could get there.  It looked like this was going to be a long day.

After returning the phone to the one man, they asked if she knew what was wrong with her car.  She told them that either it was out of gas or out of oil, so the men offered to check her oil and sure enough, that's what she was out of.  If she could just get some oil in her car, she'd be able to drive home.

The homeless gentleman with the phone mentioned that he also had a bike and she offered to pay him if he'd ride his bike to the gas station down the road to buy oil.  Not only did he agree to do this for her but when he returned, he found some paper to make a funnel and even put the oil in her car for her.

They waited to make sure her car was in running order, then the one man let her use his phone again to cancel the AAA tow truck.  She gave them both some more money as an expression of her gratitude and instead of proceeding to the shopping center, she decided to go home.

The experience had put her in a different frame of mind . . . no longer feeling the need to de-stress by wandering around some stores, instead she felt deep gratitude that these men went out of their way to help her the way they did.  She said she was still shocked that all the people who drove by in their fancy cars didn't give her the time of day, but that the two homeless men were the ones who reached out to her.

Her story shined a spotlight on the fact that no matter how little you may have, it is still possible to help someone else.

Putting the Pieces Together

When I am working with an animal, I get information in many different ways--physical sensations in my body, pictures and images, words and phrases.  There is often some interpretation required to understand how everything I am picking up fits together.  When I am asked to help "solve a puzzle" the animal's guardian is often the key ingredient to making sense of what I pick up.

I recently had an experience that showed how all of these pieces work together.  I was asked to do a session with an older pit bull who was crying all day long.  For months, the only time he stopped crying was when he fell asleep and his guardian was very concerned.  She wanted to know if I could help them figure out what was making him so unhappy.

When I first put my hands on me, my stomach began to hurt.  It felt inflamed and irritated but I couldn't get a sense of why, so I asked this sweet boy if he could tell me why his tummy hurt so much.  He showed me the sensation I feel when an animal is struggling with allergies.  I explained this to his guardian but after reviewing what he eats and how long he's been eating his particular food and treats, we couldn't figure out what he could be allergic to.  My stomach still really hurt, which told me that we hadn't identified what was going on yet.  (Once I "name" or "identify" what is going on, the sensation will go away, so when the sensation lingers, it indicates to me that we haven't figured it out yet).

As I continued to give him Reiki in the hopes it would help soothe his tummy, his guardian and I moved on to the other questions she had about his health.  While we were covering those other topics, his guardian asked me if he mentioned his skin, as he has some pretty severe skin allergies.  I was telling her that his itchy skin didn't bother him at all in comparison to how bad his stomach hurt when all of the sudden I could see a major light bulb going off in her head.  She explained that she had been spraying something on his skin to stop him from itching but that he was constantly licking it off.  She asked if that could be the cause of his stomach pain and offered to grab the bottle of this spray.  I took one whiff of it and knew it was definitely the cause - not just because of the smell of it but because of the way my stomach hurt just talking about it.

His guardian and I sat there, putting the pieces together. She realized that his constant crying started about the same time she started putting this particular spray in his skin.  I realized that when I asked him why his tummy hurt and he gave me the "allergy sensation," I interpreted it as food allergies because it was something he was ingesting but he was trying to show me it was connected to his skin allergies.

She said she'd never use that spray again and we also talked about some things she could do to help soothe his stomach.  We were both so relieved to put all the pieces together and figure out what we could do to help her sweet boy feel better.  Animals do the best they can to communicate with us and as I was reminded last weekend, partnering with the guardian is the best way to ensure I am interpreting the messages correctly.

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.  :-)

Reiki and Seals

Last week, I decided to treat myself to an afternoon stroll on the beach.  It's one of the best ways for me to recharge my batteries and as luck would have it, it was about 70 degrees that day - perfect weather for walking along the ocean.

Shortly after I started out, I came across a young seal who obviously wasn't feeling well as he could barely hold himself up.  I sat down on the sand a little ways away from him and began sending him Reiki.  I wasn't sure what else to do and I hoped it would help him feel better.

A lady wandered over to me and inquired about the seal, wondering what we could do to help him. She asked if I thought we should call the Marine Mammal Center to get their help.  I asked her if she was familiar with energy healing and she said, "Yes, I am a Reiki master"  I smiled knowing I wouldn't have to explain what I was doing, and told her I was sending him Reiki. She said, "What a wonderful idea, I can tell he is soaking it up."  We decided it would still be a good idea to call the Marine Mammal Center.

About twenty minutes into his Reiki treatment, my new Reiki master friend, Christy, was attempting to take a picture of him so the Marine Mammal folks would know where he was and all of the sudden he sat up, looked around and then jumped in the water and began to swim.  We were both so happy - hoping the energy had assisted him. Since she was still on the phone with the Marine Mammal folks, she let them know that we didn't need them after all.

We said goodbye and I continued on my walk.  I hadn't made it very far . . . long enough to find a couple pieces of sea glass but not long enough to get more than ten yards down the beach . . . when I noticed two other gals we had met earlier trying to flag me down.  As I got closer to them, I saw our little seal friend, back up on the beach.

I ran back to Christy and asked her to call the Marine Mammal center again.  Then, for the next few hours, Christy and I stood on guard, one of us on either side of our little seal, protecting him from dogs, runners and walkers, and sending him additional Reiki.  After several hours, I had to go.  It broke my heart to leave without knowing if he was going to be ok but I couldn't wait any longer for the Marine Mammal folks to show up.  I met a nice gal as I was about to leave and asked her if she would be willing to keep watch over him and keep dogs away and she said she would.  Interestingly, her name was Christy also.

After saying goodbye to my two new friends named Christy, I headed back down the beach.  It made me sad to leave, but I held out hope that the energy assisted him.  If nothing else, I felt honored to be able to connect with him that way, even if it only resulted in giving him a little peace and comfort.