Pets are Talking

Understanding is a Verb: Binah from the Other Side

Theword "Binah" is Hebrew for understanding. So when my friend, Carolyn, from Wales, asked me to talk with her friend's dog, Binah, I thought, "Interesting. I wonder what this dog will tell me."

It turns out, Binah  is a West Highland White Terrier.   Westies are the little generals of the canine world. They tend to be bossy and forthright and sometimes a little bit rude. 

Binah is none of those things. She is the other kind of Westie, the one that is gracious and funny and excited and kind. 

In fact, she got me to rethink my thoughts on the Westie, and also to give myself a little talking to about lumping a whole breed into one category. Goodness. 

Binah passed away suddenly. Her Mum, Lynne, was quite distraught. 

Her first question asked if Binah was okay. Binah came through loud and clear, "Of course!"

Then she wanted to know who Binah was with.

Binah showed me a big brownish-grey dog. They were in a field, with trees on the sides, birch trees. It looked like a crisp fall day. They were playing. 

I told Binah's owner this, and I just heard a little gasp, and then nothing. And then I heard, "That's Calon!" 

Calon was Lynne's Irish wolfhound that had passed away before. 

Then I started crying. 

Calon is Welsh for "Heart". So "Heart" and "Understanding" were playing in a field.

Binah's Mum wondered if there was anything that they should have done to try to save Binah's life. 

Binah told us that it was her time to go, because she was going to go live with a boy in Sussex, who really needed her. 

Everytime I asked Binah a question, I'd have to call her back from playing.  Her mum said that Binah was like that in real life too. At the park, every other second, Binah was distracted into playing, couldn't keep her attention long at all. 

It turns out Calon had a day off. He has a job in heaven. Many animals do. Calon's job is to greet new arrivals, and show them around. I think it must be lovely to be met in heaven by a big wolfhound named "Heart". 

Anyway, Binah's mum's heart was put to rest that Binah was alive and happy and well and busy on the other side. 

She asked one more question, "Did Binah have anything to say to her?"

Yes. Binah showed me a pastry on a plate, and her mum, Lynn, eating it. 

I described this to Lynne. She didn't get the significance. 

So, I said to Binah, "What does this mean?"

Binah said, "With your next dog, don't be stingy with the treats!"

Lynne laughed.  She said, "Tell Binah we had to keep her trim!" 

Binah laughed too. 

Binah knew what would lighten her Mum's grief. Understanding is a verb. 

The Pets are Talking! Epic Holiday Gift Certificate Special!

Hey! On the day that I'm writing this, Christmas is 52 days away! Just 52 days! 

So, we're running a Pets are Talking Gift Certificate Special, bringing back the $25 email consult that many know and love for just one month.

Buy them in November, use them all year long! 

Holiday Special! 

For the month of November only, I'm offering a $25 3-question email consultation gift certificate!

The gift certificate will come in pdf form, ready for you to print out or email on. We have certificate styles for cats, horses and dogs.

Each gift certificate code can only be used once.

Buy as many as you want. Use them when you want in the coming year. Buy them for friends. Buy them for you. It's all good.

Just know that when November is over, we're back to the regular rates.

To buy yours, Click HERE.

Reading of the Week: Meet Jack

 

This is a sweet fellow. I got a black and white picture so I wasn't sure if he was a black dog or a brown dog. I asked him, 

"Are you a black dog or a brown dog?"

He said, "I am not the brown dog. I am the black dog."

I didn't find out what he meant until I showed up at his mom's house, and met Jack's sis, Bella, a beautiful chocolate lab.

Jack loves to sleep. His folks were a little concerned. 

We had the following conversation:

Bridget: Why do you sleep so much? Are you bored? 

Jack: I’m not bored here, but I like to sleep. I like to sleep a lot. I have lots of vital dreams.

Bridge: Vital?

Jack: Alive dreams.

Bridget: What are you doing in these dreams?

Jack: I am running with a pack. Sometimes I am a wolf. Sometimes I am a human.

Jack shows me buffalo.

Bridget: Are you a buffalo?

Jack: No, sometimes I am on a horse with buffalo.

Bridget: But always running.

Jack: Always running. I love to be with others as we run. I can feel them. I can feel who they are.

Bridget: What if you run here? Is it like that when you’re awake?

Jack: I feel that if I run with people here, there’s always things to look out for, but there, we are just running together.

Bridget: That’s fascinating!

Jack: Thank you! 

Allie's emergency

Please note: All of the photos in this blog post are courtesy of Lisa Teso, an amazing Portland-based photographer. Thanks Lisa! If you need pictures, her site is here: Portland Child Photography

Katie and RIchie have a knack for finding super-cool spotted dogs. Their dog, Makani is a Visla and Australian Shepherd mix who is so fleet and fast that it's hard to count her spots. 

They started looking for a playmate for Makani, and found a sweet dog named Allie Pocket.

Here's when Makani and Allie met. 

They've since become buddies.

Allie's Early Days

Allie is about four months old. She was at a shelter from her puppyhood, then stolen by someone for about six weeks, then dumped back at the shelter. Then she was adopted by Katie and Richie.

In the same week that I heard about the theft of Allie from the shelter, I heard about a completely unrelated dog shelter thievery in another state. This dog was brought back and dumped too. Very disturbing. 

Allie Contracts Parvo

Anyway, Allie's new family had her about a week or so, when she got sick. During that time that she had been stolen from the shelter, she had picked up the Parvovirus.

Parvo is about 80% fatal in puppies who are not vaccinated, but only 20% fatal in those who have been vaccinated. 

She had been in the local hospital's ICU for a couple of days when Katie called me. Allie was to the point where she wouldn't even lift her head up anymore. It looked like the end. 

Katie said, "Could you please talk with her? I'm not sure that she knows what's going on."

I tuned into this little pup. She felt very sick, and she had the energetic distortion that comes when a soul is disconnecting from the body. I had only felt this a few times before, like when a friend's cat caught a baby bunny in the yard,  and we helped that bun pass over. 

Energetic distortion feels terrible to the communicator. It feels like you're touching a live wire. It's not a good sign of prognosis. 

She was also quite scared, though not scared to talk with me. That was an encouraging sign. 

Allie didn't understand why she was at the hospital or what these people were doing to her. 

She felt sick, but she thought that maybe these people were making her that way.

She knew that Katie was really upset, but she thought that it was because Allie had been taken away from her and put here in this place and Katie was trying to get her out. 

She missed her new family, and she thought that she'd never get back home to live with them.

She was giving up. 

I sat with her a bit, in my mind. I just gently sat with her, and then I said, 

"Well, actually, your body is sick, and these people are here to make you better, and when you feel better you get to go home to your mommy and daddy and Makani."

She said, "I don't know how to make myself better." 

I said, "You don't have to know. Your body will do that on your own."

She paused for a minute, and then she asked, "Do you think I will get better?"

I knew the odds against her were pretty high. But, I felt like she'd make it. 

I said, "Yes, I think so. I think you will get better and then you will go home and it will be very good." 

I sent her pictures of her playing in the yard with Makani, and snuggling with Katie and Richie. 

Allie said that she didn't like the smells of this place, and that she missed the smells of her family. I told her that I'd ask Katie to bring in a t-shirt or a blanket that smelled like them. 

Then I disconnected for a few minutes. I was feeling sick to my stomach from her parvo.

I tuned back in, to find a lighter, happier dog. She felt more hopeful. The energetic distortion was gone. 

Allie Turns the Corner

Allie made the choice to stay. She asked the questions and took the brave step of believing that she could get well.

That night, Katie visited and Allie lifted up her head, and ate some food. Katie gave her a blanket that she had rubbed all over Makani and Richie and herself. Allie buried her nose in it and soaked in all those good smells of her family. 

The doctors went ahead with a plasma transfusion.

Katie hired Ming and Candy at Reiki Fur Babies to provide healing to Allie.

Ming said that Allie told her how much she loved her mama. I burst into tears when I heard this. Sweet little puppy. 

Allie Goes Home

I didn't hear from Katie for a day or two, and then I got a note saying that Allie was home! 

She is still possibly contagious for the next 10 days, so they've cordoned off half their house, and separated these two bouncy dogs. 

But..Allie is home, and she is recovering and soon she and Makani will get to play together. 

Reading of the Week: Scruffy

This is Scruffy. 

Scruffy is kind and sweet. Scruffy is awesome.  Scruffy barks a lot. 

That's Trixie, there, in the background. 

Scruffy is a cairn terrier/ poodle mix.  You get this kind of dog when you want a challenge.

Cairn Terriers have iron wills. They like to get their way. They drive to closure.

And Poodles? Poodles are smart. 

So Scruffy's owners, Bridgette and Chona, did everything right with this dog. They trained and socialized her. They spend quality time with Scruffy.

But, Scruffy, you know, she barks a lot. So Bridgette and Chona asked me to help.

I have never heard a dog talk as fast as Scruffy. Nor have I ever seen a dog narrate her story with pictures so well.  It was like The Wonder Years.

Here's a snippet:

Bridget: Let's talk about barking at people outside. 

Scruffy: Oh my god, it's so fun! 

Bridget: it's fun? 

Scruffy: It's great. They see me. They think I'm awesome. Some walk by just to see me!

Bridget:  So, are you telling them to go away? 

Scruffy: I'm telling them, "This is my house and I am awesome!" 

Bridgette and Chona confirmed that their neighbors do, indeed, walk by to see Scruffy's little face in the window!

Dogs that are raised with love and confidence building activities are so quick to say, "I am Awesome." They know that they are a wonderful creature and they act accordingly.

What a gift we give our dogs when we do this for them. 

We're getting the barking under control at Chona and Bridgette's house, without limiting the extent of Scruffy's awesomeness. 

Shitty Little Dog Syndrome

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE little dogs. I was just talking to two sweet little guys tonight at the Hotel Monaco. What I don't love are dogs that suffer from Shitty Little Dog Syndrome. 

These are bitey, snarly and rude. 

On Thursday Night, I presented a 5-minute slide show about how You can Stop Shitty Little Dog Syndrome. 

Here's video of it. It's hard to tell sometimes what I'm saying. And one slide, you can't see what it's about, just some guy in a swimsuit. On that slide, I'm telling people to not confuse Shitty Little Dog Syndrome with Distorted Sense of Entitlement (that appears only in humans). 

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy this little, silly video. 

Click here to see it: Bridget's Presentation

Chopper Comes Back...

Max and Shelley went to a garage sale looking for a mini-chopper. They came back with this beautiful boy. They named him Chopper, of course.

Max wanted to know if she and Chopper had past lives together. Chopper said, “Nope, but I was Shelley’s dog before.”

Chopper showed me a little white and brown spotted dog. He looked like a Jack Russell Terrier. He was in the arms of a smart red-haired woman in a dark purple dress with a matching hat. He was a big JRT.

I ask when and where, and hear “Oklahoma, 1932″.

Chopper showed me Shelley and this dog getting in the back of a Model A Ford. Squeezing in between a man and a woman, squeezed in like sardines. The woman complains bitterly about having to sit in the back with that dog, to which Shelley says “Well, that’s your problem!”

Max said it sounded just like “Shelley”. Nice to know how some aspects of ourselves get carried forward. And nice to know we may meet our friends again.

Reading of the Week: Finding Beaujolais

12 days ago, I received a frantic phone call from Lorance Pasco. Her new dog, Beaujolais, had run off while she was visiting a client. 

Beaujolais is a young dog. He was rescued from a hoarder in Oregon. He is afraid of people and most other dogs. He had lived with Lorance for two weeks before he embarked on this adventure. 

Lorance had done everything right. She'd made up a thousand flyers, and had plastered them all around the Capital Hill neighborhood in Seattle. She'd contacted everyone she knew. She put up an ad on craigslist. She called animal control and checked the shelters.  Beaujolais had been microchipped and she knew that the microchip company had her information. 

He'd been gone about a week when Lorance called me. There had been sightings, but Lorance kept missing him. She was starting to think that she'd never catch him. She was worried about his condition. 

I tuned into him. He was in a park. He was scared that somebody would catch him and take him back to his first home. I said "Don't worry. Nobody is going to take you back. You need to go up to people so that you can get back to your new home."

He was quiet when I said this. I said, "You remember Lorence?" I sent him a picture of Lorence. 

I felt him warm up a little. "Yes. I like her."

I said, "Well, she's still looking for you. She's going to find you. She needs you to go up to people so that they can help you get back to her." 

Beaujolais liked that. He was slightly surprised that she was still searching for him. He said he'd try to go up to people. 

I twittered about Beaujolais, and throughout the next week, I checked in with him every day. Sometimes he was hiding behind some garbage cans. Sometimes he was in the park. They tracked him up to the Seattle Arboretum. 

He told me that he was finding food and water. He tried to go up to people, but then it occurred to him that they might keep him, so he reverted back to hiding in the park. 

One day, he told me that he had been finding food behind a restaurant, then running by the orange building and back to the park. 

Throughout, Lorance and I talked, and she went from hope to despair to just plain exhausted. She continued her search for Beaujolais. 

Then, on Tuesday, she got a call. Somebody had spotted him. She ran down to the park where he had been spotted. 

Lorance saw Beaujolais up on a hill. He saw her. They both froze. 

She said, "Beaujolais!" 

He leaped into the air and ran down the hill and jumped all over her, crying and whining and licking. Then he went home and rolled all over her bed. 

She has since fitted him with a GPS collar! 

Remembering Clem

My students must make several leaps to successfully talk with animals. They must suspend their fear and disbelief long enough to sign up and pay for the workshop.  They must try to connect and talk to animals with relative strangers over the phone. They must try again when they are wrong. 

What drives them is the same: the thrill and joy when they connect with their pets. The deepening of the relationship that happens when their pets understand them and vice versa. 

I love the feeling when they get an answer right. I love that little intake of breath that I hear over the phone. 

And I love stories like Clem's...

Clem was Peggie's beloved, ancient 8-lb. poodle. He was mostly blind, nearly deaf, but he still knew when dinnertime was. Peggie had adopted him as an older dog and he was a dear, dear friend. 

I met Peggie when she asked me to talk with Clem, to see if it was his time to go. He was emphatically not ready to go. He loved his life with Peggie, her husband and the rest of the pets in their household. 

Peggie took my class, and one day, I received this email:

I think I had a conversation with Clem.  At the time it seemed very real, but now 2 days later I'm having my doubts.  It was very emotional, the emotion just welled up in my chest and throat, and he did have a couple of odd phrases, so it was either real or I have a very vivid imagination.  I also didn't do any of that grounding or connecting stuff, so this is another reason I have doubts.
 
So anyway, on Sunday hubby and I were on a day trip to Charleston and we were driving along and the sunroof was open and it was a bright sunny morning.  Music was on the radio and I was just very relaxed and so I asked Clem in my head if I could speak with him and I hear a voice say "well, of course" and we spoke for maybe 10 or 15 minutes.
 
Bridget, it was like speaking with a very wise and spiritual soul.  He is here, he said, to help me with the lessons of patience and humility.  At one point he said (I wrote this down) "It's ok to just be".
 
He talked some about his life with the other woman and her other pets.  He said (wrote this down, too)  "I was the boss of them.............I got old and sick and they were the boss of me".
 
I told him I would have liked to have known him as a puppy and as a young dog and he told me that in this life he came to me twice as a puppy and those 2 lives were short, so this time he came to me already old.  He said when I was a little girl I once shared a lollipop with him and he's never forgotten.
 
Since this life of his is almost over I asked him if he would come back to me.  Clem said this has been a very long life for him and he will want a long rest on the spirit side, but if he doesn't come back to me in this life don't worry because his spirit is connected to mine forever.

Even with all of this wonderful information, Peggie wondered if she had really heard him. The details here are so clear. I assured Peggie that she heard him loud and clear! I asked if she remembered the lollypop. She said that she vaguely remembered a large dog that roamed the town, and that she shared a lolly with him. 

A few days ago, I received another email from Peggie:

Just wanted to let you know Clem passed on yesterday.  We miss him terribly as he was a very big presence in a little tiny body.  The household seems quiet and empty without him, but we know he's in a better place, whole and happy and bossy.
 
One odd thing.........Clem kept himself and me to a strict schedule.  At 9pm every night if I wasn't making the motions to go to bed, he'd stand up and bark at me like, "don't you see what time it is?".  Last night Jim and I were sitting on the sofa, just kind of in a daze, when all of a sudden Quest, the big boxer, stood up, looked at us, barked twice and walked down the hall to go to bed.  We looked at the clock and, yep, it was 9pm!  Clem left Quest a job to do.
 
I want to thank you again for the class and my one opportunity to really communicate with Clem.  I know why he was here with me and, though the loss hurts now, deep down I know his spirit will always be connected with mine...........because he told me so.

When I say that we all can talk with animals, I mean, we all can talk with animals. And we are so blessed when we can hear them! 

 

Honored to Know: Becca Seitz

For those of you who have asked about Benny's cruciate injury, thank you! Thank you for your concern and your good wishes.

He's still limping along. His surgery is scheduled for May 18th. With spring comes an uptick in outdoor activities, and along with it, an increase in cruciate surgeries. So, we need to wait.

For Ben's pain, we've been given two prescriptions, Rymadil and Tramodol. Neither of these are good to give to your dog for any length of time. We don't want Ben to suffer, so we've turned to acupuncture!

Becca Seitz, from To the Point Acupuncture, sees Benny twice a week. She is fantastic. I didn't know if Benny would hold still for needles. I mean, he hates the vet.

It's embarrassing to admit this. My dogs are not the best behaved creatures. Benny looks positively maniacal at the vet's.

But, he literally runs up the steps to visit Becca. He LOVES Becca.

Becca showed me how a stressed dog's tongue is purple, and an unstressed dog's tongue is pink.

Benny goes in with a slightly purple tongue and comes out pink! At first his tongue was quite purple, but each time,  the pinkness lasts longer.

Ben's not a huge fan of the needles going in, but then he relaxes and snoozes through his treatment. He will lie still as the needles go in. No Cujo for Becca.

We've been able to cut his dosage of prescription pain meds to a quarter of what the vet recommended.

Becca works on people too. Her website is http://www.tothepointacupuncture.com .

I am so happy that we live in a city that has such great pet services!
: