Pets are Talking

St. Francis of Assisi- An Instrument of Peace

Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint for caring for animals. 

St. Francis could talk with animals, so I feel a special affinity to him. He was also gentle and kind. I like that too! 

Here's the St. Francis Prayer 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

This prayer was first published in 1912, and probably was never uttered by the man himself, I find it a gentle reminder of what I'm supposed to be doing here.

We all come to different realizations about spirituality and religion. I hope that you aren't offended by me sharing something from my spiritual tradition.  

I'm a Universalist, which means that I find value in every spiritual path. Whether you experience the divine through prayer or through a walk in the woods or through your own powerful self, it's all good.  

Okay, so here's the song I sing on St. Francis' Day. It's a silly little song but I think it speaks to the universal holiness in all of us! 

All God's Creatures Got a Place in the Choir

All God's Creatures got a place in the choir.

Some sing low. Some Sing Higher.

Some sing out loud on a telephone wire.

And some just clap their hands, or paws,

or anything they got now.

I'm back...

Thank you for being so patient with me. And thank you, clients of mine, that have asked me to talk with their pets in the past six weeks. I think I'm through my funk.

The statistics are still there.. Bad stuff is happening to animals every day. 

But... good stuff too. And as long as God sees fit to bring puppies and kittens and foals into this world, I'll be here to talk with them, and to bring peace and comfort and understanding to their owners. 

There are a couple of things that clicked with me in the past month, that made it okay to come back. 

A few weeks before my rant, I had put a request on "Help a Reporter Out" for positive stories about dogs. And the day after I published my rant, I got about 20 stories from people, saying "Let me tell you about my dog." 

Those stories brought me such hope. I'll be posting them during the next month on Olive's Heroes. 

Ed's Better

And then, remember Ed, my horse. My elusive and sweet horse, the one who doesn't trust anybody, including me? Remember him? 

He's not much of a talker. 

Remember his story? He was severely abused by his previous owner. He chose to deny his training and his gifts and ignore or fight all humans. So much so, that he narrowly escaped the slaughterhouse. 

And we've had four years to change this attitude, and very little luck. I mean, he didn't hate me. We were kind of friends. He liked it when I visited. 

I've struggled all summer with him. He is very happy in his field with his buddies. He has a new girlfriend. She's a palomino with some Fjord in her and the longest eyelashes I have ever seen. But, he didn't want much to do with humans, to the point where he had to be tricked and bribed to be haltered. I would reach out to pat his shoulder and he would twitch at best, and move away at worst. 

I've met so many kind horses, at peace. Horses that actually like people. 

I worry about what will happen to Ed should anything happen to me. Every horse should be ridable and somewhat amenable in case the person who pays their bills gets hit by the beer truck. Not that I'm planning on any beer truckage in my near future. 

So, I asked my friend, Sarah Tymeson, of Healing Horses, to work with Ed's energy. She worked on his energy at a subconscious level. I wasn't sure what to expect. 

She said that the first time she worked with him, he told her that he believed that all humans were evil. She asked him if he was willing to give up that idea. He said NO. 

The second time, she worked through a bunch of energetic issues with him. She told me that she got about half-way through his belief that humans were evil. She told him there were two kinds of creatures on this earth that pass for humans: humans and humanoids.  And that if he felt that humans were evil, okay, but did he know that Bridget was actually a humanoid?  He thought through that logic and said OKAY.

She told me this and I wondered what I'd see in his behavior. 

I carefully walked out into the field with my bag of carrots. He approached. He looked different. His eyes were clear and soft. He took a carrot out of my hand. He and his buddies crowded around me. There were about seven in the field, and they hadn't worked out their new hierarchy, so there were lots of hooves flying and teeth biting, and me yelling "HEY!"

Luckily, Janie, the barn owner brought out a box of apples, and everyone but Ed and his girlfriend went for them. 

Ed let me pet him without twitching. He followed me around the field, even when the carrots were gone. He let me scratch his neck and then he groomed me. He nibbled my shoulders and my arm. He chuffed my hair. He was at peace in my presence. This is what I've wanted for four years. 

I said, "Thank you, Ed." 

and he said, "You're welcome."

I said, "You know, Janie is a humanoid too." His head went up. He wasn't having any of that. 

So we're halfway there. 

Many thanks to Sarah for changing Ed's mind. 

If you are at a point with your pet where things need to change and you're not sure how to get there, try animal communication, try reiki, try other forms of spiritual or energetic healing, try respectful training. Don't give up on your friend. 

The right modality is out there, and working together with your pet, your relationship can strengthen.

And one more thing, If you need to work on yourself...work on yourself. There's no shame in that. 

Your animal communicator is back. I'm here for you and your pets, and I'm looking forward to a new good time. 

Honored to Know: Laurie Austin

Our dear Olive has been carrying around a bunch of tension in her back. Emotional baggage can stay in your cells after a traumatic incident. Luckily, we have Laurie Austin to help us out.

Laurie is an certified small animal massage practitioner and a certified reiki practitioner.  Olive has had two massage sessions with her. After her first session, we saw a much more relaxed Olive. She played more. She didn't worry so much. She actually played with another dog at the dog park (instead of just playing ball!).

Laurie is so calm and soothing. Olive greets her with lots of kisses. Laurie is also incredibly knowledgeable about canine anatomy. She had many good ideas about how we could move Olive's recovery forward.

If you live in the Portland area, consider having Laurie work on your pets!

Visit her website here: Laurie Austin

(p.s. Laurie did not pay for this endorsement. All Honored to Knows are simply that, people I am honored to know!)

Honored to Know: My Students and Their Pets!

One of my students last week came up with a great question for her pets. She asked, "How do you see yourself?"

We asked four dogs this question on a Tuesday night. It was interesting to hear their answers. A Great Dane described herself as "Elegant, Funny and a Mother". She's not technically a mother, but she sure mothers everyone at her house.

The doggies appreciated talking about themselves in their own words. I liked hearing how well their opinions matched what their owners thought about them!

My students are so smart.

What would your pet say? 

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!
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Honored to Know: Sherry Dmytrewycz

As many of you know, we've been experiencing a health crisis at our house this past week. The much-loved Benny ruptured his cruciate last Friday. Basically, this means that he ripped the tendon in his knee. 

As luck would have it, I was talking about Benny's cruciate on twitter, and Sherry Dmytrewycz contacted me. She and I have talked at length about energy work. This gal does a lot of different kinds of energy-related healing. 

I understand energy. As an intuitive animal communicator, I work with energy all of the time. I've seen reiki heal Benny before, and I've had reiki and theta healing for myself and one of my kids. 

For some reason, I've always thought of energy healing as more of a spiritual/emotional healing, and not so much a physical thing. Sherry offered to do a structural alignment on Benny. 

I've never taken Benny to a chiropractor before, and, I have to admit that his regular stance is wonky. His shoulder blades point up, and his body sinks down under them. It's like his tendons have too much stretch to them. 

Sherry worked on Benny for an hour or so, and then she called me to tell me that 9 of his vertebrae were out, and his wrist was out and his knee. He was a walking mess. She wanted to know how he was feeling now. 

Benny, at that moment, decided that he needed to go outside. I watched him walk across my living room like a different dog! Sure, his cruciate is still blown. But his back was nice and straight. His hind end wasn't hunched up, and his shoulders were in-line with his body. 

I asked Benny what it was like, and he said it felt like his vertebrae were on little rubber bands and they were being gently pulled and put in place. I asked him how he felt and he said he felt great! 

When you live with someone for their entire life, you don't notice how much they change.  When I saw Benny walk across the room, it was like I was seeing him again when he was in his prime. I remembered how he and Hunni would race around our house and outside, so fleet and fast. 

I HIGHLY recommend Sherry for energetic alignment. She heals people too. Her website is  http://www.healinggateway.com.

Honored to Know: Vanessa Smith

Golly, two new post categories in one day. That's a record!

What is the Honored to Know post category about? These are posts about people I am honored to know. 

Here's Vanessa Smith:

Vanessa Smith is funny. She is brilliant. She is practical. These are three values that I truly appreciate. On top of being funny, brilliant and practical, she's an intuitive coach and teacher. 

Here's what she does. You go to Vanessa. She takes a good look at you and says, "Hmmmm....." then she tells you what you might want to do to lead a healthier, happier, more-in-tune-with-you life.

Vanessa's a medical intuitive who teaches you how to lead a fuller, more healthy life, either in one-on-one sessions, or in her online classes. 

I'm taking her class series "Getting Clear" which is all about using your intuitive skills to articulate a clear direction in your life. I hope she offers it again, because I think that you should take it. 

Check out her blog at http://www.letyourlifebloom.com .