Healing Sally and Rachel

In some of my Blog posts, I've touched on the subject of our animals' behaviour. Now, I should say that I've no formal qualifications in animal behaviour. But it's a subject I've studied for many years, and have read a variety of books by acknowledged experts, and perhaps less obviously, texts written by other animal healers. It's impossible to become an animal healer without learning about their behaviour. I've also studied with animal behaviour and communication experts.

This has been complemented and built on by my own first hand experience in caring for animals - and there have been many. Observation is a great teacher, as long as you approach with a very open mind, with no pre-conceived ideas. Additionally, I've learnt directly from the animals themselves - when I'm communicating with them they tell me all sorts of things about our relationship with them.

I've talked previously about healing animals through the use of Reiki and with Bach Flower Remedies. I've introduced you to the idea of communicating with animals, but now I'm going to go one step further and explain how understanding your pets' behaviour can also help to heal.

Unless there's some obvious physical manifestation, often the only way we know that something is wrong with our pets is through changes in their behaviour. As loving carers we should take time to get the know the "normal" behaviours of our animals in order that we can recognise when things aren't right. You will also be quite intuitive about how your animals are feeling - how many times do you know that something's not right, but can't quite explain why? Well, what you're doing here is intuitively communicating with your animal by picking up on their messages to you. But perhaps what you don't realise is that you're also giving them messages through your own behaviour - which they very often mirror. So sometimes when we see emotional and/or behavioural problems, the problem might actually be ours.

To explain what I mean, I'm going to tell you about Sally - a lovely 2 year old labrador - and her family, Rachel and Martin. When she'd come to live with them as a pup all was fine - typical pup, into everything, fearless and loads of fun. Rachel contacted me a couple of years ago for help as she'd turned into a very sad animal, who'd become quite fearful of people, especially children. She didn't know what had happened to change her, and couldn't put her finger on anything in particular.

Rachel sent me a picture, and I could feel a huge heaviness about Sally. She had the weight of the world on her shoulders and seemed to be worrying about everything. She wouldn't tell me anything more as she was afraid of letting me in. When I got to Rachel's house I learnt a little more - both in what she told me and in the way she was with Sally. She'd taught her to bark when someone came to the door, in order to protect Rachel in the house. However, Sally had carried this too far, and thought that everyone who came in was a threat. Rachel was naturally very worried.

After talking to Rachel for a while we decided we'd start with Reiki. Reiki doesn't change the essential nature of a being, but Sally had once been a happy and carefree dog, so she could become that again. I expected though, that this might take a few visits. As she was rather anxious, the only way I could treat her was with Rachel cuddling her on her lap. This was my second clue. Intuitively I picked up from both of them that Rachel was over-worrying about Sally. As a dog, Sally felt a huge responsibility for her "mum", and was reflecting this worry back to her. They were caught in a vicious cycle.

Rachel was almost role-modelling the behaviour she wanted by encouraging dependence on her, and Sally thought that this was what Rachel wanted, so this is what she was giving her. The more that Rachel acted in a worried and over-caring way, the more that Sally mirrored this back to her.

I could see that the key to healing Sally was through Rachel, but how to approach this? So often it's the case that animal behaviour problems have their root in the behaviour of the carer. I knew I'd have to take it carefully, introduce the idea of Rachel needing to take responsibility for Sally's improvement thoughtfully and slowly. If I worried her even more, imagine what might happen! I've also spent years professionally coaching and counselling people, so I was confident that I could help in the right way.

At the end of the first session I told Rachel that I'd tune in to Sally again from home, and have a conversation with her. I felt sure that now we'd met she'd be much more open to talking to me. I also asked Rachel to send a list of questions she wanted me to ask Sally - which in themselves were very telling. At the same time Rachel told me that Sally seemed much happier and calmer after the initial Reiki session, and she couldn't believe she'd sat still for so long! One other little thing - by treating Sally while she was on Rachel's lap meant that I was delivering healing Reiki to both of them. I hoped that Rachel would also benefit.

Once I tuned into Sally again, the answers I got were amazing! This time she was very open with me, and was prepared to tell me anything. First, she admitted she was very confused by Rachel's expectations of her. She really did feel that she was supposed to be this worried, fearful little dog as that seemed to please Rachel - she'd cuddle her more and say lovely, comforting things. She also told me a lot about dogs and how they are with people. I probably learnt more from her about the dog/human relationship than anyone, and I'm very grateful to her for being to helpful. Above everything else they are such dutiful creatures and feel a huge burden of responsibility for their human carers. Even little Sally was prepared to go to the ends of the earth, and do whatever she thought Rachel and Martin expected of her.

I also learnt a lot more, most of which it's not appropriate to share here. Suffice to say that Sally did her dutiful best to raise some important issues which were far better out in the open.

Improvements did come, albeit gradually. I spent some more time talking intuitively to Sally, letting her know that Rachel was realising that her own behaviour was giving very mixed messages, but that above all Rachel wanted her to go back to the happy little dog she'd been before. In the end it seems that Sally actually helped to heal Rachel, and being a dutiful dog, that made her very happy.