Healing the Wounds of Your Dog

When you observe suffering, you can’t bring yourself to witness another being holding on to life barely surviving without basic needs.

Your heart hurts for them.

You feel compassion and empathy for them and desire to end their suffering.

You may even feel compelled to take action and your action is adopting a companion animal to come home with you.

You know the biological needs like having food, water and shelter are basic for survival and you feel you can provide for them.

As days swing into weeks and you can see your dog settling in.

You feel overjoyed with love in helping your companion satisfy his hunger and thirst.

You see how your dog is sleeping better and throughout the night.

You just love on them.

But, one day, you start recognizing, your dog is knocking things off the counter, chewing things like your shoes, furniture, howling and crying when you leave, frozen at the sight of another dog and even grabbing your kids toys.

You grow confused by this “new” behavior.

You believe, you provided your dog with all the things and now he’s acting out.

When behavior concerns and issues crop up and you can’t see what or believe how your dog can still be suffering, you loose empathy for your companion.

You wonder, “why is my dog being so spiteful” “ungrateful” or you may feel your dog betrayed you.

How can my dog “treat me this way after everything I’ve done for him.”

When your dog has unmet emotional and social needs, they are often misunderstood.

When barking, lunging, growling to unsafe chewing and household destruction leads you into the swirling of confusion and frustration, you start losing hope.

You may even start feeling hatred and anger towards your dog.

These limiting beliefs go deeper than just what your dog is doing.

Your own beliefs about fear get extended to your dog.

You may think that fear is something to be “overcome”, “push forward” or you may even question the even idea your dog may be afraid.

You question how fear of being left alone, strangers or even leaves blowing in the wind can be a thing.

You believe these are insignificant and you begin minimizing them and judge your dog for feeling this way.

Your own limiting beliefs of what fear looks like and how it shows up gets in your own way.

It prevents you from connecting with your companion and only gets you more of the same.

When you make a choice to do something differently and come from a place of where you started, feeling empathy and compassion, you can uncover and start meeting what your dog needs emotionally and socially.

When you are motivated by guiding your dog to feel

Trust,

Safe,

He has choice or dare I say, freedom!

And bonded and connected with you.

You start seeing the world from your dog’s eyes and the innocence in his soul.

Now, you start going back to understanding how meeting your dog’s emotional and social needs starts healing those invisible wounds.

Take steps to heal your dog rather than compounding his suffering.

Connecting Hearts

Connection with another being is a heart centered expression.

Being present in the moment and being open with curiosity to experience how the interaction will unfold.

Without judgement or anticipation of how you’ll respond.

Not feeling regretful about the past, without worry about the future, but fully present in the here and now.

Connection begins the moment you have a new dog move into your home.

It is about remaining flexible in your expectations and allowing for the relationship to unfold with love and compassion.

Connection is also about making different choices in your plans because you desire your dog to feel safe and to trust you, you won’t harm or abandon him.

Doozy and his pet parent continue their journey even after their time in the program container ends.

Doozy’s pet parent shares how she now has the tools and the know how to continue guiding Doozy that the world is a safe place because he’s with her.

She even made the choice of postponing some travel because Doozy wasn’t yet ready for the change in routine or the pet sitter.

Even with making the change in plans, she sees their world expand. She can envision what life can look like for them because she sees Doozy making choices and being brave and building his confidence.

Doozy didn’t feel safe leaving his home. The small steps Doozy is taking and seeking out his pet parent, he’s learning to change his mind and try new things.

New neural pathways are being created and with this, Doozy’s pet parent knows he can learn to see the world as a more positive experience.

Celebrating Doozy and his pet parent for the growth and confidence they achieved!

Do you want to change the way you feel about living life with your companion? Set up a Discovery Call with me!

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Are You Asking for Permission or Support?

You doubt you have the knowledge to make a choice that is right for you let alone your dog.

Your confidence is in the dumps.

Your self talk about what you’re doing and the work your doing with your dog leads you to down a dark path of confusion and frustration.

You just want to give up.

You’ve always had the permission in your grasp in choose how you move forward, but you never felt empowered to make a choice.

You just avoided taking action because you didn’t know what was on the other side and avoiding was easier to do.

What if the choice you’re about to make is choosing between hiding back into your comfort zone or expanding past your growth edge.

You give yourself the permission to choose.

Today, you made the choice of seeing what you can learn in this space of vacillation instead of avoiding it all together?

Once you took notice of the feeling of being in limbo in making a choice in where to go next, you allow yourself to feel the frustration bubble up inside of yourself.

The feeling of frustration is your internal compass indicating you are on to something even if you can’t quite put your finger on it yet.

I know, that feeling is uncomfortable and you may even be afraid of what it’s trying to say.

But instead, you make the choice to feel brave and you ask yourself, “what is the frustration trying to tell me?”

Maybe the answer is your expectations are getting in the way of what is actually unfolding in front of you.

The beliefs of where and what you’re doing are not real or your reality.

Instead, when you start seeing how the steps you’re taking is getting you closer to what you want because you can feel a connection with your dog growing stronger your awareness of the impact of the work you’re doing with your dog grows deeper.

You can feel the shifts happening.

You can observe his body language change and you can see those changes are reflecting a more relaxed dog than before.

The journey continues each day. You are reminded of where you were because you can now see how your dog is making choices to seek you out, be closer to you without running away and looking forward to when you show up.

All you need to do is keep going!

Are you willing to give yourself permission to choose to do things differently?