I recently worked with a client whose dog was being labelled as reactive to other dogs when walking. Barking and pulling to get to them mainly.
But I never look just at their behaviour, I know they are our mirrors and our messengers. I accompanied this client on a walk and watched what occurred.
I watched how the walk was not his own. If he smelt something over there, he wasn’t allow to go to that smell. He had to walk a certain way, and at a certain speed.
I asked my client if they could allow him to guide the walk, where he wanted to go, what he wanted to smell, within reason and safety of course.
Regarding the dog’s behaviour, there were plenty of thoughts flying around my client’s head, with accompanying feelings, which her dog was responding to also. When we got into them this was more about what would happen if he was removed from her life for his behaviour.
We worked with AromaFlow with her dog, who normally I would offer something like Vetiver to ground them but they turned their head away. I realised they were after more gentler yet just as powerful oils and they chose, Neroli, Frankicense and Rose.
When I did a visualisation with the owner after, they started crying and at the end they wanted to cry more. I know often dogs will choose oils for their owner and as Neroli relates to sadness and separation, and Rose towards (self) love, compassion and emotional issues, I asked if they had suffered some kind of loss and separation.
This had brought them to the emotions suppressed over the loss of their husband a while back. And as they had been inhaling the oils too, the emotions surfaced to be released. I worked with them with EMDR to release this trauma.
We also did sound healing with her dog too, to help them feel more balanced overall.
Home activities for my client were varied:
– tapping (EFT) for grief and loss
– breathwork to be more in their rest and digest ‘relaxed’ nervous system rather than fight or flight/stress
– reading articles about their dog breed to understand their needs more
– sourcing, with my help, a new doggie field so they could run freely and burn off energy (high energy breed who was kept on the lead all the time)
My client is now feeling much calmer, her dog is also feeling much calmer as his needs are being met more, and there is less emotion to pick up from Mum. My client is blown away by what came out of this session and uttered those words on our follow up call.
“ It was amazing. Never what I ever expected!”
This is what I do, people AND pet therapy, very often it is more about us than it is them.
There is much more that I can explore with my client based on our first session, but for now, they are happy to proceed as is. I know her dog is showing her so much more, and when they are ready I am here to guide her through it.
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