This email is mainly for dog lovers, but others might find a nugget here and there. Shortly after I started walking again following a year of spider-bite agony, I found a feral cat in my garage, very skinny and timid. I absolutely had to take it in, but the condition was that Smokey must not trouble my birds. He was really very good about this, which showed me that one can make a rule in the ethers and expect it to be obeyed without having to use any of the normal training methods, which probably wouldn't work anyway 
with a cat. One full moon, Smokey went missing and when an old friend visited, she insisted we go to the shelter together. I knew he wouldn't be there, but to make a rather long story short, I ended up with a dog who quickly acquired the name Tundra. I got her out of there an hour or so before her wonderful life would have been brought to an end. She was always so grateful and she showed this appreciation by her behavior whenever anyone asked her story.
She was an adult already and that adoption took place nearly twelve years ago and I was starting to see a little less effervescence in her behavior. She still had perfect hearing and eyesight and still jumped the stairs instead of taking them one at a time, but somehow, I was becoming a little suspicious about her condition. She went missing on the full moon, chewed through a 2 x 8, rather remarkable and determined, and despite a lot of effort to find her, there has not been any sign of her.
There is a web site called petfinder.com and when trying to figure out what breed would describe her best, I looked at some pictures! Okay, that is a big "no, no" unless you really want your heart to burst. I didn't find any dog that looked like her, but she looked like a small red wolf, not any breed I recognized.
To spare you a lot of details, I ended up filling out an application form for an Akita and I have learned so much in the last week. There are many dogs that are never put up for adoption in shelters. They go straight to the rescue kennel or the euthanasia room. I was in total shock because I saw pit bulls in the adoption area but no Akitas.
Thanks to a lot of incredibly inspired communication, two Akitas scheduled for the needle have now been rescued. One will come to live with me starting on Sunday. I had already asked to adopt another one so this one will have a foster home unless a permanent home is found before he even reaches here. The stories I am hearing are amazing, but they are reflections of our world, of our values, of our politics, and of our unresolved issues. However, this is not what I want to discuss today.
My mother had a dog named Peter before I was born, big German Shepherd. He was my primary companion and baby sitter when I was little. Life without a dog is really strange for me but starting 1972, I had Akitas, beautiful white ones. One day, I was visiting Mornnah in her travel agency. It was really odd seeing a kahuna in such a place. She looked businesslike and not at all mystical, but her first question was, "Which one of your dogs died?" I said, "Keoki, why?" She said he was sitting outside on the sidewalk. I asked if he was earthbound. Her eyes dropped shut as I had seen countless times before and she said, "He says it is his pleasure to stay with you until the end of time."
I know what you are thinking and what you are feeling.
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Skiing in the mountains above Santa Fe, New Mexico. Seen in the photo, one of the white Akitas and her friend, Brio, a wolf. |
You go to the shelters and you see some dogs who are super friendly and some who are forlorn and some who have given up and gone into shutdown. Once in a while, you see one who is overjoyed but in a relaxed sort of way. I think they know their destinies and have implicit faith that all will follow the divine order. I can write those words but applying them to my wobbly chakras is a totally different challenge.
The dog I wanted to adopt was reserved by someone else who was approved for Akita adoption but indecisive. They talked to me about other dogs. I wasn't listening because I saw something in the eyes of the one I first discussed with them. The other woman didn't act on the adoption so they said, "She's yours." I knew it, I just knew it. Yesterday, as we were discussing when and where to meet, the temporary caregiver said, "Sakura had a seizure this morning."
I thought, "Wow, no wonder." Keoki was epileptic and one of his offspring was epileptic. This is something I really know how to manage. I began explaining that regardless of the ostensible cause of the epilepsy, the seizures never come on unless the dog is constipated so the right food — including a little popcorn — and exercise enables the dog to live without seizures. The caregiver told me that she had been about to take Sakura for a walk when there was a little incident and a delay and then the seizure came on. I thought "no brainer" and, of course, "no problem." Before I figured out the pattern, I had learned that if I gave Keoki homeopathic magnesium phosphate, he came out of the seizure in seconds. I didn't even have to get it into his mouth, between his toes worked fine.
The reason for the seizure may be neurological, mold or parasites or infection, but the spasms are due to gas. Before we can expel anything from the body, gas has to move the material. This is true of toxins in the lungs that we exhale as well as movement of waste. If the gas is moving one direction and the plan changes, it reverses and causes an accumulation in other tissues that results in spasms and sometimes seizures. It's very easy to control with essential oils also.
One dog, Keoki's mate, Tilok, was very old and her breathing was really labored. She didn't want to let go so I put oils on a steaming hot wash cloth and put these under her nose. All her pain stopped and she went on for another two years. Here, the reason is that the aromatic vapors neutralize the toxic gases and allow the body to relax. The build up of gases can be excruciatingly painful so it's really important to keep the channels clean and clear, but more miraculously, it is now obvious to everyone that choosing one particular critter out of line up is not the roulette it appeared to be but rather a deep sense of connection that always has to be honored.
Sorry if this is all rather too personal, but losing a pet is an emotionally challenging situation even when the pet has the grace to orchestrate all sorts of wondrous new experiences.
Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2008
