Want a better connection with your dog, cat, horse or other companion? This newly revised, mobile-friendly guide can get you started.
As an animal communicator and professional writer, I know how important it is to be succinct. That’s why I streamlined the earlier version to make it even easier to begin to find the answers you seek.
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Dolly, left, and Maggie after a Let Animals Lead® session.
You may hear me talking more about meditation than Reiki these days. That’s because the animal Reiki method I practice, Let Animals Lead®, works through meditation. It’s different from what you may know as Reiki.
Let Animals Lead® was developed by Kathleen Prasad, founder of Animal Reiki Source and co-founder of the nonprofit Shelter Animal Reiki Association, to which I belong. Let Animals Lead® is a specialized form of Reiki, a Japanese stress relief modality: “Rei” stands for spirit or higher power, and “ki” (sometimes seen as “chi”) is the energy that animates every living thing.
Reiki was developed a century ago by Mikao Usui. It was essentially meditation; subsequent teachers added hand positions. These hand positions are used with a human client seated in a chair or lying on a massage table. That was how Kathleen and tons of other practitioners, including me, learned Reiki. Today, Reiki promotes relaxation and healing in spas, private clinics, hospitals and other settings.
As time went on, Kathleen found that “people Reiki” wasn’t always effective with animals … despite the best intentions of the practitioner. Because animals are much more sensitive to energy, touch generally isn’t needed. Animals who have experienced abuse, trauma or illness may even shy away from touch.
Kathleen saw this most acutely when her beloved dog Dakota was sick. He wouldn’t sit still for traditional Reiki, but when she sat quietly in meditation, he settled beside her.
Creating a peaceful space where animals are free to share on their own terms turned out to be a game changer. Thus Let Animals Lead® was born.
I had taken one or two of Kathleen’s earlier classes and practiced animal Reiki, but training with her as a Let Animals Lead® practitioner and teacher allowed me to offer animals and their people something better. It is my honor to see creatures from mice to rescued draft horses join with me and take the lead in their own healing — whatever that means for them.
Is it still Reiki? Yes. Is it more accurately and recognizably described as meditation? Also yes.
In a world where so much seems murky, talking about a discipline that makes animals’ lives better can be clear.
My partner and I recently made the gut-wrenching decision to let our 11-year-old dog, Molly, be put to sleep. That was preceded by weeks of: How bad is it? How bad might it get? Are her good days/minutes still outnumbering the bad? What else can we try?
Over and over, I told Molly I loved her and thanked her for the love, care and laughs she’s given us. I talked with her and the cats about what was happening and acknowledged how strange and sad it all was. I assured all of them we would get through it, one day at a time, and that Kathy and I would care for and support them. We shared healing meditations and I prayed for courage.
Every time I started down the path of worry and despair, I reminded myself to return to the present moment, which was where Molly needed me to be. Sometimes I got further down that path than other times. I kept coming back, however imperfectly.
After Molly gently departed on her next adventure, Lucy (the black tortoiseshell cat pictured above) was stoic and attentive. Dusty, her younger calico sister, kind of understood what was going on but still found it confusing. Kathy and I did our best to reassure them and cope with the raw void.
Less than a week after Molly’s passing, I noticed food-driven Lucy wasn’t finishing her kibble. She ended up having five teeth extracted. Lucy has tooth resorption, which basically means her saliva breaks down her teeth, and had had five extractions less than a year before. Tooth resorption is not uncommon in cats, but science hasn’t figured out why it happens or how to fix it.
This time her recovery was full of ups and downs — different medications for pain and nausea, trying all manner of soft foods and feeding methods to get her to eat, and trips back to the vet clinic to be checked and rechecked. We were all still slogging through the fog of loss. I shared meditation with Lucy daily but wondered if I was getting it all wrong.
On a Saturday, after another vet visit and another failed attempt to get her to eat more than a couple of small bites, I was at the end of my tether. I wanted Lucy better. Yesterday.
Lucy was getting veterinary care. Now I had to force myself to do what I’d suggest to any client in this situation: Take a breath and focus on the connection rather than “the problem.”
Only then was I able to communicate with my cat without worry butting in.
What Lucy told me was not that she was tired of going to the vet and being cajoled to eat … though who could blame her? What she told me was that her mouth was still adjusting and her body was healing. She could feel the prayers and healing energy working. What she needed was time. And steadiness. She needed me not only to show up but keep coming back. Because we humans do drift.
I began to breathe a little easier. Her appetite remained sketchy for the rest of the weekend. On Monday afternoon she followed me into the furnace room, which is off limits to the cats, and ducked underneath some shelving.
“Lucy! Outta there!”
All I could see was the faint, dark outline of a cat crouched amid the dust bunnies. Never have I been so glad to see a cat behave like a stinker.
I went back upstairs, grabbed a fork and tapped the side of her stainless steel food bowl. Out of the furnace room and up the basement stairs she ran. And ate a bit more food.
The next morning, Lucy ate her breakfast normally. Well, maybe not quite normally, but close enough that we could see she’d turned a corner.
Lucy continues to improve, and we all continue to heal. It is not a linear process, and of course there’s never a good time for an animal to be ill or pass away. We humans have enormous responsibility for our animal companions, and yet there’s so much we cannot control. I’ve discovered that returning to God, to the breath, and to the presence of the animals can only help. Sometimes it’s the only thing that does.
Even if I have to do it several times a day (or hour), I’ll keep coming back.
All Creatures 