Lively Dog Blog

I have a number of elderly canine clients, and it’s very gratifying to see them perk up after a few weeks of massage and Reiki. Increased range of motion, increased energy… you get used to seeing constant incremental improvements. You might even start to think you are pretty damn good.

Then the day comes when there is no improvement. Maybe things are even a little worse than last week. The gait is a little off. Or the muscle tone just isn’t the same. Perhaps there is a simple explanation; perhaps it is a passing thing. Or perhaps… the continual improvement isn’t sustainable. Perhaps the decline is inevitable.

It’s hard moving past that sentence. I feel foolish, but I hadn’t really considered it before. I’ve held a client and given Reiki while she died, but this is different. Her ills were acute, beyond my power to affect, and all I could do was try to make her passing easier for her and for her family. When I have a dog where my therapy is working, I feel effective, like I can make a difference. I’ve got a handle on this. Then suddenly I don’t… it’s a feeling of panic– I should be able to fix it.

In school they taught us we have to learn to manage our clients’ expectations, which in the animal care world means their owners’. I think it might be more of a lesson to learn to manage my own expectations. I tell myself my session goal is for the animal to feel better going out than he did coming in. I really don’t expect miracles, though sometimes they happen. It’s this slow, steady, reasonable success that becomes addicting, that leaves a hole when it goes. Ego, I imagine. Attachment. I should let it go.

That’s too easy, too pat. If every time I saw an old dog decline I thought, “Ah, but this is life. Very sad.” I would miss those opportunities where the lost progress can be regained. Alfie is one of my early clients, from my school days. You can read his story and see a picture here. In a nutshell, he’s a nine year old border collie with a history of Lyme disease, hypothyroidism, and a frisbee spinal injury that left one hind leg partially lame. When I met him he was in a downward spiral of listlessness and decreasing mobility. He responded well to Reiki and eventually massage. I cleared out his major energy blockages and went to work trying to improve his muscle tone and his sense of where that leg is in space, so he would drag his foot less. His mood improved dramatically and his mobility increased a little at a time. I bought him a small, soft frisbee that I could throw directly to his mouth, so he wouldn’t have to jump. After each session we would have a little game as a reward. Then, about a month ago I noticed his muscle tone decreasing in both legs. His foot was dragging a little. He doesn’t like deep massage so there was only so much I could do there. My initial thought was to increase the frequency of sessions but that wasn’t workable. I tested some structural integration techniques I’d been studying, and started thinking the dark thoughts that began this post.

A couple of weeks later his owner told me that his fur was thinning and getting greasy. She had found a few sores on his skin. He was more lethargic. She was going to go to the vet to get his thyroid medication for hypothyroidism tweaked. Weak muscle tone is another of the symptoms of hypothyroidism. In the future we’ll know that it’s one of the first to turn up for Alfie and get him to the vet a few weeks earlier. In the end, his dose was doubled, his skin started clearing up, and today his muscles felt pretty good to me. During our frisbee game I saw him really fixate on the frisbee for the first time. It’s the look border collies give to sheep. I think I’m going to have to schedule a bit more time for frisbee in future sessions.

So, the lesson is… I don’t know. Fight hard to keep ground gained, but let it go with equanimity when it can’t be kept? Learn to recognize when that point is reached? I will remind myself that my ultimate goal is not to make the Alfies young again, but to make them the best dogs their bodies and health will allow them to be.

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