Higgins at Pet Rock Fest 2009
Posted by lisa on Sep 21, 2009
Last weekend I massaged at Pet Rock Fest and it was a blast. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many dogs in one place, and I got to work on some wonderful pups. I want you to meet Higgins, my new best friend.
Here is Higgins’ mom’s description of his Pet Rock experience:
We brought Higgins, a beagle-jack russell mix, to the Pet Rock Fest in Worcester. Higgins loves people but is quite shy around other dogs. As soon as we brought him through the gates of the festival, he made a bee-line to the exit… twice; he was so uncomfortable with the hundreds of other dogs around, he truly wanted to leave.
We had almost decided to take him back to the car when, thankfully, we saw Lisa’s booth offering massages and Reiki and that it would specifically help anxious, fearful, stressed out dogs. If it would help Higgins enjoy what should have been a dog mecca, we would try it. The moment he went on the table and Lisa sat next to him and started her massage, he was a different dog. He leaned into her and allowed her to work out all his worries and stress. She took her time and didn’t touch any part of him that he wouldn’t willingly give her so he felt comfortable.
After the 15 minute treatment we took him back into the milleu of barking dogs and crowds of people and he happily walked next to us, enjoying his time there, allowing other dogs to greet him without shying away and snatching toys out of every bin within his reach (it became quite expensive!). It really was an amazing transformation! Thank you Lisa for allowing us to spend a fun day with our beloved friend without worrying that he hated ever minute of it and that we would pay for it later when he would destroy our couch!
Another gratuitous picture of Higgins:
How sweet is Higgins?
I can’t wait for next year’s Pet Rock!
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Third Prettiest Dog in Brooklyn, CT
Posted by lisa on Sep 1, 2009
We went to the fair in Brooklyn this weekend to watch an agility dog demo and they were having a prettiest dog competition, so of course we had to enter. Fergus was feeling pretty mellow so I thought it was worth a shot. Here’s my boy holding up pretty well:
Pretty terrier/ husky/ briard/ deerhound/ thing
There were about 25-30 dogs and the whole thing took way too long– I thought we might have to bow out to save Fergus’ psyche. He was fine as long as we were moving, but long stationary waits were difficult. You can see here that he’s starting to get nervous:
Getting a little anxious
His mouth is still open, which is usually good, unless he’s panting. His ears are starting to point back, and his tail is down, both signs of anxiety. Shortly after this he started to pull to get out of the ring. I used some massage, Reiki, and even TTouch to hold him together. Luckily they announced the winners, and Fergus won third place! There were some beautiful dogs there, so I’m very pleased, and very proud of how well he behaved. (And I know now to never wear that outfit again. Luckily only Fergus was being judged that day.)
Congratulations to Fergus!
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Move forward… fall back
Posted by lisa on Nov 9, 2008
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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Reiki Party!
Posted by lisa on Aug 29, 2008
I give a discount for dog/owner Reiki sessions, and some of my dog owners decided to team up and get Reiki for themselves and their dogs all in one night. I’d never given Reiki for hours straight, but figured it was worth a try as long as I could take a break for food now and again. Reiki isn’t supposed to drain you, since the energy you give is not from your personal store of energy, but I thought that just keeping mental focus for that long might be tiring. There were three dogs and four people, and we stopped for a nice dinner, so the whole night took about five hours.
I alternated humans and dogs to take it easy on my back. Even with my table set to the proper height, standing for an hour can be tough. Rolling around on the floor with pups is hard on the back in a different way, but the alternating helped. In case anyone is considering trying this, my energy level was fine at the end, but my hips were very sore the next few days. In massage school they taught us to mind our body mechanics and not strain ourselves helping the client. This is easier said than done, especially with dogs. When you finally get the dog settled and allowing you to do what your need to do, you’d to anything to avoid causing the dog to stand up. It’s tempting to just lean over a little farther in your current position than move and unsettle the dog.
I did find that after five hours of Reiki I was pretty electrified. I kept shaking my arms because they were very tingly. I also had trouble quieting myself for sleep, the opposite of being mentally drained.
I loved the pups, of course, but the people were also very interesting. One man was a bit of a skeptic but was willing to try. I do hands-on Reiki whenever possible, but when I did the position where I hold my hands over his eyes, I tried not to touch him. I thought that if I were in his position and thought the whole thing was a little weird, I wouldn’t want some strange lady to put her hands on my face. So, I only touched him if my hands shook. He said it was like having his face “massaged by clouds.” I thought that was very poetic.
Another client gave me my first experience with a healing reaction (sometimes called “crisis”). I always explain to my new clients that sometimes the condition I’m treating will get worse before it gets better as the body heals itself, and not to be overly alarmed. On the party night her foot was in pain and felt a little better after her first treatment. After I checked up with her this week, she said that it had in fact gotten much worse before getting much better. A feel a little bad contributing to someone’s pain, even in the service of healing, but she was fine with it since she knew it might be coming.
When I was attuned, the concept of learning more about Reiki on my own seemed a little strange. After all, an attunement is essentially something that is “done to” you, after which you can suddenly do this wonderful thing, with very little formal training. And being a scientist, I am used to formal training. I’m used to knowing why things work and how they look underneath. But the longer I do Reiki, the more nuances I pick up, the more confident I become in my skills, without anyone teaching me. All I have to do is pay very close attention to my senses. Which, I suppose, was part of my formal science training, though it feels very, very different.
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This is ridiculous
Posted by lisa on Aug 10, 2008
This year in New England, I feel like I’m under siege by summer. My dog Fergus, is a nervous wreck. He’s lived five years without being afraid of thunderstorms, but this year, we’ve had one every other day . All summer. Sometimes every day.
He goes from room to room with every thunderclap, like he’s thinking, “Damn, it’s in this room, too, I’ll try the kitchen. Nope, here, too, I’ll try the bathtub.”
It may have something to do with his ear being extra sensitive. I say this only because he has another sudden-onset phobia: he won’t go outside. As soon as he goes out, his tail sneaks below his belly, his ears go down and he pulls like a sled dog to get back inside. Panic, is how one friend described it.
This is the dog that never smiles in the house… he’s only happy outside. Now I can’t get him to go out to go potty. It was John that figured it out. He got Fergus into the backyard, and he was okay at first. Then he’d dive under a table and tremble. He’d come out for awhile, then dive under and tremble. John linked it to the off-and-on singing of the cicadas. You know, these guys:
They make an infernal racket sounding like this:
Cidaca M. cassini making my life hard
I remember last year it bugged him, but not like this. Meanwhile, I can only get my dog to do his business when it rains (provided there is no thunder), or in the early morning before they start singing. Reiki, massage, T-touch help a bit with the thunder fear but not with the cicadas. I began to think it may have more to do with ear pain than fear.
In the end, it came to this: aviation ear muffs for my dog. I ordered a pair of Mutt Muffs for Fergus. The other dogs make fun of him, but now he will go outside.
His tail stays up; he has a happy trot. He does his business. I can’t let him run off leash, because he can’t hear my call. Still, a thousand times better. I was starting to worry about his kidneys.
I use them, too, during thunderstorms (on Fergus. They’re too small for me.). Some dogs hate more than the noise; they sense the pressure changes or the static in the air. Ferg seems to only react to the noise so far, so I thought it was worth a try. It helps, a little. The quieter claps he can’t hear at all (no jump in his muscles); the louder ones must sound not so loud. He’ll lay in bed with me until the really big ones come. I would take a picture of him in his Mutt Muffs for you, but this storm is pretty bad. Fergus is in the closet. Sigh.
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Massaging at SmartPak Bark Fest
Posted by lisa on Jul 20, 2008
Our internship phase has started and we kicked it off at the SmartPak event this weekend. It’s a beautiful store for dog and horse lovers. They have a catalog business and a unique service of packaging dog/horse food, meds and supplements in daily packs for freshness and proper measurement.
Mary Francis and I manned the table on Saturday and massaged about 14 dogs between us and met a lot of interesting people and their pups. My favorite was a 15 year old bull terrier named Coco that would have laid still for me for hours. Below is Jack the spaniel, who is, in fact, sitting completely in my lap.
People were very receptive to a free massage for their dog and so were most of the pups. I used Reiki to calm a young Portuguese Water Dog named Lily that wanted to sneak away and bark at Tara, the eldery Scottie, who Mary Francis was working on.
People were mostly surprised at how well their dogs settled into it. I think that, aside from the relaxation of massage, that the feeling of trained hands on them is novel and stimulates their curiosity. It might just be worth hanging out for a minute to see where this unusual experience is heading.
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The verdict: Snow Leopard
Posted by lisa on Jun 29, 2008
While doing my second degree attunement today, my Master saw a snow leopard.
Image by Tricia Shears, Creative Commons Attribution license
A quickie definition of Snow Leopard as a Totem:
Overcoming Demons & Haunts, Renewal of Vision & Vitality, Self-reliance
So very, very tired after my attunement. I fell asleep early only to be woken by Fergus who wanted to go out and then get Reiki. Unusual for him. I think his skin is really bothering him. Now, he is sacked out and I am awake at two in the morning.
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All Aflutter- Second Degree Attunement
Posted by lisa on Jun 27, 2008
I receive my second degree attunement tomorrow from my Master, Aileen D’Angelo. I spent the last few days studying the symbols I’ll be using from now on. My last attunement was very interesting and life was especially bright and shiny for some time after. That time Aileen said she saw the image of a fox while she attuned me. I’m eager to see if there is anything new this time. Wish me luck!
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Music of the Earth: On topic if you use your imagination
Posted by lisa on Jun 26, 2008
I had a pretty good day, but I think the best part was reading Mark Morford’s April 23rd column on SFGate, on the deep musical hum made by the earth. You need to read the whole thing, but here are a few quotes:
“The Earth is humming. Singing. Churning out a tune without the aid of battery or string or wind-up mechanism and its song is ethereal and mystifying and very, very weird, a rather astonishing, newly discovered phenomena that’s not easily analyzed, but which, if you really let it sink into your consciousness, can change the way you look at everything.
Indeed, scientists now say the planet itself is generating a constant, deep thrum of noise. No mere cacophony, but actually a kind of music, huge, swirling loops of sound, a song so strange you can’t really fathom it, so low it can’t be heard by human ears, chthonic roars churning from the very water and wind and rock themselves, countless notes of varying vibration creating all sorts of curious tonal phrases that bounce around the mountains and spin over the oceans and penetrate the tectonic plates and gurgle in the magma and careen off the clouds and smack into trees and bounce off your ribcage and spin over the surface of the planet in strange circular loops, “like dozens of lazy hurricanes,” as one writer put it.”
That’s some amazing description. The best part is when he uses his imagination to try to explain it:
“Me, I like to think of the Earth as essentially a giant Tibetan singing bowl, flicked by the middle finger of God and set to a mesmerizing, low ring for about 10 billion years until the tone begins to fade and the vibration slows and eventually the sound completely disappears into nothingness and the birds are all, hey what the hell happened to the music? And God just shrugs and goes, well that was interesting.”
It goes on from there to more possibilities, swinging out into the solar system and the galaxies, and back in to explore how all humans and animals seem to have an inborn love of music. You need to go read it. Go on, now, you can come back later.
….
Thanks for coming back. My only disagreement with Mark is that I can’t wait for science to figure it out. It’s a wonderful mystery to contemplate as it is, but seeking complex explanations sparks my imagination just as much mystical ones.
To belatedly tie it back into massage and Reiki, sometimes I idly think about the music we play during sessions, and how much more smoothly the energy flows when the music is playing. I always thought it was simply relaxing for the client and rhythmic for me, which made everything better. Perhaps, though, the music facilitates the connection between us, by tapping into that primordial rhythm that surrounds us all.
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Puffer Fish Reiki
Posted by lisa on Jun 14, 2008
I was sending Reiki to my sister’s fractured vertebrae as we watched her fish tank. Some new creatures had cropped up on the glass and were eating other new creatures. Her puffer fish was hanging out at the back of the tank, scritching himself on the rocks and swimming through the filter bubbles. But then he swam up right to the glass and hovered, watching us. I asked him if he wanted Reiki and put my hand on the glass, just for fun. He stayed a while, left, and came back again a few times. I confess I didn’t feel the same connection I do when sharing with a person or dog. Perhaps because I can lay hands on them. I ‘m hoping that after my second degree attunement this month I’ll be better at sending through barriers and over distances.
Next I want to Reiki a snake!
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