TOUGH LESSONS AND LAUGHTER

When another rampage of kennel cough swept through the shelter, I took home a couple dogs to give them a break from the isolation kennels. As soon as I saw Panza, I knew she would be coming home with me. 

She had the heart of an Amazon warrior, but needed to temper her passion to live in these calmer times. She pushed every one of my buttons and forced me to look at ugly things within myself, especially the anger that still burst from me at times. I learned so much in the short time she was with us. Yet I didn’t learn enough to save her life. 

She was being aggressive in the isolation kennels and continued to show aggression toward my other dogs. She attacked my wise and gentle Lab twice. I gave her one warning and a second chance, then took her back to the shelter.

I spent as much time with her as I could. On her second day back, she led me through the parking lot, past all the other cars and to my Jeep. There she stopped, put her paw on the tail gate, looked at me, and said she wanted to go home with me. I told her I couldn’t tolerate any fights and especially no challenges to Goliath. 

The next day, she mouthed the arm of a volunteer dog walker at the shelter–didn’t break the skin–but she knew she was making the choice to go Home. 

As soon as I got the call she was to be euthanized, she started communicating with me. She was ready to go Home. She didn’t want any more play time or a last meal, she had a hot date with a male dog that afternoon across the Rainbow Bridge, so I needed to get out to the shelter so she could transition. 

Through my tears, she made me laugh. 

When writing this book, Panza told me: "I came for you. You have learned what you needed to know and now I can go Home." 

Whenever a niggling sense of failure comes up that I should have learned something more that could have saved her, Panza reminds me that dogs do not view this physical life as humans do. When their mission here is done, they transition to other realms, some of them nonphysical. If they want to return to this physical plane, they do. 

How could humans benefit from this attitude?

DOGS BECOME THEIR NAMES

One thing I learned quickly after animals began talking to me is names are very important. Dogs become their names. If people call them something uncomplimentary or something humans think is funny but in an unkind way, that is what the dog becomes. 

When dogs come home with me, I let them decide whether they want to keep the name they had been assigned at the shelter or had with a previous family or if they want a new name. 

For example, Sophie remained Sophie. My Cocker Spaniel needed a total break from previous experiences and became Rascal. Stewart was renamed Goliath when he was dumped at the shelter. With his next adoption he became Walter. Other adopters called him something else. However, I already had a dog named Goliath and in my mind he became Stewart before I even adopted him. 

The name Ebony Rose represents a beautiful spirit who still struggles with dark experiences and behaviors that don’t serve her best interests–much like me. 

So please be thoughtful as you and your dog consider names. Try one on. Ask your dog what they think. Ask what they would like to become, and choose wisely, with love and compassion.

WARRIOR GIRLS

WARRIOR GIRLS--
learning to live in
peace and love and abundance,
as well as play!

Ebony Rose was one of my Warrior Girls–doggies who came to me as fosters through the shelter. Panza, Tuley, and Ebony Rose have been with me through many lifetimes of abuse, betrayal and dying violently I had set up as atonement for past misdeeds.  

I can look back and see where angels and benevolent beings brought messages the atonement for past misdeeds was done. I could live in peace and love and abundance. Could play once in awhile. But I was so enmeshed in the old cycle I had forgotten how to live differently. Or perhaps I had never known.

I recently read a short ebook from E. Harv Eker with this quote: "People don't live the way they do because they like it. They live the way they do because they don't know what else to do."

Do you ever feel that way? Like you're caught in some crazy cycle but you don't know how to get out of it.

I'm determined to get out of this cycle. It has served its purpose: to give me the confidence to know I can overcome great odds, to make me stronger, to make me want to live a different way--a better way. 

Now I am stumbling along the journey to that better life. Struggling, confused and baffled about how exactly to get there, but putting one foot in front of another nonetheless. Yes, sometimes I slide backwards and end up with scrapes and bruises. But those times also offer lessons. And, as I learn and pay more attention to the messages of my spirit guides and beautiful furbabies, we will live more and more in an incredible world of everyday miracles.

A world where Warrior Girls (and Boys) can live in peace and love and abundance--and, of course, play.

FEBRUARY'S HOST: EBONY ROSE

Miss Ripley was a wild and crazy girl. However, she also cuddled, played with Batman, and slept with her head on my pillow and her paw on my arm when she could sneak past Goliath on the bed. She started out as a foster dog, but became a permanent member of my family, choosing the name Ebony Rose after several months of consideration. 

WOOFS OF WISDOM from BATMAN

I Want to Have 

the Heart of a Dog

by Genie Gabriel

Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement

I enjoy unusual holidays and celebrations. Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement on January 26 is one that caught my eye and imagination. I didn’t find anything for 2017, but did find this delightful story and backstory about this holiday at Bugs and Bunnies blog. It’s from 2011, but still a fun post. 

I love the spirit of this holiday, so I plan to celebrate by offering encouraging words to others—and hope you do too!

WOOFS OF WISDOM FROM BATMAN

Let go of the past. 

Learn how to appreciate joy 

without fearing it will be taken away; 

how to love 

without fear of being hurt.