I’m going to be moving house in a few days.
We all know how big changes can negatively affect our pets. It may be moving house, one of the kids goes to college, or another pet in the household passes over.
These and other events can be overwhelming for our pets because they often don’t understand what has happened, why it’s happened or if something else is about to happen to make them even more unsettled!
Of course, for many rescued pets this is even more worrying. They’ve already been through upheavals in their lives and the ones who have been badly treated can get panicky about whether they’re about to be moved on again. They can worry that they’ll be going back to a horrible situation!
So what can we do to help them?
Most animals pick up a lot of information from us through what we visualise. We may not realise they’re doing this but they are. Often this is how they anticipate what’s going to happen next. We don’t realise we’re thinking about the river or seeing it in our mind’s eye yet our dog is bouncing around knowing that we’re about to take them for a walk.
They also pick up on our emotions. How many of us have had a pet, whether a cat, dog, pig, bird…. that always knows when we’re sad and need a cuddle? When we’re upset our pets react to that but when we’re happy they are too.
We can use their ability to tune in with us to let them know what’s going on and why.
Let’s take when I’m moving house. It’s going to happen in 3 days. That means there will be 3 nights from now until the move. So what I do for our boy Teddy is visualise it getting dark then light again to represent the 1st night. I show him that when it’s light we are busy packing and cleaning and I fill this image with fun and love. Then it gets dark again to represent the 2nd night. It gets light again and the house is getting cleared. More boxes and bags are stacking up and we are all having great fun doing this! It gets dark again then the next morning we go out and come back with a van and a friend.
I show Teddy him being shut into the living room where his toys are and his favourite sleeping spot. I let him hear, by imagining them, all the noises associated with bringing furniture from downstairs and I visualise Teddy standing on the sofa looking out of the front window as we load the van. Then Teddy comes in the car with me and we all set off. Finally, I visualise the new house and all our stuff, the stuff Teddy knows, being brought in.
That takes care of the visualisation but I don’t want Teddy to feel worried about all this, so as I’m visualising I’m putting all the feelings of joy, happiness, excitement and fun I can into it. Especially the arrival at the new house with his new, fun garden!
We can use this technique for any changes that are going to happen.
Even the sad things. If one of your pets passes over you can show the others images of their sibling’s soul leaving their body and going up to heaven. Let them feel that although this is sad for us because we’ll miss them, it’s very good for the one who has passed. They are going to a wonderful place where there are being met by those who love them there.
Our pets are very intelligent but sometimes we make a terrible job of helping them to understand what’s going on, or we just don’t know how to tell them. By using visualisations accompanied by feelings you can help them to understand many changes that affect them.
