Rocky's Change of Heart

On July 13, I wrote about Rocky, my German Shepherd Dog puppy, and how he spoke to me out loud in English.

"As I prepared to leave with Jessie tonight for her positive reinforcement class, I realized I would have to crate Rocky. He is so hyper and I knew he'd be so strung out from Jessie leaving that he would be better off sitting safely in his crate. As I locked him up, he howled in a tortured, high-pitched voice. It's hard to translate into the written word, but it sounded something like 'i row ruh oo, i row ruh oo, i row ruh oo!' and became more and more high pitched until the words became clear, "I doan luh yoo, I doan luh yoo, I doan luh you" over and over as if to scold me for leaving."

Well, today I had to crate Rocky, and his sister Jessie, and Felix, the Schipperke, while I went inside because I had all sorts of papers I was filing on the table and Rocky, in the last few days, has taken to jumping on the table! At the coercion of Felix, he then tosses down items for Felix to shred. Felix, of course, being a cat-fox-dog-bat creature, can hop on the table any time he pleases. But he finds it more entertaining to send Rocky up there and just finds it fun, in general, to command the other dogs in feats of mischief.

So, not trusting any of them except for Macintosh, I crated them all and headed inside with Mac to download some new tunes before I returned to filing.

That's when Rocky started talking again. The tortured, high-pitched voice...this time had a different message for me--"I luh you...I luh you...I luh you!!!" I smiled and continued in to download some music. What a difference a month can make. We've only had Rocky since Memorial Day weekend, so I don't blame him for not loving me until now.

Later, when we had all gone out for romps and then were back in and I was at my filing again, Rocky came up to me and put his huge head next to mine where I sat and looked at me so earnestly with those bright eyes.

"So, Rocky, you love me now eh?" I asked him. I was answered with a big, sloppy lick that went from my chin to my forehead for an answer.

I kissed him back before I went inside to clean my glasses.

Wolves on The Red Road or A Highway Through Time

Yesterday I said I would talk about a mystical experience I had with my dogs, Wolfgang and Foxfire, many years ago.

Wolfgang, at the time, was a 95lb. mahogany, dark sable collie who had been, for the most part, feral when we adopted him. He had come to us through collie rescue and to there from a local shelter where he'd ended up because, as his original owner told us, 'he kept running away, breaking into neighbor's houses and ransacking their kitchens.' He was a hard headed dog, but never vicious, who had his own ideas about everything.

We adopted him to be a companion to the beautiful Foxfire, our blue merle collie girl. And so my husband, Wolfgang, Foxfire and I were all walking one day at the archery range where we often took them. It was a hot summer day and I had been enjoying watching Wolfgang run like lightning across the fields, his body in top form, his athleticism and sheer, rippling red fur and muscles bristling in the dragging air created by his bolting body. Low to the ground he ran, like a cheetah; front legs stretched nearly horizontally in front of him and hind legs stretched nearly horizontally underneath him, then switching, in the rhythmic, poetic motion of a wolf at top speed.

Foxfire enjoyed it too and barked at him, not bothering to try and keep up. He was doing it, after all, to impress all of us, including her, though there was no need to win the silver girl's heart, for she loved everyone and this new red dog in her life was another blessing she accepted with her usual grace.

SCARLET HAZE
As my eyes gazed upon this scene of that bygone summer day, I squinted just a bit in the bright sunlight and admired the deep mahogany color of my gorgeous collie dog friend. As I squinted in the sunlight, and Wolf tore across the hillside above the cornfield, I blinked for a nanosecond. When I opened my eyes from this blink it seemed as if there had appeared, about thirty feet in front of me, a transparent red vertical plane stretching all the way up into the sky and all the way west and east of me. It was as if a great piece of red glass had appeared and divided the entire Earth in half. On one side of this red 'filter' were myself, my husband and my dogs. On the other side, looking out over undeveloped countryside as far as the eye could see, stood a man wearing animal skin over his hips and loins, with medium-length, unruly hair, and carrying something I could not identify in one of his hands. For the briefest blink of a moment we stood and observed each other. He saw me and I saw him.

The man's eyes then were diverted back to what he had been looking at and admiring, my dogs, specifically Wolfgang. We both were united across the eons by our mutual appreciation of this stupendous dog.

And the moment was over, I blinked again and he was gone.

THE VORTEX OF TIME'S ILLUSION
For many years I wondered what it had meant. I did know that the eyes I was looking into for that brief moment were not of my time, that I was looking into the distant past, the very distant past. I also had seen an intelligence in those eyes that was the same caliber as my own, there was no cro magnon brain operating those orbs of perception, this ancient man was of the same breadth of mind and sweep of intellect as I felt I could claim to possess. And his eyes were kind, they were the eyes of a dog lover, which are usually kind. He was admiring my dogs and perhaps, perchance he was even considering the benefits one might enjoy from possibly domesticating this wolf-like animal (who also happened to be named Wolf).

At some point between that day and this day, I did deduce that this experience had been partially the result of a spontaneous moment of psychometry. Around the same time that this encounter with the man on the other side of the red plane had happened, I had acquired my from my grandfather, a couple of ancient arrowheads, one Yuma point and another even older 'point,' as arrowheads are called. And probably the man who forged one of them was who I encountered that day. Perhaps. But now, with all of the things I have learned from my animal friends since then, and all the new evidence science has uncovered about the distant past since then and also the wonders of quantum physics, I also know now that those eyes were the eyes of one of my ancestors.

I haven't put all the pieces of the puzzle together yet, that is the fun of living, the endless puzzle. It isn't solved by dying either, I have learned, so don't be disappointed to find that leaving your body isn't an instant key to all knowledge. But this man on the other side of the red plane was my relative and I was his progeny and our dog, yes, OUR dog, had been a faithful traveling partner to both of us in our respective times.

I would have another experience with Wolfgang only a year or so before he passed on in which it was revealed to me, by him, that we were both once wolves together. And that perhaps someone had tried to domesticate dogs in a forceful way without success. Their failure at doing this would stay with Wolfgang through many, many incarnations. But I will talk about that tomorrow.

More on Wolves Who Speak Chinese

So yesterday I told you about Mac, who spoke Chinese and English as a pup and Nicki, my childhood poodle, who spoke Chinese, and Rocky, my current GSD who speaks only English as far as I know.

In addition to these Chinese connections, I have had a number of clients' dogs talk about China to me as well, telepathically, that is. When I talk to clients' animals, it is very different than what I was talking about in yesterday's post. This is done telepathically, often over great distances. I work from photographs and the it's the eyes in the photo that make the connection. The eyes are the window to the soul and immediately when a client emails me their animal's photo and I look at the eyes, the connection is there.

WORTH A THOUSAND WOOFS
Many animal communicators do not require a photo and it is not really necessary at all to establish a connection. Just talking with the client is a connection often sufficient for expanding that connection to their pet. But I prefer to work from photos because I am a bit lazy and because I am inundated with messages from animals all day long as it is and need to have a 'key' to identify exactly what is coming from where. Not many animal communicators deal with as many animals in a single day as I do and so this just helps me out.

When clients fill our the form with questions they would like to ask their animals, one of the most common question is 'have we been together before?' meaning in another life. This question is always tricky because often the client may not be ready for the response! Why might that be? And sometimes, the animal will volunteer this information without the client having asked for it.

One particular client comes to mind. A sweet lady whose golden retriever needed to exit this plane of existence at the end of a long, happy life. The question was when. Another common question is always, 'is there anything the pet wants to tell me?' Well in this case, what the golden retriever wanted to say was what he showed me, himself as a Chinese rice farmer thousands of years ago happily talking with another rice farmer (the client). After a number of dogs had showed me themselves as having been Chinese dogs or people, I started wondering what is all this about dogs and China. And then I saw that show I mentioned yesterday called The History of Dogs which explained how dogs first evolved from wolves in China.

SOUL LINKING THROUGH VARIOUS FORMS
So that explained all the dogs telling me they were from China. But how long ago was this? And if they were rice farmers back then (when?), why were they dogs now? Some of them said they were travelling in soul groups and that our human ancestors will sometimes purposely reincarnate as a pet of their progeny to help guide and protect them. These souls groups, or families, really, seem to be held together by the fact that we are our ancestors and in some cases, we are the shattered glass shards of our ancestors. That is to say, as the Tibetan Buddhists believe, one soul can split into three upon reincarnation, those three parts being body, speech and mind. So if you start with a distant ancestor who splits into three and then later on down the road, one of those three splits into three, etc., you end up with a soul group.

And sometimes the soul groups can only stay together in roundabout kind of ways. Short-lived encounters like having a beloved pet that only is with us for 10 or so years is still an effective way to keep a soul group together and our dog friends often have herding instincts that make them want to do this.

MY DOG, MYSELF
So some of our dogs could be our great grandfathers and mothers. And cats too. And some of our cats our are previous dogs. For instance, the little Chinese-speaking brown poodle I spoke of yesterday, Nicki, is now my orange tabby cat, Rusty. But I will talk about my experience with learning this another time. For today, I am just focusing on dogs who we have been with before, in previous lives when they were people and we were people and previous lives when they were dogs and so were we.

And tomorrow I will talk about my great red dog, Wolfgang, and the lives we shared before and the original soul ancestor we shared whom we both encountered together during a daylight, mystical moment that bridged tens of thousands of years. What a day that was! One I shall never forget and a pair of eyes whose soul staring back at me was the original source of my own.

Bilingual Dogs, DNA, and the Slow Boat From China

When I was about 14 or 15, I used to pet sit a friend's dog when they went on vacation. The dog's name was Cindy and she was a pound puppy, a nondescript, yellow dog. She was a nice enough dog. She didn't ask much of me and I would often take a nap on the couch after walking her to cool down from the summer heat. During one nap, I had a dream about a little brown-haired boy who was mute and coming to live with our family and be my new little brother. He was waving to me from an ocean liner coming from China but he was not Chinese looking. He looked like he might be my brother. In the dream, his name was Nicky.

Later that summer, my mother's poodle passed on and she decided to get another one. We all drove up to a breeder who bred nearly all chocolate poodles. My mother wanted a chocolate one this time. On the way home in the car, she started tossing out ideas for names for him. I kept quiet and said nothing, which no doubt was agreeable to her. She settled on Pere Dominique and announced, "We'll call him Nicky for short." I had my new little brown, mute brother from my dream! But the part about coming on the slow boat from China was not clear to me yet.

The Chinese Connection
As Nicki grew through his puppyhood, he would make funny little sounds which my mother said sounded like he was speaking Chinese! It did indeed sound just like that! Of course I didn't know any Chinese or I could have tried to see what he might be saying. So that seemed to explain the part about the slow boat from China. But there was to be more. Just a few months ago, I was watching a new show on PBS called, "The History of Dogs." In the show, geneticists travelled the world taking DNA samples from hundreds of different breeds of dogs, as many as they could find, to trace the common ancestor of the dog much like humanity's common ancestor was traced to one woman in Africa.

The common ancestor of the dog, it turned out, was Chinese! They also discussed a new theory about how wolves evolved into dogs within one human lifetime, which they now know thanks to this DNA analysis. That theory is that dogs evolved from wolves who raided garbage dumps on the outskirts of Chinese towns. BARFers should note that this would make rice a biologically appropriate food, though it would have to be cooked to simulate the conditions that this evolution took place under!

Then I grew up and forgot about how my poodle had spoken Chinese until I adopted a pound puppy four years ago and named him Macintosh. He is a gorgeous collie/pointer mix. Actually, we just got his DNA Canine Heritage test back today which showed collie/shetland sheepdog as the only markers and in the secondary category. As a puppy, he made the same sounds like he was speaking Chinese and revivifed my memory of the previous Chinese-speaking puppy. However, there was a twist this time. He also spoke English.

Pardon Me, Do You Have Any Grey Poupon?
Once, standing outside a bedroom door, he started to make his Chinese sounds and then they became more and more English sounding and then he said in a very heavy accent but clear enough, "I wanna go in there."! Well at that point in time, I was already practicing professional animal communication and the idea that my puppy was actually enunciating English words out loud was not something that seemed totally bizarre to me. In fact, I have known for a long time the wonderful reality that truth is so very much stranger than fiction that I simply have no use for fiction and find it rather predictable. We'd had a beautiful white collie years ago, Lolly, who had said quite clearly to us, "herro!" one morning after we said 'hello' to her.

But that was all that Macintosh, "Mac" (yes named after my favorite computer) said in English. He did continue to speak Chinese for a while but eventually this faded away and was replaced by the coonhound-type baying of a pointer. And so we didn't have any talking dogs again for awhile. That is until tonight.

Enter the Germans
Rocky is a 22 month old German Shepherd puppy, that's him in the picture on my profile there. He came to live with us only about 6 weeks ago. His littermate, Jessie, came to live with us back in January and you'll be hearing plenty about her as she is my new heart connection to the Universe. My heart is equally available to all the animals in my charge, but for some of them, they are living entirely through and for my heart and that is Jessie. We are as close as Julie and Amaroq. Now Rocky and I have had to keep each other at arm's length because Jessie is jealous and right now that translates into bite wounds, one from which Rocky is healing at the moment.

As I prepared to leave with Jessie tonight for her positive reinforcement class, I realized I would have to crate Rocky. He is so hyper and I knew he'd be so strung out from Jessie leaving that he would be better off sitting safely in his crate. As I locked him up, he howled in a tortured, high-pitched voice. It's hard to translate into the written word, but it sounded something like 'i row ruh oo, i row ruh oo, i row ruh oo!' and became more and more high pitched until the words became clear, "I doan luh yoo, I doan luh yoo, I doan luh you" over and over as if to scold me for leaving.

Flashbacks to the Dragon
This reminded me of Chopin the cockatoo who once said the same thing to me when he was scared but of course being a parrot, he spoke it perfectly, "I don't love you!" Because of course, if you leave, then they won't love you or this is what they'll tell themselves to comfort themselves and what they'll tell you to get a little revenge.

Then much later this evening, I was sitting at dinner with my husband in the kitchen with the windows open and the cool evening air floating in. Jessie and Rocky were in their room with the windows open to but they were crated, on 'time out' for having played a little too rough. Through the window, I heard the high pitched howl of Rocky again vociferating his displeasure with me and speaking the words, in English, "I don't love you," this time berating me for having crated him.

So Mac is bilingual and speaks both English and Chinese, I wonder if Rocky might also know German being a German Shepherd. I will let you know! I can tell you while he is still in this puppy stage, and using positive reinforcement, I'm going to try and get him to do some more talking. Can't hurt to try.

The Black and White of It

My dad became a believer one day when driving home with my mom through their neighborhood and an old, feeble dalmation hobbled out into the middle of the street and stood right in front of their car and wouldn't move.

He got out and went and fetched the owners from the house who were astounded because the old dog had never left the yard in all his long days. They got to chatting and told my dad about how the dog had been suffering from kidney failure and they had decided to have him put to sleep soon and were heartbroken about it.

My dad was then astounded because he had a lot of experience in treating kidney failure with diet through diets in Natural Health for Dogs and Cats by Pitcairn. He told them all about how he extended his poodle's life for five years this way.

The owners were open minded about it and excited and ran right out and started treating their dog the same way. He is still alive today. This happened three years ago.

My dad feels that the dalmation came out into the road to request he talk to his owners about the diet so he could live. My mom witnessed the whole thing. I never had to try and convince my dad about animal communication anymore after that day.

(this entry is originally from 2001)