Signal teaches me about taking my power as packleader, and
working effectively with that power.
ALL relationships are about power.
One either learns to work WITH power or
will be at the effect of power all their life!
Meja teaches me to face my fears and to live in the now.
To understand the diiference between pattern and pain tapes.
These Dogs are the foundation for the
next stage of my life working with human/animal relationships.
~Recent Teachers~
waitng for me at the
Rainbow Bridge
*****************
Foxie
Foxie taught me about health, wellness and being in the moment,
as she continued to beat all odds
in our fight against her cancer,
four years past her 2 week expectation
Thunder and Tanna
who taught me to see the Thunder and hear the Lightning
Thunder was my "Bridger Dog" who taught me about
working with Power or being at the effect of it.
This 105 pound rottie chow graced my life from his first breath to his last.
He taught me to be honest in my emotional energy. Decieving myself or others only resulted in red-zone rage (in direct response
to my anger or frustration or seizures tied to emotional pain stemming from failure or loss.
Tanna taught me about communcation and
working with the natural ways of the Dog. Through her, I learned
how to successfully communicate with mental pictures for training and clarification of my wishes, including pulling lost dogs
back to me.
The Gift I will lend to you for awhile a puppy, God said, For you to love her while she lives and to mourn
for her when she is gone. Maybe for nine or eleven years, or maybe for two or three But will you, till I call her back
take care of her for me? She'll bring her charms to gladden you and (should her stay be brief) you'll always have her memories as solace for your grief. I cannot promise
that she will stay, since all from earth return, But there are lessons taught below I want this pup to learn. I've looked
the whole world over in search of teachers true And from the folk that crowd life's land I have chosen you. Now will you give her all your love Nor think the labour vain Nor
hate me when I come to take my pup back again. I
fancied that I heard them say
For all the joys this pup will bring, the risk of grief you'll run. Will you shelter her with tenderness Will
you love her while you may And for the happiness you'll know forever grateful stay. But should I call her back much sooner than you've planned Please brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand. If, by your love, you've managed my wishes to achieve, In memory of her that you've loved,
Cherish
every moment with your faithful bundle,
and
know she loved you too. Author Unknown
Signal Bear~ Its all about the energy
and how we engage in relationships!
In depth...
The onset of the
phenomenon known as the “Dog Whisperer” aka Cesar Milan, coincided with a period of recapitulation and contemplation
of the past 50 years of my life.These last few years have been a time of many
deaths. In addition to the loss of several beloved animals whose stories will be hyperlinked from this page for those interested
have been deaths of lifestyle choices, priorities and relationships.
Signal Bear is the
great teacher for this transition of my life as I explore moving into a new level of working with more difficult rescue dogs
that others are unwilling or unable
Now I have finished
my lessons with Foxie, and so will be moving on to a more proactive involvement with this level of rescues and fostering
where you can follow my growth at: http://360.yahoo.com/siegeanderson
For the amazing story
of Signal Bears rescue when he was in a total "red-zone space" just click on his link on the next line:
for the story of
how Cesar Millan's techniques allowed this 52 year old, five foot tall woman step in where 75 men dared not to tread!
Signal is destined
to be a teacher of other dogs how to become calm and balanced when we move to work with rescue groups and their prospective
adopting parents!
Meja
Formerly Known at Pet911 as Mary Jane
Cesar Millan supports this program. In April, as the
owner for a Dog Whisperer Email List, I felt I should understand what the website was about so I could talk about it and support
it.
So after browsing the articles, I entered in my zip code and started to click through
and read about the dogs.
Here she was, Char-pei/Lab 40 pounds and she had been up for adioption since January.
She was the polar opposite of Signal as a red-zone dog.
I wanted to see if the techniques woulld work the same.
I wanted a pair that would help to teach other dogs I planned to foster in coming
years.
I said to her picture -
"If you haven't been adopted when Foxie does go, I'll
be back for you!"
Foxie's death was not the searing pain that Thunder's was.
We got four more years of quality life.
When I took her to the vet, she just stopped breathing while we were at breakfast
waiting for test results.
We all should live and die like this.
Two weeks, and I called for Meja.
The Brin Fire conspired to keep us from our summer cabin vacation by Oak Creek.
Steve had elected to go to a Solar Conference.
I elected (with his support) to bring in the new dog.
Terrified of EVERYTHING that moved or was new.
From the first moments, it was Cesar all the way!
I didnt speak to her for three days.
The turn around was more dramatic and amazing, due I think to Signal being a big
brother/mentor.
He taught her how to use the doggie door in 2 hours.
He would "herd" her to me to leash and work with.
He showed her that running next to the bike was no big deal.
He's been everything I'd hoped he would be as a role model for new dogs.
We finially made it to the cabin with 5 days of vacation left.
After 2 days of cowering, she ran out the door when I turned the back to pick up
the trash. I knew there would never be a better location to test Cesar's teaching yet once again.
So I followed her just far enough to be out of the line of the resort traffic and
people. Sat down on the trail, calmed my self and began to pull her back to me.
It worked. After only days
with me.
No look, no touch, no talk.
Her membership in my pack pulled her back to me.
her acknowledge ment of my role as pack leader had been set enough to overcome her
fear and allow me to leash her.
Hail Cesar! (for the lives he has saved with
his work!)
And so it begins ~
yet another dog considered difficult and unplaceable has become calm and balanced
and trusting of her packleader to the point that in August, when she slipped her leash on our morning bike ride, she stayed
right with us back to the house.
A list member on my dog cancer group who
was so overwhelmed on learning her dog had cancer. She asked what Lesson could come from this. I wrote the following
response, this is what my Foxie girl has taught me most of all:
The Lesson?
Why dont we start with how hard it is for us to see our needs
as important enough to reach out for others for help like you just did?
Do you know what your gonna get back for your efforts?
DONT GIVE UP!!!!!
Doctors don't come close to knowing everything!
My Foxie was given a few weeks - coming up 4 years ago!
Make no mistake - the beast is still there.
I see it AND I am fighting it with every tool available!
Do you know what I did?
Herbs, alternative medicine like Graviola, Oregano Juice, Antioxidants,
Flaxseed, Fish Oil, a tincture of wormwood/clove/blackwalnut.
I got rid of the chemicals (cleaners and such) in my house
AND in my yard (pesticides/fertilizers), she drank bottled water with minerals like I do.
I talked to her, held and petted her, told her how GLAD I am
to see her every time I come home from work and get up in the morning. I believed in the healing power of my hands as
I touched her, the healing power of prayer for her highest good.
I listened to her to see if she was done, watched for
the happy wag and alert look in the eyes, the willingness to do this one more day 'cause I did have that line in the
sand.
2 years ago, my vet threw up his hands and said -
"I dont know what is keeping her alive,
she's passed every curve I know!"
and they are among the best in the" Valley of the Sun"
~ 4.5 million people and 100 miles across.
I believe as you do -
there are no accidents and everything has a lesson.
Part, I feel, is for us to stop relying so exclusively on traditional doctor's opinion's.
Part, I feel, is to help us reach
out to others
who walk this same challenging path,
to share painful lessons learned which can help another's journey be just a bit easier.
Part, I feel, is by sharing information
on alternative ways, providing mutual support to each other to help to extend the comfort of their life for longer memories,
so we can feel better when the time comes, that we did what others couldn't or wouldnt have known how to do.
And part, to learn to listen to our
intuition and our heart, instead of our head and the shuda, woulda, couldas, so that we learn to stay in the moment and
treasure each gift we are given as the gift it is!
at your frustrations, your fears, your
pre-grieving.
You are not alone.
So just for now,
take a breath, straighten those shoulders and go back
and fight for every precious moment of quality life! Cause when it gets to be too much, we will still be here and it WONT
be a petty thing to us, to share again, your grieving, your memories and your stories!
Since I have started watching National Geographic's Dog
Whisperer and incorporating Cesar's way, I lost my beloved Thunder. A 105 pound rottie/chow who looked like a yellow
lab.
I originally took him because he was mentally slow, and
I was afraid that after he stopped being a cute puppy, he would end up on a chain somewhere. Love brought out the intelligence
in him until you could not tell any difference from him or other smart dogs.
I did many things right with Thunder, being the absolute
alpha leader key amoung them. He was a "redzone" dog to untrustworthy people and when he felt I was threatened, but
I didnt discover until almost the end of his life how to change that implimenting "Cesar's Way"
I helped with his birth, he was the last to make it
out alive. I discovered he had a football size tumor two weeks before I had to make the decision to put him down.
I know in your empathy, you will understand my shock and complete horror at how I could have missed this (never mind that
a vet did too, 3 months earlier, not that it would have helped, much.)
I had to make the choice to put him down, having been there
at his first breath, to also be there at his last breath. I had absolute knowledge that he would rather suffer unimaginable
pain, then to leave my side. When at last, when he stopped eating, drinking or trying, and so we took our last journey
together my knowledge was validated as he lifted his head to look at me one last time with his last breath.
My grief was overwhelming, my sense of his loss unending,
inspite of my absolutely personal knowledge that others might call belief, that he walks by my side all the time since, in
spirit.
The contrast between Thunder and Signal, both being "red-zone" dogs
taught me how we humanize our dogs. With Signal I had to 100% follow Cesar's way to have any hope of success.
With thunder, I kept regressing, telling myself "stories" about how the "poor old dog" had lost his alpha status to the "young
buck"-Signal. When I discovered he had the cancer, my guilt and grief made this regression even worse.
To the end, I could never trust Thunder with anyone else. 18 months
later, Signal has become the perfect dog which I attribute to the unrelenting attention given to following Cesar's way.
Thunder provided a consistent context of experience of how dogs
act out our expressed emotion for us as children frequently do. Beverly D' Anglo, PhD did an absolutely brilliant expose
on this "tanking effect.
There is also a spiritual teaching out that is
interesting to cntemplate, that our animals - particularly our dogs, out of their love for us, will "take on " our illnesses
which manifest from our own toxic emotional, mental, physical and spiritual lives. Another discussion for another time,
but looking at the pattern of dog deaths in both mine and my parent's lives, I have reason to wonder.
Tanna taught me to hear the Lighting.
My first rescue, abandoned on an island in a state park in South
Carolina, she was brought to me a terrified shivering mass of fur and bones. She was with me during the most difficult years
of my life. There are few pictures of her for this reason. She taught me communication with myself which opened
so many other door. Quietly holding the space open when I was lost until I returned to myself ready to do another
day.
One day, on a camping trip, she disappeared down a mountain side
in the dark. Calling her resulted in no response. We went looking, no luck. Finially in desparation, I sat
down where I was. Calmed myself. Pictured looking into her eyes. Visualized an energy line like a fishing pole. Reached
over and hooked it into her collar. Then pictured myself reeling her in.
Within 5 minutes, she came bounding to me, in this place I hadn't
been before.
With Tanna, I communicated in pictures to train her from that
point on. Asked her to lay against me in certain positions that would help my back or be down by my knees. It
was not the last time I had to find her by sending my energy out to reel her back in. The communication techniques I
learned with her has been replicated with every dog since. With Tanna, I learned skill with "intending" that involved
others, how to "listen" for danger and most of all how to trust my intuition, especially in relationships!
The mannerisms between Tanna and Signal are many and uncanny.
I would not be surprised to find that she came back to me to help me move to the next level of working with high risk dogs
as I transtion myself to a new way of living in this next part of my life.
