Do You See What I See? Trusting Your Intuition with Dogs
I am later than I intended to be with getting this blog up. I have written it three times so far and have such mixed feelings with what I am writing. The reason for this is Kera. She has been in kidney failure since sometime during Merlin’s cancer treatment so it’s been at least four months. But it was not diagnosed right away so her treatment (fluids, a different diet, etc.) has only been going on since right after he passed away. She had been stable and actually had even showed some signs of rallying. Her stamina had increased as had her attention and appetite. Not any more, at least for the last week or so.
Kera: Princess of the Bed
My plan was to urge you to pay attention to your intuition. It had helped me both behaviorally and medically, with both my dogs and client’s dogs. But especially with my own dogs, I have paid attention to my “gut” and have been persistent with what I felt, to the benefit of my dog’s health. Merlin lived longer than I was told he did, Kera is on Anipryl and getting fluids, etc, and was much more stable than she started out to be. But now my instincts are telling me things I don’t want to hear. But that can wait for a moment.
For now, back to the original subject at hand: intuition. It can be a controversial subject. It shouldn’t be. Everyone has it but some of us are more tuned into it than others. But there is no mystery to surrounding what it actually is. It’s observation at it’s finest. Your brain tells you that you are seeing something that you should pay attention to. It’s figuring out the something that you saw that can be the hard part.
The something can be very minor but it may trigger a thought in your brain that nags at you. It can be easy to dismiss it because you often have no immediate connection between the nagging thought and what you saw. Don’t dismiss it. Examine it more closely. Let it float to your consciousness. Ask yourself what connection this nagging thought may have with what you know about your dog or the situation you are thinking about. Sometimes it’s easy to connect the dots. Sometimes you have to dig deeper.
Trusting and listening to your “gut” can save you a lot of trouble sometimes. What’s important is to learn to connect what you think, to what you see. Body language is super important when it comes to dogs. Learn about it. Watch your own dogs and if you are not sure what you are seeing, then take notes on what you see and what you think about what you see. Don’t think about the latter too much. Just write what you think. Compare the two. Connect more dots.
Learning to connect what you see to what you think is vital to life with multiple dogs or any dog for that matter. Dogs are “English as a second language” students. The better that we are at listening to what they say, the closer the connection will be. Communicating effectively with them is important and helps to solidly build trust is built. Dogs love being understood. So do humans, for that matter!
Let intuition help with preventing and managing problematic behavior as well as earlier detection of some medical concern. If you feel “off” about anything, listen to what your intuition is telling you. I am a big fan of better safe than sorry. My intuition has served me well and I am always sorry when I chose to ignore it.
Now back to Kera. My intuition is telling me that she may not be with me much longer. Things have been declining for the last week or so, despite getting her treated for a UTI that I rightly detected via observation/intuition. Improvement has been very minor. I badly want to be wrong. I am taking it day by day.
This is harder to know what to do about than with Merlin. Cancer, especially the kind that Merlin had, is merciless. The effects of kidney failure appear to change daily. I don’t want her to hurt but I don’t want to say goodbye for now before I need to. So I spend each day hoping that my intuition will be strong enough that I will not ignore it because I am biased. I love her very much and I don’t wish to lose her or have two such large losses in such a small period of time. So for now, day by day it is. Wish me clarity.
In the meantime, please share with me how you use intuition with your own crew. I need to hear it.
My intuition is very strong and most usually right. Now though, it is challenged on a regular basis. I too have a cancer dog. He has always been a special needs Great Dane due to having wobblers syndrome and needing multiple surgeries for his spine and knees.
He has been living with cancer quietly lurking in his cells for 14 months since diagnosis- twice as long as we were told to expect him to survive.He has been hopping about for 13 months since his amputation. He has lost considerable mobility and requires me to assist him with standing before he hops off briefly to do his business. His spirit remains strong and he appears happy and pain free. Every day though, we know that his time here is limited. We worry for the return of cancer and how we will know it’s here. We worry for the day that we will have to put him to rest because his body fails him when yet his spirit remains strong.
My first soulmate dog, Lady, had a sinus type tumor. Lots of time and money went into finding out things that did NOT help. My gut was to just let her be. She was tired of the poking and prodding at the vet hospital and even though I would have spent anything on her, $5,000 was really getting up there. I sat down with her on several occations to “listen” to her. I never really got anything until a few days later she kept coming to me and resting her head on my knee. I knew in my heart it was her telling me it was time and she was done suffering. She was mobile, attentive, had a great appetite. But as soon as she lie down her sinus cavity prevented her from sleeping without contant sneezes, she also started getting watery eyes, which was most likely from it starting to move towards them. It was the hardest thing for me to do since she seemed fine in all other aspects. I had a friend drive me to the vet and she got a whole package of cheese and ham on the way there… totally crying reliving the scene, but basically what I am saying is I let her tell me and instead of ignoring her I listened to my gut that she was telling me she was ready. Best thing I can tell you is to listen to her as well as listening to your own heart.. Hugs to you..
Bless you for listening to your dog. You will know and it will hurt to know…
One of my very close walking client dogs came home from the cottage with a limp. Owner thought it was just injury..I immediately knew it was not that kind of limp. Dont’ know how I knew, I just knew. It was bone cancer, but it took them almost six weeks to diagnose it. I have always felt that I didn’t advocate enough for that boy…because he wasn’t mine. His owner’s did all they could based on what they knew and what their vet told them..but I still felt helpless, knowing in my heart this was much more serious than they all knew. Finally, a diagnosis, palliative care and then the time to say goodbye. I was at the dog beach with other dogs when he went to the bridge..but I FELT him sigh in relief and release..it’s like he came to me on his way and said to me “The pain is gone..thank you”. My pain eased at that moment, though I still think of him frequently and still cry occasionally. I not forget the lesson I learned…advocate, listen and HEAR what your dog (and I include my client dogs in this) is saying.
Good luck with your Kera. Setting them free is the last, best act of love we can perform.
My heart is with you and your Kera. We have some big pawprints on our hearts too. I believe a person is never really whole until they have loved and bid farewell to a dog.