I Can’t fix your dog

…or cat, or horse…

Well, aren’t you an animal communicator? Just walk to them!

It’s not uncommon for clients to come to me with an issue with their pet, and want me to “fix” the problem so it goes away.

Stop the barking

Stop clawing on the furniture

Stop running away

There’s not much that is more triggering than when our pet (or child) behaves in a way that makes our life harder.

I get it, I wish I could wave a magic wand and change things about my animals, too.

Here’s the truth: they are their own beings, with their own ideas, goals, and agendas.

I can’t any more fix your pet’s behavior than I can make you behave a certain way either.

Next truth: your pet isn’t broken in the first place - nothing needs to be fixed.

What does need to happen is to find alignment between your goals, and your pet’s behavior.

Sometimes that looks like adjusting expectations (your pet’s innate breed characteristics aren’t going to change), sometimes that looks like going back to some foundational training for both you and your pet. Sometimes it looks like not engaging in the energy of that behavior to shift the focus, which creates room for a different result.

The solutions always vary, and on rare occasion after intuitively connecting with a pet, the behavior may shift on it’s own, seemingly without any other changes. But I can’t make your pet do (or not do) something, no matter how badly I would like it to happen for both of you.

I wish I had that power, ha!

What we have to remember is that ‘holding space’ for another being is allowing whatever outcome happens, to happen. If we are attempting to change another’s behavior (especially because that behavior makes us uncomfortable), then we are not holding space.

When we can find a neutral place to start from when exploring our pet’s behavior, we have a much stronger chance of getting a more desirable outcome than when we are just wishing something would be a different way.

Simply wishing they would do X limits the possibility of the solution to just X.

Holding space for whatever outcome to come through allows for all the possibilities to potentially be a reality. Then reality can show up as the best solution in the moment, which is frequently better than our idea of X in the first place.

Next time you find yourself wishing your pet would do/stop doing <fill in the blank>, take a moment and check in with where that idea is coming from, and see if you can find neutral to allow for a better outcome than you ever could have imagined.