Photo by Kinshuk Bose on Unsplash

When you adopt an animal who has been traumatized, you’ve taken the first step of many needed to help that animal recover and integrate into your family.

You may not realize until you bring the animal home that s/he has experienced emotional trauma. You may also discover physical issues that need to be addressed.

Many rescue organizations, overloaded with animals, don’t always know the animal’s background.  Some even lie about an animal in a effort to place him/her.

Some of these animals have lost their families through no fault of their own, such as weather events or financial loss.  Some have been outright abandoned by people unwilling or unable to continue caring for them.

When an animal has experienced trauma, s/he is unable to quickly adapt to your life style without some special support.

This is why I created HASTA:  Help and Support for Traumatized Animals.  HASTA allows you to easily go up and back between Animal Communication sessions and Energy Healing sessions as needed.

Animal Communication is a great place to begin getting to know your new companion.  Telepathic conversations may uncover some of the animal’s emotional issues.  It’s also a powerful way to let the animal know that you are listening and truly care to understand the animal’s perspective.

The first HASTA session is an Animal Communication session with you and your new companion.  We all participate in creating a “Plan of Action” so everyone knows what the “next steps” will be to help the two of you begin to build trust.

Six Essential Ingredients to Create a  Successful Outcome

1_ Love Without Conditions

Some say, “Of course.  Obviously.”

“Unconditional love” is different from, “I love you, but you have to do what I want, be what I want, and not make my life difficult or challenging.”

Love Without Conditions requires an open heart and acceptance of an individual exactly how s/he is in this now moment.

You aren’t ready to adopt a new animal If your feeling is, “None of my other dogs (cats, bunnies, etc.) had these problems.” or  “Why isn’t this animal like the ones I loved and lost?”

2_Patience

Any new animal needs time to adjust, and many need much more time than the “typical” adoption scenario.  Things you think of as ordinary may be totally new to this individual.  From the animal’s perspective, everything may be new, different, disorienting, frightening, even terrifying and overwhelming.

Your new friend may be grieving the loss of babies, siblings, another human, and the old familiar situation even when that situation was far from ideal by your standards.  Grieving takes time and energy to heal.  The animal has to become willing to let go of the past and be ready to make a new emotional commitment.

Your ability to be patient and allow the animal all the time s/he needs to heal and open their heart to you will determine whether or not you and the animal will experience success.

Do you have the patience, love, and determination to “hang in there” with this animal?

3_A Nutritious Diet of Quality Foods and Supplements

Physical, emotional, and mental health all depend upon having a well nourished physical body. Most pre-made foods are lacking in essential and easily absorbable nutrients

Most rescue organizations are feeding poor quality foods because of financial limitations and ignorance.  Many people are feeding poor quality foods because they just don’t know any better.

Transitioning an animal to a higher quality diet must be done slowly so you don’t create digestive upset.  At the same time, helping the animal recover from trauma and rebuild their body requires highly available and digestible nutrients in the right proportions.  Supplementation may be necessary to provide proper nutrients and improve absorption.

You may need to get educated about how to help an animal make this shift because for some animals it can be the key to becoming calm, peaceful, and generally feeling good in their bodies.  This, in turn, will create the basis for successful learning and adjustment to a new family.

4_Carefully Chosen Flower Essences

Flower Essences (Flower Remedies) are the energy of flowers in water with a little bit of alcohol as a preservative.

When there is disharmony in someone’s energy, the appropriate flower essence or formula shows the body frequencies that are harmonious, allowing the body to choose to align with the harmonious pattern at it’s own pace.  This is why flower essences are so gentle.

Flower Essences, when carefully chosen and used appropriately, may accelerate the emotional and physical healing of humans and animals.  This enables the individual to start changing their behavior, to open to new perspectives, to begin learning new things, and to feel less anxious, less afraid, and more at peace.

A new system called Floral Acupuncture  that I’ve been using with some traumatized animals is proving to be of great assistance to many individuals.

5_Energy Healing and The Emotion Code™

Animals in rescue situations pick up energy from each other and from the human staff, energies that may interfere with their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.  For example, being in a shelter where animals are killed creates fear and terror among the entire animal population.

Multidimensional Energy Healing is included in the HASTA program.  Energy healing clears energies that interfere with a healthy flow of life force (prana, chi, ki) while restoring harmony and balance.  Some of the techniques used are aura cleanses, spinal unwinding, chakra cleansing and balancing, The Emotion Code™ (created by Dr. Bradley Nelson) and other advanced healing techniques.

6_Veterinary Medicine

If you have a holistic veterinarian available to you, you are one of the lucky ones.  Allopathic medicine does have a part to play, but is often invasive.  The principle of “first do no harm” seems to be missing when vaccinations (filled with toxins) and drugs (all of which have potential side effects) and expensive testing dominate the thinking of this system.

At the same time, getting your new animal friend a basic examination is a good idea because it can help uncover issues that you might not recognize on your own, such as teeth that need cleaning or parasites or evidence of old physical injuries.

Many veterinarians don’t seem aware that nearly every animal is carrying intestinal parasites these days.  A good deworming program can greatly benefit an animal who has his/her nose to the ground on a regular basis or has been eating prey animals, all of whom have worms.  Fleas carry tapeworms, so if the animal has fleas, they are undoubtedly infected with tapeworms.

Deworming can be done gently without drugs.  High quality herbal dewormers are available online, as well as homeopathics that are designed to help in this regard.

IN SUMMARY

Adopting an animal can be a wonderful addition to your family, but can also pose some challenges.  When you discover that your new friend is having difficulties settling in, the Six Essential Ingredients explored here will help you and your new friend build trust and a long-lasting, loving relationship.