Читать книгу The Spiritual Nature of Animals - Karlene Stange - Страница 7
Оглавление“Honey, if you don’t come, she’s going to die,” said Mr. Hall.
The day’s schedule was full. My neck ached. Instead of taking lunch, I was driving to the chiropractor.
“She fell in the irrigation ditch this morning, and now she’s too weak to stand,” explained Mr. Hall about his three-day-old foal.
My psychotherapist warned me. She said, “You need to take care of yourself. Take more time off; just say no.” That was easy for her to say.
“I’ll come right now,” I said, turning the truck around. A three-day-old foal is a neonate — a term containing deep meaning for a veterinarian. People had planned for and anticipated this foal’s arrival for more than a year; the mare had spent 345 days in gestation to produce this precious, fragile being full of hope and promise; and now, after three days, it was ready to drop dead at the snap of a finger. The idea of a sick neonatal foal set off alarm bells in my brain and made my heart race.
It was June 6, 1995, and a heavy morning frost was making life challenging for a newborn. This nice old man, Mr. Hall, was right — she would die without help. My neck could wait, and if I had any snacks, I would eat them in the truck.
From 1990 to 2010, I worked as an ambulatory veterinarian, and I lived in my truck. Four trucks met their mileage limits during that time, but I always drove white three-quarter-ton F250 Fords, four-wheel-drive vehicles with a regular cab and full-length running boards that allowed all five foot four inches of me to reach into the veterinary utility box that lined the eight-foot bed. That utility box, called a Porta-Vet, contained a hidden water tank in the center. The side compartments raised up at a slant, exposing a deep floor near the cab and shelves holding medications and tools toward the rear. On the driver’s side, the deep area closest to the cab held a refrigerator where I kept vaccines, hormones, and antibiotics. Overhead, a roll of paper towels hung from the door. On the floor sat a trash can and a lockbox for controlled substances, such as euthanasia solution, analgesics, and anesthetics. Just above and to the right of the refrigerator sat a covered dish filled with surgical tools: needle holders, scissors, curved needles, hemostats, and forceps. Another slotted compartment farther to the rear contained hypodermic needles, acupuncture needles, syringes, a stethoscope, thermometer, and test tubes for blood collection. On the passenger side, in the section of the Porta-Vet closest to the cab, was a deep compartment where I kept an X-ray machine and a case of intravenous fluid bags. Toward the back were shelves with hoof testers, hoof nippers, an oral speculum, dental floats, deworming medications, and oral anti-inflammatory drugs.
The tailgate of the utility box dropped to provide a work space. The left inside wall of the rear compartment was equipped with switches for lights and a water pump. A hose to the water tank hung next to them on a bracket. A large pull-out drawer held a stainless-steel bucket and a box of ropes and halters; on the right, a small upper drawer contained bandage materials, while a lower drawer transported a computer and printer, each enclosed in padded gun cases.
The truck’s cab interior was always gray. The driver’s side door held sunscreen, hand sanitizer, and snack bars — or so I hoped that June morning. Jammed behind the seat were coveralls, boots, down jackets, vests, and numerous hats and gloves to suit the ever-changing weather. In the early-model trucks, the cellular phone was perched on a post in the center of the floor. (When the first cellular phone company came to town, I won that phone in a contest by writing in fifty words or less why I needed a cellular phone.) Mounted on the hood of each truck was a bronze horse-head hood ornament with a liver-chestnut patina.
My truck was more than a mobile animal surgical office. It was my home away from home.
Mr. Hall’s filly was as cold as the weather. Because neonatal horses do not have the ability to thermoregulate like adults, she was suffering from hypothermia. We needed a place out of the wind to warm her. I spotted an old, abandoned chicken coop, and Mr. Hall agreed. He carried the limp youngster as I led the mare, who followed her baby while voicing concerned grumblings. The door into the coop was short and narrow, and the ceiling of the shed was low — an entrance intimidating to most horses — but the mare entered without balking, following her offspring like a good mother, caring more about the babe than her own safety. Inside, she stood quietly watching over everything we did.
If love means caring about another’s well-being more than our own, then postpartum mares demonstrate the definition of love. Mares can be dangerously protective, but when their babies are ill, they seem to understand that I am there to help. I remember a large bay quarter horse dam who hovered over her recumbent foal for several days. She watched attentively as I treated her colt for abdominal pain. On the third day, exhausted, she collapsed to her knees next to me with a grunt. I looked into her eyes and said, “Please lie down and rest. I’ll take care of him.” She rolled to her side and slept deeply, until her foal suddenly recovered, stood up, staggered over to her heaving side, and struck her abdomen and udder with his front hooves, demanding she rise so he could nurse. She did, and they both lived happily ever after.
Rarely, a mare will refuse her foal, just as some human mothers have trouble bonding with their newborns. That is another emergency — the foal must get the first milk, the colostrum, within the first twelve hours of life to be protected from infection. Usually sedation and restraint of a reluctant mare are enough to get the two to bond. Once the neonate nurses, the hormone oxytocin flows through the mother, and she becomes attached, which is also true for humans. We have the same hormones (oxytocin, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and so on), and the same emotional responses to their effects.
Mr. Hall’s mare showed a strong attachment to her filly, although her engorged udder indicated that the foal had not nursed for some time. I knew the neonate was dehydrated on the inside even though she was wet on the outside. Without the precious elixir of the mother’s milk, hypoglycemia would be another problem. We found a 100-watt lightbulb in the chicken coop to provide heat, and we dried the neonate with towels. I fitted an old down vest on her body with the snaps connecting along her back, and I placed a catheter in her jugular vein to administer warmed fluids. I added antibiotics to the solution of dextrose and electrolytes because foals have very little immune protection and get infections easily. Once the fluids had run and her body heat returned, the neonate began to come to life. She stood with our help, but her head hung down to the ground, eyes closed, as she wobbled, her spindly legs sprawled wide apart. She needed to drink her mother’s milk to survive, but I learned long ago not to push foals to nurse; they just push back, and she might fall. Still, I gently nudged her to the mare, whose udder started dripping milk as she nickered to her baby and nuzzled her bottom. The foal replied with a weak, high-pitched whinny and a tail swish. She moved closer, head hanging below the udder as milk poured from the teats and dribbled over the filly’s drooped ears. She shook her head, wrinkled her brow, and turned her lips down as if she felt annoyed. “Just open your mouth,” I begged. After several long minutes, her whisker-covered muzzle opened, her pink tongue curled and reached up; she suckled without making contact at first, and then, to our relief, finally found the glorious goodness of her mother’s nipple. The pair emanated love. I wondered how anyone could say animals do not experience love.
Although most scientists deny there is any evidence that animals feel love, there is a test to determine who loves you more — your dog or your spouse. Lock each one in the trunk of a car for an hour and find out which one is happy to see you when you let them out. This is a joke, but it rings true.
For a veterinarian like me, who observes animals in intimate situations, it feels intuitively obvious that animals love their offspring.
As I drove away, I thought of the many neonates I had saved, and in the warmth of fulfillment, I forgot about my pain and busy schedule. Then I remembered the precious ones that had died in my hands. My eyes blurred, my throat tightened, and the pain returned.
Veterinarians dance with death daily. When the phone rings outside of normal business hours, we get out of bed and go, not for the reward of money — other professionals with our education level earn much more than we do. Rather, we attend emergencies because we love the beautiful creatures and the ugly ones, too. We want to help them all. Their spirits touch us and bring us joy. At the same time, we have to make peace with tremendous suffering and our failures.
Ambulatory veterinary medicine is far from glamorous. Rather, it is blood in the mud, life-and-death decisions made outside of normal business hours, often during bad weather. Even in a hospital, during the day, emergency work is challenging. I faced this gruesome truth immediately after earning my doctor of veterinary medicine degree. In 1985, I began working at Animas Animal Hospital, where late-night and weekend emergencies were common and stressful, and I started my own equine ambulatory veterinary practice in 1988, which made me the sole person responsible for my client’s animals around the clock. I loved my profession, but I whipped and spurred myself to attend emergencies past the point of exhaustion, and I agonized over the suffering of each animal I attended. My body felt like a sagging ridgepole about to splinter apart in the middle. After years of castrating untrained colts, watching horses thrash in pain, filing horse’s teeth, treating bloody, maggot-infested wounds and pus-filled uteruses, and performing too much euthanasia, I needed a mental diversion to help avoid spontaneous combustion from burnout. At the same time, my close relations with animals from birth to death made me wonder how people could make certain statements about animals, such as “They do not feel love,” “They are not conscious,” and “They do not have souls.” None of these made sense to me. I reached a turning point when I decided to research the world’s religious, scientific, and spiritual teachings about the nonphysical aspect of animals. The quest to understand their spiritual nature became my passion and salvation.
I set out to understand the spiritual nature of animals, and in so doing, I discovered my own. Creatures great and small dragged me down a rabbit hole and through sacred tunnels into a world of dragons, shamans, gurus, lamas, monks, nuns, demons, priests, rabbis, preachers, scientists, clairvoyants, channels, mystics, animal communicators, and spiritual teachers. Those adepts schooled me and gave me refuge from the drama and trauma overburdening me. They introduced me to the anima — what Jungian psychology refers to as the animating principal present in all living beings.
Anima is the Latin root of the word animal. It means soul, breath, and life. Veterinarians share a personal relationship with the anima; we watch it drain from a body only to meet it again as a newborn foal or pup. Yet veterinary education rarely mentions it. We learn detailed information about bones, blood, and the other physical components, but little is said of the nonphysical aspect — the animas of animals. I now believe it is the most important part.
Firemen do not enter burning buildings or ascend to the tops of tall trees to grab a hunk of meat known as a “cat.” They rescue a beloved family member, a companion. The incorporeal light in an animal’s eyes reaches into our hearts. It touches us more deeply than any physical thing. We humans have the capacity to connect with the spiritual nature of animals; it makes us happy.
I wanted to be an animal doctor before I knew the word veterinarian. As a young girl in Wisconsin, I remember attending a stallion showing. The handler enumerated the attributes of the handsome, gray Arabian stud as I stared at a gray-haired man in the audience. He appeared humble and placid and wore a vest monogrammed with the veterinary emblem. I learned that he was the local large-animal veterinarian. Although I did not know him, something about his wise, yet nonjudgmental demeanor attracted me, and I longed to be like him. I had yet to learn how the fires of veterinary practice would burn and melt me before forging me into the person I aspired to become.
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the suicide rate for veterinarians is four times higher than the national average. This may be due in part to the gory wounds and difficult procedures, the death and euthanasia, and the stress of long hours treating emergencies, but it may also be because of something I call “compassion overwhelm.” We care too much. We tend to be compulsive overachievers who sacrifice our lives for the job, as did the cattle practitioner I read about once in the AVMA obituaries who drowned trying to save a calf stuck in a muddy pond. Or perhaps suicide appeals to us because of our familiarity with death.
No matter the reasons, my experience convinces me that an understanding of the spiritual nature of animals benefits the mental and emotional health of veterinarians and animal-loving people who anguish over the suffering of pets and wildlife. Furthermore, veterinary clients may harbor strong religious beliefs that influence their decisions, and we must show them respect and speak to them with wisdom. I hope the insights shared here provide comfort to those who live with, tend to, and love animals. Perhaps, once they learn of their beneficial qualities, some may even come to see and appreciate the simple beauty of maggots and other parts of nature we often abhor.
My goal, then, is to explore the world’s religious, spiritual, philosophical, and scientific teachings about the nonphysical makeup of animals for the highest good of animal care, the human-animal bond, and the well-being of all concerned.
Each chapter explores a different religious belief system and offers three main approaches to the material. First, each chapter begins with a description of that belief system. In order for the reader to fully comprehend the tenets of Hinduism, Judaism, shamanism, and so on, the vocabulary must first be defined. Therefore, each chapter includes some history and definitions followed by an investigation into the religion’s beliefs regarding animals. Then, throughout, I provide stories from my veterinary practice, offering further illustration of the concepts for contemplation. The third element explores the unfolding of my own spiritual growth — a concept I learned in the process — and how it changed me.
The struggle inside me first started in the 1990s and early 2000s when I practiced large- and small-animal ambulatory medicine out of a pickup truck in a rural mountain community in southwestern Colorado. Horses, llamas, alpacas, dogs, and cats were my primary patients, along with other wild and domestic flying, swimming, and crawling creatures. I drove day and night to attend to animals in beautiful places around Durango, Colorado, where the Animas River carves the landscape.1
The majority of my time spent researching spiritual teachings took place on the job in a pickup truck where the only way to learn was from audiotapes. Time off included further seeking by reading, praying, attending church services, meditating, chanting, going on a vision quest, attending retreats with a Tibetan lama and Buddhist nuns, questioning psychics and shamans, pursuing an animal communication apprenticeship, and conducting interviews with experts in numerous fields of spirituality.
During this period, I drove an average of a hundred miles or more a day. Fortunately, the scenery made that part of the job a pleasure, although the dirt routes on winding, mountainous terrain were often treacherous. The views of snow-covered peaks and enchanted valleys, tall ponderosa forests, and aspen groves soothed my stressed mind. Guardian angels held the wheel as I watched a bald eagle circling above or stared at an osprey sitting on a snag next to the Animas River. The occasional coyote made me giggle as he scooted across a field, looking over his shoulder as though trouble were on his tail. A bobcat, a bachelor band of elk, or a family of deer crossing the road at times caused me to hit the brakes. Drives to ranches were adventures into fantasylands of hidden canyons and mysterious ravines where cell phone service was lost. A tourist once told me, “You live in a postcard.” To which I replied, “And I drive each day in the mud, dust, and snow that keep everyone else from living here.”
My home is in La Plata County, a community full of colorful characters: ranchers whose families have lived here for generations, Native Americans, mountain hermits, Hispanics, and nonlocal people who moved to the country from cities. The stories I share about these people are true; at least, this is the truth as I remember it. Only the names of people, animals, and some places have been changed to protect privacy. One group of folks who live here, not found in cities, are cattlemen who breed livestock in small family-run operations. Their relationship with the animals they raise for income is often misunderstood. Humans and beasts depend on one another; one does not survive without the other. The rural life itself is foreign to many. The jobs of the mobile large-animal doctor intertwines with the country ranch life, and both involve hard physical work caring for beasts that can be dangerous. The veterinary workforce has evolved to focus more on pets in cities, and a shortage of rural veterinarians creates challenges for folks living in the country.
Today, in 2017, I spend most of my time practicing traditional Chinese veterinary medicine (TCVM) from my home office using acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines. I now drive a VW Toureg when I attend to horses and llamas. I gave up emergency work in 2010, but I still end up treating an occasional wreck for a neighbor, friend, or desperate person who can find no one else to help. The evolution of my practice occurred gradually, but in 1995, it was aided by my interactions with two women who unknowingly set me on my course of discovery and inspired me to study the spiritual nature of animals — a young professional and an elderly local rancher, a Buddhist and a Baptist with contrasting views.
“I’m a Catholic Buddhist” was the first thing Margaret told me. “The two are not mutually exclusive. Catholicism is a religion, and Buddhism is a practice, a philosophy.”
In November, Margaret called because her elderly dog, Jaws, a vicious biter, was deathly ill and unable to stand. The end was near, but Margaret’s Buddhist practice prevented her from electing euthanasia. Her teacher, the rinpoche, had told her not to kill. As a Buddhist, she had vowed to refrain from taking the life of any living creature. Furthermore, bad Buddhist monks reincarnated as dogs. Since Jaws could have been a human in a former life, or could become human in a later one, it was better for him to suffer his karma in this life so that he could have a better life in his next incarnation.
This philosophy was new to me, but I agreed to see the dog at Margaret’s home and try to alleviate his struggle and help him pass. The reason Margaret called me was because she had heard that I used acupuncture to treat animals, and she hoped I might be more sympathetic to her dilemma. She did not want her pet to suffer.
Margaret and her daughter lived thirty-five miles away in a small mountain village. Snow-packed roads forced me to drive slowly to a little cabin in the woods.
I entered the house to find a dismal scene. The old terrier lay sprawled out in the middle of the floor, penned in by boxes and furniture. His coat reeked from urine and feces, since he soiled himself, being unable to stand. He looked miserable to me. The only cheery thing in the room was Margaret’s smile. It was ever-present, like the serene smiles of Buddhist monks. Her gray eyes glimmered with a sense of peace and joy rather than the stressed-out glare most people express when facing the death of their pets.
“Would you like a turkey sandwich?” asked her plump daughter. The odor of urine dampened my appetite, and I declined as I tried to piece together the dog’s medical history. With each question I asked, the two women responded with long stories of irrelevant information about their family history. Margaret’s smile persisted in spite of the tales of her cruel father, a bitter man whom Margaret cared for up until his death, a situation now repeated with Jaws, who had been her father’s dog. Margaret described her devotion to her father as a way to cleanse her karma.
“He was horrible to you, Mother. I feed Jaws turkey; is that okay?” the daughter asked me. “I have a thyroid condition,” she added, patting her thick neck. “Are you sure you don’t want a sandwich?” She pulled a tray with an entire turkey on it from the refrigerator.
“No, thank you,” I replied, gratefully examining a copy of Jaws’s blood work. From this, I understood that he had Addison’s disease, or hypoadrenocorticism (a lack of cortisol and other hormones from the adrenal gland), which was a sequela to Cushing’s disease, or hyperadrenocorticism (an excess secretion of hormones from the adrenal gland). He was being kept alive with the steroid medication prednisone.
Since this was my first attempt at treating a dying Buddhist land shark, I proceeded with caution. I carefully slipped a muzzle over his nose. “You’re okay,” I said to calm him. “Good boy.” His eyes watched mine with uncertainty as I collected blood and performed acupuncture, but he never tried to bite, which told me he did not feel well enough to make the effort. I had just completed acupuncture training with the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society (IVAS), and I knew that properly placed needles would balance hormones, relieve pain, and improve circulation of blood and energy. I hoped it would provide some comfort to the dog until I had time to analyze the blood chemistry values. I left Margaret’s house with two vials of blood and a turkey sandwich.
It took several days to grasp the meaning of the relationship Margaret had with her dog, the religious implications of the final days, and how to best help them both. At last, we decided to stop giving the prednisone to Jaws, hoping he would pass quickly and gently, which he did overnight.
The telephone woke me, as usual, and I wasn’t surprised by the request. It was still November, the time of year when ranchers kill their geriatric horses.
A raspy voice said, “Doc, this is Polly Parsons. I have an old horse I need you to put down.”
“Is he old?” I asked, not quite awake.
“He’s about twenty.”
I knew a lot of horses more elderly than that, so I asked, “Is he sick?”
“No, he’s not too bad. I just don’t believe in letting him get old and suffer.”
Polly was a gray-haired rancher, a born-again Baptist, and in her mind this was the most humane thing to do. Ranch horses do not have warm barns with heated water tanks; they live like wild animals, out in nature, and if nature takes its course in winter, those “long in the teeth” get skinny, weak, and die. Ranchers like Polly preferred to “put down” their horses rather than leave them on pasture to weather the snow and bitter cold.
Each year, cowboy poets gather in Durango to spin yarns and narrate poems. I’ve heard more than one express the idea of killing old horses so they don’t have to suffer. The story line of such a poem goes something like this: The cowboy goes out to shoot his old friend Buck. He aims his gun and looks down the sight into his friend’s eyes, and then he remembers the times when the horse was his only friend out on the trail. The horse saved the cowboy’s life more than once by protecting him from a cliff, a mean bull, or a deep bog. The two had covered a lot of territory together, and now the time had come to let him go. Then the cowboy notices that Buck doesn’t really look that old. Maybe he has his birth date wrong; he’s in good flesh, and mares still like him, too. Why, maybe he’ll make it through the winter all right. The almanac says it might be an easy one. Talking himself out of the difficult task, the cowboy puts away his gun and drives on down the road.
Cowboys act tough and they sometimes talk rough, but they love their horses.
Occasionally, like Polly, a cowboy has called me to do the job. Once, a man hired me to euthanize a six-month-old, rye-nosed filly because she had trouble breathing. When I arrived, his older brother wanted to know why I was there. He asked his younger brother about the foal, “Why don’t you just shoot her?”
“I don’t want to shoot her. Do you want to shoot her?” he asked gruffly.
“I don’t want to shoot her,” said the older brother.
“Okay then.”
Enough said, it was decided. I did the dirty work by lethal injection as the younger cowboy held back his tears, saying, “I should have put her down at birth, but I just couldn’t.”
I could tell Polly loved this black quarter horse, too, as she started reminiscing. “He was my husband’s roping horse. People offered us up to ten thousand dollars for him; he was the best roping horse in the county. My husband died in my arms two winters ago. He didn’t feel well one night, so I held him, and he just passed away.”
Polly and I climbed the hill to the place she chose to bury the horse. Though almost twice my age, Polly surprised me with how briskly she could hike that rocky pasture. The horse surprised me with how quickly he died. He fell off the needle just as I completed the injection of euthanasia solution.
“Now he and your husband are together,” I said.
“No, they’re not!” shrieked Polly. “My husband’s in heaven and that horse is just dead!”
“Well, what happened to the energy that was just there?” I asked, pointing to the body.
“I don’t know. It’s just gone,” she said. And she started quoting Bible verses.
I know my way around a Bible, being raised a Christian, and although I’ve never seen a Bible passage that says animals do not have souls, I knew Polly believed they did not. I gave Polly a ride back to her little ranch house, while we discussed suffering and death and the laws of energy. She seemed to have all the answers according to Baptist teachings, until I asked, “Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“No, that’s when you come back as an animal,” she said.
“No, it’s not. Well, not necessarily.”
Then she quoted the Bible again. “There will be a new heaven, a new earth, and a New Jerusalem, and body and soul shall be reunited.”
“That sounds like a description of reincarnation,” I said.
“Well, maybe it is,” Polly said with conviction.
Six months later, I tried to find the verse Polly quoted about the body and soul being reunited, but could not. I wanted to ask Polly, but I learned she had died. A friend suggested I speak to Polly’s son, John. So I invited him to have tea with me.
John said the verse came from the book of Isaiah. He also told me about Polly’s painful back injury. Surgery had not helped, and the pain medication made her sick. Then one day, no one could find her. John called out telepathically to his mother, asking her to tell him where she was. He walked across their many acres and found her, perhaps somewhere near where their old horse died. She had shot herself.
John also remembered the horse fondly; only he and his father could ride him. The steed had indeed saved his father once by carrying him safely out of a deep bog. He may have had some chronic foot pain, so maybe Polly ended his suffering, or maybe she was getting things in order before she killed herself. Or maybe there is more to the story than I know. For me, it was all as clear as the mud and dust that covered my truck.
I wondered how Polly had come to terms with the Christian teaching that suicide is a sin. I supposed that her belief about not letting horses get old and suffer also applied to her. This is where church dogma and her personal beliefs parted ways. Somehow, she must have reconciled the issue with God.
These two women, one a Buddhist and one a Baptist, made me wonder about the spirits of animals. Somewhere between the Buddhist notion that animals can reincarnate as humans and the Baptist belief that a dead animal is just gone, there must be the truth. . . and I aimed to find it.
Remove judgment and pain disappears.
— THICH NHAT HANH
People tend to frown or laugh whenever they hear about Margaret the Buddhist and Polly the Baptist, and they judge the women as either cruel or crazy. The topic of religious beliefs stirs up strong opinions, childhood wounds, and deep emotions. Wars over belief kill millions. People cling to their faith, believing theirs is right and other faiths are wrong.
Similarly, numerous people have at times been upset with my interest in certain religious teachings. So, it was with trepidation that I began to write this book. I initially stood somewhere between Margaret and Polly, a Christian who believed in reincarnation. I had no idea how many other ideas existed. After much contemplation, I hoped that at the highest level of each teaching, a truth common to all existed. Hence, I searched for common elements among spiritual beliefs and found many positive, unifying themes. For example, the golden rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” appears in the texts of African beliefs, Persian teachings, Buddhism, pagan practices, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American stories, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism.
Each religion or philosophical belief has an ultimate ideal or supreme spiritual power for which there are many names: God, Goddess, Truth, Yahweh, Allah, the Universal Life Force, the Lord, Brahman, Absolute Bodhicitta, Christ consciousness, the Tao, the Higgs boson, Source Energy, the Great Spirit, Buddha-nature, Adonai, the Force, DNA, All That Is, Wakan-Tanka, the Inscrutable, the Divine. As different as these names seem at first, they have a lot in common. Many teachings, including some Christian and Buddhist teachings, state that the supreme power resides inside us. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), and each Buddhist has his or her own inner Buddha-nature. Because the divine is within us, we are encouraged to look there for the truth. The Buddha said, “You should trust the truth that is within you.”2
In this book, when I refer to the “Truth” with a capital T, I mean the ultimate in spiritual teachings. The other kind of “truth” is a slippery, shifty, ever-changing viewpoint from a particular perspective. Ask ten people what they saw at the scene of a crime, and you’ll hear ten different answers, all true. In fact, if multiple stories of a crime are identical, the police consider them to be contrived. We each see things differently, and our story changes with time.
I originally intended to report the Truth about the spiritual nature of animals, but this became more challenging as a myriad of opinions surfaced for each religious teaching. Wide variation of beliefs exists even within a religion, sect, denomination, or church. With no agreement, no simple statements can be made about Catholic, Hindu, pagan, scientific, or psychic beliefs.
Dilemmas also mounted as I encountered my own negative judgments regarding spiritual teachings new to me. In order to present a fair and impartial view, I had to open my mind to new ideas, and the project quickly became entertaining.
Letting go of restrictive opinions opened my awareness to how judgment causes pain. During this time, my stomach hurt when I worried about my patients. My lower back ached as I anxiously raced to make appointments and get to emergencies quickly. I suffered in empathy for my clients and their animals as I wrote sympathy cards, agonizing over each death. Eventually, my mental, physical, and emotional health improved because of what I learned and share in this book.
The physical strain of ambulatory equine practice — floating horse’s teeth, carving out sole abscesses, and castrating unruly two-year-old colts — took a toll on my body. Exhaustion followed long hours. I often came home late from an emergency too tired to cook. Dinner consisted of a glass of sauvignon blanc and dark chocolate. My dreams were shattered by images of steaming bowls of pus and memories of desperate, dying eyes looking up at me. A recurring nightmare plagued me in which my truck would not stop. My foot pressed the brake to the floor and the truck kept on rolling, always in different scenes, through intersections or down steep muddy roads with sharp turns. I was always unable to stop it.
Some puritanical work ethic drove me; I whipped myself like a self-flagellating penitent. I related to Martin Luther, founder of the Lutheran religion, whose life was discussed on audiotapes I played in my truck. The young Luther thought we had to work hard and suffer because we are evil, worthless sinners unworthy of forgiveness. My Lutheran upbringing and German heritage encouraged hard work. The fact that I was doing what used to be a man’s job also put added pressure on me to perform and prove my value.
In January 1995, I visited a psychologist, who told me she could not help me; she said I had to change my life. This was easy for her to say but hard for me to accomplish. I was heavily invested in my job. I loved veterinary medicine — I still do — and I was good at equine ambulatory work. I had no idea how to change. She suggested I take days off, but this was no help. When I did, several people became furious with me when I was unavailable for their emergencies. One woman hated me because I took a day off and her horse died. Another veterinarian attended that emergency, but in her mind, I was to blame.
That kind of judgment hurt, but my self-judgment was even more painful. This was emotional pain. On the outside, I looked like a strong, fit, confident, capable woman. On the inside, I ached. The irony was that I had begged for this job. I had wanted to be a veterinarian more than anything else in the world.
Other colleagues seemed to be struggling as well. One of my veterinary school classmates and friends killed herself by drinking euthanasia solution in her Diet Pepsi. Another died when he rolled his truck on a late-night emergency call. In the neighboring county, a horse doctor committed suicide by shooting himself.
A turning point came for me about ten years later, at the funeral of a veterinary friend who died of cancer in a nearby town. She and I had planned to work together so we could have more time off. At the funeral, her two young children cried, while one person after another stood to tell stories about how this woman had come out at midnight, or on Christmas Eve, or 10 PM on the fourth of July, or 5 AM on a Sunday morning with her children sleeping in the truck. My friend lived with the stress that a large-animal veterinarian works under day and night. She used all her energy to help other people and their animals, but this meant she didn’t have enough left to stay healthy herself. It hit me like a bullet. I was doing the same thing, killing myself by working nonstop. The challenge was to find a way to change.
My animals helped me find relief. At night when I tossed in bed, my cat would come nuzzle my cheek and snuggle into my armpit. Her nonjudgmental nature touched my soul and gave me peace. One of the most beautiful characteristics of animals is their nonjudgmental, forgive-and-forget nature, which offers us relief from the pain of constant human appraisal and self-loathing.
Opinions about right or wrong, good or evil, represent a dualistic belief system that involves moral judgment. Some animal behavioral scientists and religious scholars believe that animals do not develop moral opinions. I question this supposition and explore it more fully throughout this book. We have no way of knowing for certain what an animal thinks or feels. We have trouble trying to understand other humans. We do know that a dog learns human rules about right and wrong, but the animal may not share our human perspective. A dog will romp through the house with muddy paws wondering why their person is so upset, and moments later, the episode forgotten, the dog wants to play; tomorrow, the dog will have no remorse or qualms about spreading mud on the carpet again. At the same time, animals who live in social groups, such as wolves, appear to have rules that teach them right from wrong in the pack. They argue about these rules and they also forgive, which leads me to consider the idea that some level of morality exists among some animals.
Children, especially, come to appreciate an animal’s characteristic nonjudgmental, forgiving nature. As a youth, I found solace with my Shetland pony, Earl. He played with me and accepted me even if, in some human’s opinion, I was fat, stupid, ugly, or wrong. One man shared with me that he hid with his dog in the doghouse after hearing his father refer to him as “stupid.”
Even the great philosopher Socrates appreciated this quality in a dog. As Thomas Cleary wrote, “Socrates used to take shelter in a barrel with a little dog. Some of his students asked, ‘What are you doing with this dog?’ Socrates said, ‘The dog treats me better, since it protects me and doesn’t annoy me, whereas you desert me and yet annoy me, too.’ ”3
When our pets accept us without judgment, it feels like love. Unconditional love means being accepted under any conditions, right or wrong, smart or stupid, Buddhist, Baptist, Muslim, or Hebrew. As I explored religious beliefs about animals, I considered the issue of moral judgment for several reasons: First, nonjudgment is another core Truth in the spiritual teachings of Jesus, the Buddha, and many other religious leaders. Jesus said: “Judge not, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye” (Matthew 7:1–5). The Buddha told followers not to set themselves up as a judge of others or make assumptions about their motives. You can destroy yourself by holding judgments about others.4 But also, I wanted to investigate what I could learn about whether animals differ from us in terms of a moral sensibility. Finally, spiritual teachers like Thich Nhat Hanh and Eckhart Tolle teach that pain results from judgment, and I needed to learn to free myself of negative judgments, self-judgment, shame, and pain.
According to Eckhart Tolle, “If you stop investing [the pain] with ‘selfness,’ the mind loses its compulsive quality, which basically is the compulsion to judge, and so to resist what is, which creates conflict, drama, and new pain. In fact, the moment that judgment stops through acceptance of what is, you are free of mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.”5
This idea of accepting rather than judging what is arose dramatically for me when I met Dana Xavier. On a Sunday in early December 1999, Dana called with an emergency — her stallion had lacerated his face — amid a blizzard of wet snow. Dana lived up a steep hill, on a mesa, and her driveway was gravel and clay with no guard railings. It was a tense drive, even though the four-wheel-drive Ford handled the slimy mud. As I sutured the horse’s wound, I asked the small woman what she did for a living.
She said, “I’m a clairvoyant.”
“You mean a ‘psychic’?”
She nodded. She had a curious way of communicating; she didn’t offer much, just giggled a lot.
About a year later, in March 2001, I made an appointment with her to discuss the spiritual nature of animals. During our talk, I told her how badly I felt if a patient did not heal, and she laughed. Then she laughed some more. She laughed until she cried and almost fell off her chair.
I felt insulted. “I’m glad I can be a source of amusement for you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes and regaining her breath, “but it’s not your fault if an animal doesn’t get better.”
“Really, well, then what do people hire me for?”
“Oh, you help, for sure, but there’s a lot more going on than just what you do. Maybe the animal had other plans. Maybe the animal and their human are trying to learn something together.”
“Animals have plans?”
“Yes.”
“So, what am I supposed to do when an animal is not improving?”
“All you can do is pray for the animal and the people to receive the healing they want.”
I had trouble with this and thought Dana was a bit crazy.
Then she said, “Don’t judge the situation. Judgment is pain.”
Clearly, I had much to learn: about the realm of clairvoyants, about the “plans” animals had, and about how animals and humans learn together, but that had to wait for future meetings.
I decided to put what Dana told me into practice — to stop judging myself, others, and situations. The perfect opportunity presented itself several months later with Dawn, a lovely woman who first hired me to treat her horses, then to perform acupuncture on her six-year-old shepherd-mix named Apache.
It started when Apache jumped out of Dawn’s truck and ruptured a spinal disc, becoming paralyzed in the rear end. Dawn had rushed her to Albuquerque for spinal surgery, and she had called me from there the following day.
“The surgeon said I should think about putting Apache down because she has no feeling in her hind limbs. Karlene, what am I going to do? I can’t lose this dog.”
“Does the surgeon know you were once paralyzed?” I asked.
“No, I didn’t tell him.”
“And look at you! You’re walking around just fine. And you were paralyzed from the neck down.”
“Yeah, they told me that I’d never walk again.”
“Right, so we won’t listen to him,” I said.
We started electro-acupuncture on Apache right away — twice a week at first and then weekly — and after five weeks, post-op, Apache had regained feeling and movement from head to toe. She wagged her tail and had bladder and bowel control.
One day about this time, as I drove up to Dawn’s ranch to treat Apache, I saw her waiting for me next to the barn, a tall, slender redhead wearing a long, russet denim jacket and irrigation boots, looking like a model for a farm-supply catalog. She also wore a frown and was holding a lead rope connected to her mule, Candy. I knew something was wrong. It is common to have a client say something like, “While you’re here, doc, can you look at. . .,” and I will add another animal to the day’s schedule.
Dawn was worried that Candy might have “stringhalt,” a jerking motion of the hind limb caused by nerve damage. I started my exam by making friends with the mule and trying to lighten Dawn’s mood.
“Howdy, Candy girl,” I said as I rubbed the mule’s face. “You’re a good girl.” She rubbed her head against my hand. “You like me, don’t you?” I cleaned the sleep from her eyes.
“Horses must like us,” I told Dawn. “Otherwise, why would they put up with us? Some people think they only love us because we feed them. Well, it may be ‘cafeteria love,’ but how does that differ from men? They always say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I remember a time when I was in the Denver airport. A man on my flight kept staring at me with a hungry look, practically drooling. We boarded the small plane, and once in the air, he unbuckled his seat belt and came back to talk to me. He bent toward me and said, with a southern accent, ‘I bet you make great biscuits and gravy.’ I said, ‘I’ve never made biscuits and gravy.’ That was enough for him. He turned around, went back to his seat, and never looked at me again.”
Dawn curled the corners of her lips and rolled her eyes, not amused by my story.
“I reckon men are no different than any other animal. At least you guys know what you want,” I told the mule. “You like food and you like your face rubbed. Let’s see how you like it when I palpate your stifle joint.”
I slowly felt my way down Candy’s back to her hind limb, palpating the kneecap area. “Walk her around a little. See that clicking motion by the stifle? That’s not stringhalt. Stringhalt is when the limb jerks up toward the belly. This is upward fixation of the patella — the ligament of the kneecap is catching on her femur. It happens in horses with a straight-legged confirmation. You just need to exercise her to strengthen the muscles to hold the kneecap in place. Take her riding in the sand wash; that will tone her up.”
“I can’t go riding. I have to take care of Apache. She just panics if I get out of her sight.”
This is the challenge I was not taught in veterinary school — how to manage people’s lives. I had learned anatomy, microbiology, radiography, and surgery, but nothing about how to help people manage their problems. Dawn had good reason to be depressed with multiple ailing animals to care for. I really wanted to help. “How is Apache?”
“She’s okay. Come see her.” Dawn carried Apache from the front seat of her Dodge Ram and stood her upright on the ground in front of me. “Look,” she said, still not smiling. “She can stand.”
“Oh, that’s great!” Apache collapsed, and Dawn lifted her onto my tailgate, where I had a rug spread for a treatment table. “Hi, Apache, you look so good.” However, for the first time, I noticed a cowering expression in the dog’s eyes as she looked at Dawn, prompting me to ask Dawn, “What’s going on?”
“Oh, sometimes I think that she’s never going to get any better than she is right now.” Dawn sighed. She gave Apache a worried look, which made the dog cower even more.
Dawn was worn out, even though Apache had progressed significantly. “Dawn, you have to hold this dog in a vision of health,” I urged. I paused to think of a way to explain. Then I related a story that shows how animals think.
“My friend Betty has a big shaggy malamute dog named Harry, and each summer she shaves his hair short. She worried about shaving him again this year because he always hides under the table for a week. I explained to her that Harry hides not because he’s embarrassed by his hairdo. He acts embarrassed because everybody looks at him like he’s a geek and laughs at him. So, I told Betty that the next time she trimmed Harry, she should tell him he’s a stud. Well, that worked. She told him, ‘You look so handsome,’ and he strutted around the house proudly.
“During my years of practice, I have found that animals mirror us; they reflect our thoughts. How would you feel if every time people looked at you, it was with pity in their eyes, or if people told you that you were stupid every day? You would feel the way they think about you. You have to look at Apache like she is getting better and encourage her.”
Dawn replied, “Well, I need encouragement, too. I can’t do anything. I have to take her everywhere. My back gave out the other night when I picked her up. What am I going to do if she doesn’t get better? I’m really worried.”
I pointed out, “She has bladder control. That’s huge. And she can stand!” Dawn nodded, and I continued, “It has only been five weeks. She’s getting better every day. We can help her; it’s time to do more physical therapy.”
I wrapped my fingers around Apache’s hind limbs to feel her femoral pulses. I looked at the color of her tongue and placed the appropriate needles in her back, hind limbs, and paws, then I connected the electro-acupuncture wires to send a current through the needles. Apache relaxed and enjoyed the attention as Dawn stroked her head.
I hoped to hear some good news and asked about Dawn’s horse. “How’s Poco doing since the horseshoeing clinic?”
“He’s lame. He threw the shoe off his bad foot.”
I had treated Poco off and on for about a year, and he still had an intermittent left front lameness and stood with that foot pointing out in front of the other. I had referred the horse to a lameness expert and horseshoer, who applied a special shoe that Poco promptly threw. The thought of my inability to diagnose and treat Poco’s problem gave me a stomachache. Due to my anxiety over unhealed patients, and the worries of clients, I probably had an ulcer; my heart palpitated; I had chest pain and shortness of breath; and all my joints ached. One of my legs was shorter than the other, and my lower back was in spasms all the time from a protruding disc. I was a mess, and if what the clairvoyant, Dana Xavier, had taught me was true, I needed to heal myself by allowing animals and their humans to accept responsibility for themselves.
Pain educates; we learn best from hard lessons. Sometimes conditions do not heal, and as long as I do the best job I can and have the best intentions, a lack of healing is not my fault. Conversely, I cannot take credit for a cure. I do not heal my patients; healing happens from inside each being, just as skin cells grow to fill in a wound. I am not healing the wound; I am not in control. I do the best I can to clean and protect the wound. I nurture and support the process while trusting that the innate capacity to heal occurs.
That day, I began to accept that I am not responsible for healing. I do the best I can and know that people and animals are working together to learn and may have other plans. I started to let go of judgments about my inability to fix every ailment; higher forces are at work beyond my best intentions. I left praying that Dawn, Candy, Apache, and Poco would receive the healing they each wanted. At the end of Dawn’s long, gravel driveway, a huge snake slithered out of the grass in front of my truck. I stopped and went over to check it out. A bull snake, about five feet in length, turned to face me. He curled with his mouth open and shook his tail like a rattlesnake, a common tactic of the bull snake. He knew that behavior scares things away. He made me look twice — no rattles. He was beautiful and fat, as big around as my arm. Then I saw why he was so defensive. Something had taken a bite out of his side, leaving a hole the size of a chicken egg. Flies hovered over it, the parents of the tiny maggots moving inside the wound.
Part of me wanted to catch him and clean his wound. Yet a deeper part of me knew better, and I heard a voice in my head say, Let it be. There was no redness or swelling, and the skin around the wound was shiny and smooth. He was a healthy fellow. The maggots were keeping infection away, and the clay packed in the lesion made the perfect bandage, like a flexible plaster cast. Nature was healing the bull snake just fine without my help. So, I let him be, knowing that healing is part of the intrinsic quality of life. Snakes entwine the staff in the medical and veterinary emblems, symbolizing healing and transformation. Perhaps this snake was a wounded symbol of healing, an omen intended for me as well as my patients.
A veterinarian faces fear every time he or she meets a vicious dog, a screaming cat, or an aggressive horse. Fear on the animal’s part drives defensive behavior, so we make an effort to proceed gently to calm the animal. I will not win a fight with a horse. Somehow, we animal doctors have to stay calm and confident and convince our patients to cooperate. Animals sense people’s energy. When horses sense fear from a person or other animal, they take advantage and push the other around, biting and such. I learned as a child to hide my fear from horses and act tough. It takes fortitude to keep fear at bay. Thankfully, the majority of animals allow veterinarians to treat them even when the procedures, such as injections, do not feel good. All horses, by virtue of their size, are dangerous. They can knock a person down, bite, kick, strike, and step on feet. A new horse patient often tests me. I have always been amazed at, and grateful for, the many horses that respond to simple verbal commands, like “Stand” or “Quit.” They get the message that I am not intimidated by them, and they obey. The same is true for dogs. A stern, one-word command works like a charm. There have been times when I have been intimidated by uncooperative horses and something unpremeditated has taken over me. Some kind of fortitude sparks a focused energy I send through my eyes and voice so intensely that it convinces those horses to stop misbehaving, and they obey me. Every veterinarian in practice is familiar with the fortitude required to face unfamiliar, growling dogs, hissing cats, and rearing horses.
Fortitude exists in all beings, human and animal, and does not arise out of an intellectual process. It springs from spirit, the invisible force we feel in ourselves and others. It emerges most forcefully when we face danger or a threat. Ever try to restrain an angry cat? Watch out! A cat can channel the fortitude to make two Doberman pinschers back away without touching the feline. The spirit flows through the eyes, and the voice tells those dogs to “back off,” and they do.
In other words, I’ve discovered firsthand that there is more to living beasts than fur and feathers and physical parts, and my journey to explore the spiritual nature of animals is in part an attempt to understand this important component of life.
I first discovered this spirit in myself through martial arts training. By the late 1980s, I had earned a red belt in karate, and I was looking for a new teacher, or sensei, to take me to the brown belt level. The man I hoped would train me was well respected by other karate students in town. He had a fourth-degree black belt in Shotokan karate and was a master of tai qi chuan. He had also been a mercenary soldier. I met him to ask if he would teach me, and he said he wanted to spar. I was not experienced in fighting, especially not against such a powerful man. He stood over six feet tall, with a shaved head and camouflage fatigues. Still, I agreed. Though we wore padded gloves, it still stung when he popped me in the forehead. The blow hurt my neck, which made me mad, and I charged at him with my fists flying. He crossed his arms in front of his face, laughing. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, okay. . . . I’ll teach you. You have brown belt spirit.”
Spirit was the term my teacher used to describe the energy that moved me to go after someone I could never beat. That energy came from inside me without conscious choice. The same energy has exploded out of me at times when a horse behaves dangerously. In moments of intense fear, thought stops and something takes over me, just as it happened when my teacher hit me. I will look the horse in the eye and command, “You stand still!” in an eruption of intense, palpable energy that even frightens me — after the event. Amazingly, the majority of horses obey, stop rearing or pushing me, and I pet them and tell them, “You’re okay.” I understand that they are frightened, too, and they seem to bond with me as if I were their leader. My reactions feel like spirit that arises from some nonmental instinct rather than a learned skill, and it is directed through my eyes and voice, just like an angry cat.
Fear is our first opponent in a fight. It paralyzes us and must be overcome. In karate, I was taught to fight with “no mind.” Thought is too slow; during a fight, there is no time to think about what to do, so the body is trained with hours of repetitive moves to learn how to react when attacked. Furthermore, when I stop thinking, fear dissolves. Whenever I sparred in a no-mind manner, I did not remember what happened. The only memory I had was of the first technique after the command to start and of the last technique before the order to stop. The men in class would tell me how my opponent had me cornered, yet I landed a spinning back fist followed by a back kick, and so on, none of which I could recall.
I also observed my body moving in ways I never learned. Somehow my body defended itself when I was attacked. On one occasion a girlfriend jumped on my back with her arms around my neck, saying, “Okay, karate girl, what are you going to do?” I thought, Well, I’m not going to poke your eyes out; I’m not going to break your ribs with an elbow strike. I didn’t want to hurt her, so I gave up, and the moment I quit thinking, something took over. My right foot went back and my torso bent forward, quickly launching her over my head onto the grass. She looked as stunned as I felt. It all happened as if some force took over my body.
My sensei also called that force or spirit “qi” (pronounced “chee”). In karate class, we learned how to focus and direct qi for more powerful movement. Qi gives even small people, and cats, great strength.
Sensei said, “You can stop a fight with a look.” This is exactly what cats do, and it has been proven true for me on several occasions. Large men have backed away from me when spirit was directed through my glare. But again, I never intentionally think to do this. Fortitude just rises up out of me when danger enters my space. In short, something animates me that is not related to my conscious decisions.
Sensei’s spirit radiated at least twenty yards whenever he demonstrated a kata, a patterned series of karate moves. His face appeared serene. He moved smoothly as if he was swimming, yet I found myself backing away. The power that radiated from him was not physical; it was energetic spirit. The same spirit or power emanates from animals, especially in the wild.
One day, while cross-country skiing with two friends in Rocky Mountain National Park, we spotted a large herd of elk bedded down about a hundred yards away. The cows were startled and struggled to move off in the deep snow. Then a large bull stood and glared at us. The force of his gaze knocked me backward into the snow. He radiated his energy so impressively from such a distance that it physically struck me. My friends and I agreed to go another direction so we would not disturb the herd. From karate and this bull, I realized that nonphysical energy emanates from human and animal bodies.
Through karate training I learned to appreciate Eastern philosophies and the concept of how to move energy. I understood how to direct qi, and I could feel it from others. About that time, I felt burned out with my job. Animals acted like they hated me. Everything I did seemed mean: castrating colts, deworming, giving injections to foals that acted terrified, floating horse’s teeth. The animals lacked an appreciation for these procedures even though I intended to help them. Even more difficult for me was my inability to cure so many problems. Sometimes people could not afford the best treatments; other times the drugs I used made things worse.
Then I learned about an acupoint on the inside of a horse’s lip that changed everything. Pressure at this point causes horses to calm down, lower their heads, and lick their lips. (Licking tells me a horse likes what I am doing.) The stimulation of this point releases endorphins, the body’s own opiates. I came to use it every day.
One day a man called me to give his horse annual vaccines, deworming, and float his teeth. When I arrived, the man informed me that the horse could be difficult, maybe a bit mean, and that he hated needles. He thought a woman might have a better chance of getting along with the horse.
I approached the gelding easily, petting him gently and stroking his soft muzzle. I pressed my left index finger in the center of his upper lip until he seemed comfortable with my touch, then I slipped it in between his upper lip and teeth and pressed on a depression between the two front teeth where the lip meets the gum. The horse leaned against my finger, lowered his head, and licked. Then I gently but firmly pinched his upper lip with my fingers, digging the fingernails into his lip and the acupoint in the middle of the upper lip. His head came up a bit at first and then he closed his eyes, head lowered again, and licked more. I had a twitch (a foot-long metal pincher that looks like a nut cracker) on my left forearm and slowly slid it up to pinch the lip as I released my fingers. The man squeezed and wiggled the twitch as I easily administered intravenous sedation. I completed all the procedures without any fighting. I was happy to accomplish the job and stay safe. The twitch, used properly, is an excellent tool that stimulates acupoints causing the release of endorphins and other happy chemicals. It has kept me safe countless times.
This amazing acupoint made me want to learn more about acupuncture. Then I heard about the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society (IVAS), and I signed up to attend in 1994. There I discovered my natural aptitude for traditional Chinese veterinary medicine (TCVM). It resonated with me, and I felt at home with it. After an internship and an exam, I became certified as a veterinary acupuncturist in 1997. Then I started the IVAS herbology course and met Dr. Xie, a third-generation Chinese veterinarian who taught at the University of Florida veterinary school. Not only is Dr. Xie extremely knowledgeable, he is also one of the kindest people I have ever met. His students call him “Shen.” In TCVM, shen is the spirit that resides in the heart. That fits Dr. Xie. For me, the man is a sage — a wise, humble master. Whenever a critic of acupuncture in the veterinary profession disputes the validity of veterinary acupuncture, rather than argue, Dr. Xie always advises us to “just make good qi.” Dr. Xie came to Durango to treat patients with me on his next trip to the IVAS herbology course where we met. Then, in October 2000, he invited me and my husband to travel to China with him and a group of other veterinarians for an advanced TCVM course. He asked me to share a lecture at the conference about the wild horse foot, and how horses in the wild keep their hooves trimmed naturally and stay sound, in comparison to the domestic, shod horses that have so many hoof problems and foot pain. From there I finished my Chinese herbology training with Dr. Xie, at his school, the Chi Institute, and I also learned tui na manual therapy and food therapy.
I felt much better adding TCVM to my practice. About 85 percent of my patients enjoy acupuncture treatments; dogs like it because they get “cookies” (as treats) and “opium” (or the opiates that are naturally released by the acupuncture) — everybody likes cookies and opium. The body’s pharmacy releases over 360 different chemicals, such as endorphin, encephalon, serotonin, bradykinin, antihistamine, corticosteroids, and so on, that relieve pain and calm anxiety. Acupuncture feels more nurturing to me, and the Chinese herbal formulas have helped many animals when drugs have not. I feel blessed to have studied with Dr. Xie, who taught me so much that improved my life and the lives of animals.
I am also blessed by the friendships I have at a local veterinary clinic, Animas Animal Hospital. From 1985 to 1988, I worked at this small-animal veterinary hospital in downtown Durango as a new graduate from veterinary school. One of my favorite things about Animas Animal Hospital is all the wildlife brought there for treatment. The doctors there work closely with the Division of Wildlife, and they treat injured wild animals for free. In addition, for many years, one of the veterinary technicians carried a wildlife rehabilitation license.
My relationship with Animas Animal Hospital continues, even though I have not been employed there for many years; I still have a key. I am grateful for my friendship with both the original and the current owners, which allows me the freedom to use the facility and its staff. Somehow, I am grandfathered in like an old fence that delineates a property line although the survey disagrees.
During the 1990s, five veterinarians worked at Animas Animal Hospital, and they were always busy with medical, surgical, and emergency cases. I often stopped by when I traveled through town. I used the microscope and X-ray processor, talked with the staff, picked up deliveries from veterinary suppliers, consulted with the other doctors on cases, and visited the “prisoners” in the back of the hospital, the area where the cages were located and treatments were done.
On one occasion, I entered through the back door to see a tiny orange kitten hanging from the bars of her kennel, calling, “Mew, mew, mew,” just as Dr. Walter Truman walked into the room holding a peregrine falcon. The bird was calm, showing no fear. He just stared into my eyes like he found me as interesting as I found him. His spirit felt strong and his feathers were gorgeous.
“Look at those feathers,” I said.
“They’re in good shape,” said Walt. “He hasn’t been on the ground long; he was hit by a car. Look at how blue the sere is.” I studied the area around the nostrils as Walt continued. “He’s young, probably one or two. This is the third peregrine I’ve seen hit by a car on the highway by Yellow Mesa. It feels like the wing is broken. Stick around; I’m about to X-ray him.”
“You’re holding the world’s fastest creature in your arms,” I said.
“Yeah, they’re amazing. They’ve been clocked at over two hundred miles an hour. I’ve seen them climb up into the sky over a duck pond so high you can’t see them, and then, when the ducks are flushed off the pond, dive down and take a duck’s head off.” Walt walked into radiography as I played with the kitten’s paws that reached out through the cage bars to touch me.
I glanced around the room to see what other interesting cases were in for the day. “Whoa, is that a fox?”
“Isn’t she sweet?” answered Dr. Jane Becker. “A couple brought her in. They swerved their car to miss her mother and bumped into her.”
Tears formed in my eyes at the sight of the beautiful fox kit. Her pointed, black nose and silver fur captivated my attention. Her deep, dark eyes looked into mine with complete calm. She seemed peaceful, reminding me of stories about the Galapagos Islands, where the first visitors found that wildlife had no fear of humans. A person could walk right up to an animal and pick it up. Only after humans started taking specimens and doing research did they become afraid. After that, the young learned from their mothers to run away. “This girl obviously doesn’t fear us yet,” I said.
“She is innocent. Of course, we aren’t handling her. We want her to stay wild. Fortunately, there’s nothing wrong with her. Unfortunately, Walt says she’s too young to know how to feed herself. I tried to tell the people to leave her where she was when they called, but they were already on the way in with her.”
People often find wildlife and think they need to rescue the creatures, but the reality is wildlife may do better without human intervention. A fawn, for example, is often left by the doe in a place to remain still until she returns from foraging. People find the fawn and take it home, thinking it has been abandoned, while the mother only went shopping and will return to find her baby kidnapped.
I felt so bad for the fox and her kit being separated that I almost cried. Without a mother, how would she learn to hunt? The people who captured her meant well, but with wildlife, we are better off letting them be. We have to remember that nature’s way is best.
I walked back to the X-ray table to check on the picture of the peregrine as Dr. Truman was reading it. “Oh, that’s too bad,” he said. “Both the radius and ulna are fractured. Usually if one is broken, the other bone acts as a splint, and the wing heals really well. But with both broken, I’ll have to do a surgical repair with a Kirschner external fixation apparatus. Then I’ll send him to the rehab center over in North Fork. They have a flight cage there the size of three basketball courts.”
The spirits in the falcon and the fox touched me. I felt some inner presence streaming from their eyes, some unnamed light flowing through them. The force from the elk that knocked me down and the force that moved my body to fight felt powerful even though they were invisible. This was the beginning of my investigation into the spiritual nature of animals.
