You are the Universe! - E20: Your Dog your greatest Teacher

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Your dog is your greatest teacher. They are true Empaths and our often a mirror for us. Join me on Facebook in my Holistic Dog Moms group. Www.VictoriaHaffer.com

Welcome to the You or the Universe podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Hafer, intuitive healer, and holistic life and body coach with over 20 years of facilitating massive transformation for people and animals. And I'm so flipping glad you're here. Today's topic is dogs, our greatest teachers. So yes, I'm talking to you dog lovers today. Dog moms, dog dads, dog parents, and really anybody that might even work in the dog world. You could be a dog trainer, a dog groomer, maybe a veterinarian. So any of those people that just happen to have dogs around them in the day to day, or of course if you have some beloved pets of your own. So dogs, everybody, I mean, most people love dogs. Some people, maybe not everyone does. But for the most part, most people that I come into contact with love animals overall.

And I always love the conversation of, are you a dog person? or are you a cat person? And I'll share a little story with you. I used to be a cat person. And I'm not saying I don't love cats still, but my whole life pretty much it was cats. We grew up with cats. Well, we had a cat in childhood.

And then as I got older and I moved out, I just found that a cat was just way easier. I tended to relate to the cat world, the cat kingdom. I tended to be a loner and very independent. and I always kind of felt like dogs were very needy and, you know, they required you to get up early in the morning and, you know, you had to pick up their poop and, you know, all of that. So I was always a cat person for so long, so long, so long. And it really wasn't until I would say probably about eight or 10 years ago when I started to move into working more with animals as my career as a healer, an intuitive and a behaviorist, that, and I decided at the young old age of 47 years old to become a professional dog trainer.

And at that point, I had a cat. Actually, I think I had two cats at that time. And I knew that I needed to have more dogs in my life. And I started volunteering at a local shelter. Yeah. So at this point, I hadn't had my own dog ever. When we grew up, we did. We had a few dogs.

and they were great. But I just never really had a super strong connection to dogs. It was always the cat thing. And I remember very specifically the morning of I was, I used to walk dogs at the local shelter in Providence, Rhode Island. And I was disinfecting the floor. And there was probably about 15 dogs in the back area where they all had their own little cages.

It looked like little prisons. And, you know, we had a lot of different species. different species of dogs in there and it was very loud and most of the dogs were just barking. And I remember looking over and seeing this smaller dog and so adorable. And he was standing right at like at his little bars at the door and he just looked at me and I'm an intuitive as well. So he pretty much said, can you get me out of here? And then I remember asking my supervisor, I said, you know, can tell me about that dog? And can I take him out for a walk? And they were like, oh, he hasn't been really friendly with any of the staff. He's actually bit a few of the staff.

But they said, but if you want, you can go sit in the back of the cage on a blanket and just see if he wants to have anything to do with you. So I sat down there. He came over and immediately started to play bow on either side of me. And I said, oh, yeah, Yeah, well, this is, this is, we got to go. So I grabbed the leash and I went, took him up for a walk. I remember the exact day. And we were, it was like we were, we were in sync. Like when we were walking, it was just like our steps were like synchronized.

It was so crazy. And we were having fun and we were playing and we were running around. And I remember he was like jumping up on benches. And then I remember the exact moment. I was sitting on the bench and he was on the ground in between my legs looking up me and I actually still have that picture. And I said, oh, no. And I knew that he was my dog. So that's how the story began. And that is, for many of you may know, my beloved puffer, the love of my life. That is the story of four. So he was amazing. And I always say to my clients that you don't

always get the dog you want, but you get the dog you need or the pet that you need, right? And they really are our greatest teachers. You know, as a professional dog coach and a healer, I do work with a lot of people and their beloved pets. And I find that so many times the quote-unquote behavior that is happening with with the reason why clients, potential clients reach out to me is because their dog has a problem, at least so they think. right behavioral issue right no we're talking behavioral issues here and it could be reactivity it could be anxiousness it could be fear um a lot of impulse control you know lack of discipline in you know the excessive barking or the jumping and you know anxiety is a big one separation anxiety anxiety

so many factors and there are such sad so sad for me to say say this, but there are thousands of animals, dogs and cats on anti-anxiety medication, including Rosac, which again, you know, I'm, you all know, I'm all about holistic and, you know, sometimes you may need to, it may behoove you to work with a low dose of a drug or medication for the short term, but it's never a long-term solution. for our beloved pets, not to mention the terrible side effects that can happen. You know, the physiology of the body and long-term side effects just are not good. So, you know, I'm in the mentality of the holistic approach and looking at the mind, body,

and spirit, and that, you know, getting to the root cause, right, of the issue, getting to the root cause of the anxiety, of the impulse controlling, of the jumping, of the barking. And, you know, nine times out of ten times, often it's, it's, it's something that the, the pet owner is doing, the dog mom, dog dad is doing or not doing, right? It's always one or two things. Either everything we're doing, like you might say, oh, I don't train my dog or, or you're not doing anything on a regular basis. but every interaction that we have with our dog is either reinforcing something we want or something we don't want, right? Either or, it doesn't matter. So, number one, you may have heard the term empath, being an empath. You know, I'm a psychic, I'm a psychic animal empath. I can literally

feel what other people are feeling. My, my intuitive, Psychic nature is a clear sentience and clear cognizance. So feeling, I just get a feeling and then a knowing. So I just know stuff. I know stuff and I feel things in my body very strongly. Not to say that I don't have clairvoyance where I do see things. I do get images in my third eye, in my dreams, in the astral plane. And then there's clear audience, which is you hear something.

You might hear something in your head. Literally, you can hear something. You get a message. You get a, you know, don't take that, don't take that exit or stop here or look at your phone. You know, like weird things. You just get these messages in your head. Those are all various ways in which we are all very psychic. So when you hear the term empath, or, you know, everybody has the ability to be empathic

unless maybe you're a narcissist. But, you know, for the most part, we all have that ability to be empathic. empathic, but being an empath is just someone who is very, very sensitive. You might also know it as a highly sensitive person, HSP, to the energies around us from people and animals. So animals are empaths, right? They pick up on what we're feeling. They pick up on our moods. They, you know, they, they know what we're not being congruent. Just because we have a smile on our face doesn't mean that we're not a volcano ready to erupt on the inside. And so they're going to pick up, they're going to pick up more on the subtle, you know, body language and energy. They're going to

pick up on all of that stuff. So often our dogs are a mirror of us. So I have found that it's really interesting because many of the clients that I've worked with, they come to me with their, they have a problem with their dog, you know, whether it be nutrition, they're having a chronic health problem or a behavioral problem. And but then what happens often is many of my clients that came to me for their dogs wind up actually personally working with me around their own, you know, subconscious deeper wounds, maybe microtramas or macrotrauma that they have experienced and they're realizing that, you know, oh, okay, their dog actually brought them to me, right? They brought me to the parent, to the dog mom or the dog dad.

So it's really interesting how often this actually happens. Right. So your dog may have, for example, deal with anxiety. One of the questions I always ask my clients is this. Is there anybody in the household that, is experiencing chronic anxiety. And often it's a, you know, a daughter. Maybe it's a daughter, so a sibling or maybe the mom, the person who reached out to me

actually deals with chronic anxiety. So again, it's well known that our beloved pets, horses, dogs, cats, birds, will actually attempt to take on our disease in the body, the energetic stagnation of whatever the thing is. And again, I can tell you many case studies of times that this has happened. So, you know, it's very interesting to really look at all this stuff and working, you know, with our clients. So dogs, just like people, have an Akashik record.

So if you've never heard of that, Akashik, it's A-K-A-S-H-I-C-C. records. And basically, it's a, it's an energetic blueprint. Imagine your, you know, we have, our souls have incarnated, you know, hundreds and thousands of times, depending on if you're an old soul or a new soul, but over time, many, many times. And so imagine that, whether you are, you know, being a male, having a being a male or a female in that error, all of the information that you incur all of the people that you had strong soul connections with, all of the learnings, all of the knowledge, all of your challenges as well, right? They all download into imagine a like the cloud.

When we talk about the cloud, right, all your documents sit on the cloud. It's the same way. So it's everything you've ever experienced, learned, you know, all of your tribut. and tribulations, as well as your gifts and your superpowers, they all sit in the cloud. And it's the same way for our beloved pets, right, and our dogs. And so often, just like you can reincarnate in many times, and if you indeed have a pet that is a soul pet, right, like we say here, soul made, I'm not talking about the one and only true twin flame. I'm talking about someone who you have a connection with from

a past life, like your mother could have been your sister in a past life, right? So things like that. So absolutely, when you find that dog like myself with Thor, my beloved pup of thunder, the love of my life, you know, we have been together in past lives together. Now, he maybe wasn't a dog. He could have been my, my panther in a past life, right? So he could have been my, my, um, Damon. I don't know if you've ever watched the dark,

the magical, it's, I can't remember the name of the show, but, but basically it's really cool because each person has, it's, they call it a demon,

but it's spelled Damon. And it's sort of like part of your soul, but it's an animal, and it's outside of you. And they help to guide you and, you know, you're connected and all that. So I'm sure many of you can relate to that,

that you, your beloved animal, and you know, like you knew they were the one. You went to the shelter or, you know, wherever you got, you know, from a rescue and you just knew they were your dog. Yeah. So it's a soul connection thing. And I've had many experiences of people telling me that even in this lifetime, so you live your, you know, it's your beloved dog from childhood.

And then they come through again, you know, 10 years later and now they're your horse or they're your cat or something. And just know. You know it's your, it was that soul connection. And they've reincarnated, you know, and you can ask them. You can ask your animals, especially if they're, you know, they're crossing over or they're ill or they're, you know, older and they're dealing with a debilitating disease or sickness. You can request that they come back around to see you. And again, there's lots of books and things on that where people have talked about, you know,

hundreds and thousands of stories around experiences and how they just knew. So it's a soul connection. So, you know, again, they're our greatest mirror. They're our greatest teacher. So indeed, if your dog is by chance, is challenging you in any way, behaviorally. And, you know, maybe ask yourself, what is this a reflection inside of me, you know, and how might I be able to learn from this? Yeah, maybe.

who knows. So dogs come in with a very specific soul purpose. Now, most dogs can be healing dogs. We know that. Most dogs just heal people just by being in their energy. But not all dogs come into this world, not all dogs incarnate into this lifetime

to heal other people, to be healers. So yes, your dog can be a healer. For example, therapy dogs. Not all dogs, Not all dogs are meant to be therapy dogs. So again, just think about that, right? Each dog comes in with a very specific purpose in this lifetime. What might that purpose be? You know, I've seen examples of, you know, my specialty in working with dogs behaviorally has been anxious, fearful, reactive dogs.

And so I have worked with a lot of reactive dogs and some aggressive dogs as well. And it's really interesting when you see a dog over and over again, like being the aggressor with, like, attacking, like for no known reason, attacking, you know, maybe it's a small child or it's maybe an other animal. And eventually, sadly, but the dog is required by law to be euthanized. And as a soul connector and a soul speaker, as an oracle where I literally read people's souls and I can connect and communicate with souls, and especially that of animals, sometimes the animal comes in with that purpose, that it's done with this lifetime. And that's the only way that it can get, it can end this lifetime is to be euthanized. I know it sounds really crazy, but sometimes it's the case.

Sometimes the dogs just choose to do that. They choose to do those things so that they will get euthanized. Because, you know, we all have a timeline in which our time is up for this lifetime, right? Our souls, you know, it's written in the Akashic records. When you're going to take your last breath. It's the same thing for our beloved dogs. So when it's time for them to go, it's time for them to go. And they will find a way.

in order for them to cross over that rainbow bridge. So, you know, we look at death in a whole different way than most, a lot of cultures do. A lot of the indigenous tribes, you know, instead of celebrating someone's death, it can be devastating. And I understand that there can be certain ways that people die and they can be very sad. But at the same time, we have to realize that if you are a spiritual being, indeed, we are multidimensional beings, right, who chose to be in this, here in this lifetime, and we are, in this vessel of a human body, right? The physical form that we're in.

And that it is actually known when we're going to take our last breath. So it's like celebrating the life instead of, you know, making it so devastating when we do lose our beloved animals. Yeah, I get it. It can be hard. But at the same time, if you take that spiritual, you know, connection, it just can make it a little bit easier in the transition, you know, for sure. shore. So our dogs need a purpose. They need a job. I need a job to do. So, you know, maybe your

little, cute little three-pound Yorkie, you know, you think their job is just to be a your beck and whim and, you know, just a little toy and they go in your little bag. But even those little dogs need a job to do. So if you're leaving the house, you know, you want to talk to them and say, you know, keep the house safe or whatever, whatever job you decide to do, I can't tell you what that job is for your dog. But I do invite you to go into, you know, a quiet space, maybe a meditation. I do offer a one-on-one service with people that is called Connect with your animal. And so I pretty much teach you how to open up your psychic channels and how to increase that deeper connection between you and your body.

beloved pet. And I offer that on Zoom and you know, you get a recording and it's really powerful. So yeah, so if you start to kind of go into that space where that, you know, our beloved animals have a consciousness to them and that they do understand us. Now, yes, there is a language I call doglish. I teach people how to speak doglish. And, you know, their language is a little different than ours, but, you know, animals overall communicate telepathically. They don't have to roof, roof, you know? I mean, certainly that's how our dogs get our attention, because if they could be sitting there all day long trying to communicate with you telepathically, and you may not even realize what's happening. So as you start to kind of shift your awareness around what you think, so I'm going to

ask you right now to delete, destroy and uncreate everything that you think. about that is the way that you can communicate with your dogs and your dogs communicate with you. So starting from a clear slate, right? Just delete, destroy and uncreated. And that can be super helpful if you do that every single day. And you start to look at, you know, what the challenges that you might have with your dogs, as, you know, is that a way of them kind of communicating with you and speaking out? Because how else are you paying attention to them, right? In, in, in, meeting getting their needs met. So yeah, just think about it. Just think about it. So the dog's

spiritual purpose on incarnation is still, as we know, to give and receive love and to learn and teach about discipline. So often the greatest challenge that I see with people and their dogs is they actually don't set appropriate boundaries in their relationship, just like with with parents and their children, right? I don't know. I just see this day and age, it's sort of like, where's the discipline gone? It's like sort of gone the other way, right?

So, you know, dogs do need boundaries. They do need, you know, us to be consistent with, if we're telling them that they can't beg at the table only sometimes, but every some time you give in and you give them food from your plate, it's like all it takes is one time, and now they're just going to hope every single time that you're eating that you're going to give them something from your plate. So again, consistency is key, right? Discipline is key. Setting good, healthy boundaries is actually really good for your dogs.

It's not a bad thing. And I'm talking about doing it in a loving, you know, obviously compassionate way and being a really good, you know, a confident and calm strong leader for your dog. Because, you know, it's sort of what they need. So your dog loves you and may have been with you for many lifetimes. Dogs actually choose their owners in the same way that a baby is spiritually drawn to its parents. And this means you can never get the wrong pet. So those important decisions are taken at a soul level. So if you feel like you have actually known your dog before, you probably have.

have, like I said before. So I just want you to just take a moment right now and think about all the beloved pets that you've had before. And then just notice if any of the dogs, the dog that you have now, does this dog that you have now have any of the same characteristics of any of your past dogs? Right? Interesting. Opening curious. Interesting point of view. Maybe or maybe not. The other thing that I often see people do is they have that soulmate dog that they love so much, and then that dog passes. And then they get a new dog. And now they can't stop comparing their new dog to their old dog. Well, my old dog was all these great things. My old dog never did this. My old dog never did that. And then just notice how you're not allowing and accepting your current dog for who they really are.

And again, that can be a great teaching role for you as well. So anyways, in essence of all of that, right, our dog is our greatest teacher. They are, we know we love our dogs and we love them so much. I hope that you got some, maybe some insights for today, you know, a golden, your golden nugget or your ahas. I'd love to hear from you about that. If you can put it in the comments. And if you haven't subscribed. to my channel yet you are the universe I would invite you to do that as well I really appreciate you

and as a as a dog mom myself we know we love our beloved dogs so so much and um just so grateful for you to show up here today so remember have a wooftastic day and be and see the joy in everyday life be more like a dog right so don't care about things sniff people's butts and then pee on other people's pee, right? So have a great day and I'll see you when I see you.