Harmony Program Part
7
So it must be said that it was
not without trepidation that I began to experiment in earnest
and put my theory to the test.
And here’s what happened in actuality.
I would go upstairs and at the first scratching of the puppy,
I would go back down again, open the kitchen door, cuddle the
puppy (“Oh no!” the old fashioned dog trainers and nursery
nurses began to shout, “you’re making a rod for your own back!
The puppy will grow up a monster!!!”), put it back in it’s bed
and tell it with full eye contact and meaning, “Now then, little
one, all is well. I’m upstairs and if you need me for anything,
just call me and I will come. Good night now. I love you.”
Then I would turn off the light, close the door and sit at
the bottom of the step until the scratching and first little
whimper would start up again, and I’d repeat the self same
thing.
With this particular puppy, a very sensitive 8 week old
poodle cross God-alone-knows-what, it took 8 repetitions and a
total of 1 hour 12 minutes for silence to reign and for me to go
to bed. It called me twice more that night, and once or twice a
night for another 3 days. After that, it did not call me
any more apart from one occasion about a week later and
when I went to see it, it was distressed and a little while
later, threw up something that looked like an old fish skeleton.
I wrote down my findings in a note book and mused for some
considerable time on the last puppy in my house, that had howled
for hours on end and finally got to sleep in my bed in the end
anyway simply because the neighbours sent the police round
repeatedly.
Realising of course that one puppy doesn’t make a paradigm
shift, I then went back to my referring trainers and assistants,
told them the whole story and asked them to try it out.
They listened with both eyebrows raised but luckily enough, I
had an excellent reputation and track record for being sensible
and practical in all my dealings and innovations, so they gave
me the benefit of the doubt and a rather half hearted, “Ahm, ok
Silvia ... we’ll try it ...”
One of these, a very conservative lady, had taken receipt of
a rescued GSD bitch that very afternoon and in the night, grew
fearful that the bitch would break through the glass kitchen
door and injure herself severely, as she was throwing herself
against it senselessly in absolute panic of separation anxiety.
As the lady, who happened to be a highly qualified and
supremely experienced dog obedience instructor and trainers
trainer, didn’t know what else she could do (and sleeping with
the dog in the bedroom was not an option on account of her
husband and his views on the topic), she half heartedly tried
“Silvia’s new fangled theory”.
She went back into the kitchen and told the dog that she
needed to sleep and that she was just upstairs, feeling very
foolish by her own admission for doing so.
Guess what. The GSD bitch calmed right down and called the
lady three more times before in that household too, peace and
silence reigned that lasted until 7am the next morning when the
bitch began to bark to be let out into the garden. The rescued
bitch never called again after that – not once and until she
died in 2003.
From mad separation anxiety to total peace in one single night.
The good people who tried out the Harmony Programme on their
cats, dogs, horses, husbands and in their boarding kennels,
rescue kennels, wildlife parks, you name it, were absolutely
astonished how easy it was to calm a creature in this way and
how it did the exact opposite of what we all had believed it
would do – instead of a needy monster that would haunt you all
your living, breathing hours, what we were creating were
balanced, satisfied individuals that seemed to find a sense of
confidence in their environments, in us, and most importantly,
within themselves.
Before we go on to Harmony Programme exercises, I would like
to tell you why I am taking my time in this assignment to tell
you all of this.
The Harmony Programme is not something that we can use as
healers from the outside to make “everything all right” in
behavior problems that are rooted in attention seeking.
- It is something that the caretakers need to be told
about and need to at least try, no matter how half heartedly,
to get an understanding of the benefits for everyone involved.
The “need for attention energy” is a daily one, and it is
important that the owners make changes in their interactions
with the animal in question to supply at least a baseline of
positive attention energy and begin to find ways of backing away
from negative attention energy exchanges.
Although for that part of the system which processes
attention energy it really doesn’t seem to matter what kind of
attention is being given, the kind of attention (positive or
negative) has many repercussions on other energetic exchanges
and on the systems of both caretaker and animal.
Any animal carer knows that animals will prefer a shouting at
or a beating rather than being ignored. This is also true for
children and of course, the delinquents in the prisons and
mental hospitals that these children eventually become.
Eliciting negative attention (being shouted at, threatened,
chased around, reprimanded, punished) is so much easier and so
much more freely forthcoming in this society of ours, it is
scary.
You might laugh, but I can’t remember the last time a
policeman stopped me on the road and commended me on my safe
driving skills. I also don’t think I’ve ever had a friendly
letter from the taxman thanking me sincerely for paying up every
year on time, either. But I guess that’s just the tip of the
iceberg.
With the kind of set up that ignores the good completely but
crashes into action for bad behavior immediately, you can see
how easily animals fall into thinking that the only way they can
get this vital life energy is by resorting to annoying
behaviors and escalating to worse and worse ones over time.
The problem with this process is that prolonged negative
attention energy exchanges are bad for the self esteem of both
the caretaker and the animal/s; they lead to tension, terrible
stress, less in the way of touch and over time, less and less
desire to interact at all which cannot help but create a vicious
downward spiral where everyone involved cannot help but suffer.
The end result of this unloving spiral is usually euthanasia or
re-homing of the animal in question.
Even way back then, I began to talk about “reconnecting the
owner and the animal” and using “natural communication” and “the
underlying strand of love” to do so.
Energy therapy in action, only I didn’t even know the name
then.
How To Re-Connect The Love Is Next ...
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