The Power of Observation

A daily journal about your animal can help you:

• notice changes in appearance or behavior before illness strikes
• change the environment to eliminate triggers causing anxiety or allergies
• identify what is normal for your animal
• communicate with the veterinarian
• strengthen your relationship with your animal

Moving from Frustration to Action

Many animal owners lament that their animal can’t tell them where it hurts. They hand the animal over to the vet and expect the right diagnosis and treatment. Often this can lead to high costs as the veterinarian runs test after test to find the cause. At times it can lead to a lifetime of medication for the animal or worse, a shortened life overall. At the least it can mean frustration for a household with animals that are depressed or out of control for no apparent reason.

What if there was more you could do? Would you spend 5-15 minutes a day helping your animal not only be free from pain and illness, but thrive? Step one is easier than you think.

Watch. That’s all. Simply watch your animal’s daily actions. You probably know more than you think about what your animal needs.

And then write. We suggest you keep a notebook or calendar dedicated to this purpose. Call it journaling; call it a log; call it whatever works for you to make an entry in it every day. Every day. That’s the key to transforming your role from helpless bystander to active participant in your animal’s journey.

He’s Never Been Like This Before . . . Has He?

By making a note of what you see, you begin to know what is normal for your animal and what is not. You become more attuned to a limp or increased hair loss. Perhaps more importantly, you begin to make correlations to what might have triggered the behavior. Did the barometer drop before your dog’s last seizure? Did the cherry trees blossom before your cat’s runny nose acted up? Did you change laundry detergents and suddenly your horse is resistant to your approach?

Think about the kinds of questions a doctor asks when you have an illness:

• When did it start?
• What makes it better?
• What makes it worse?
• What have you tried for it?
• Has this happened before?

 

What Does an Animal Journal Look Like?

For daily notes, it might be helpful to have standard categories that are part of your consistent observations.

If anything was unusual in your routine, you could make a short note of that to help you backtrack and remember what day it was your child stayed home sick or when the neighbors moved—everything that might have affected your animal’s environment. 

If this sounds like more than you can do, try building it on top of a habit you already have. For instance, tuck your animal journaling into the space between when you make coffee and when you read the paper. Or maybe when you get back from a run or taking the kids to school, you can have the animal notebook out and ready for ten minutes of your attention.

What’s in It for Me?

The payoff for this time will be knowing what works and what doesn’t. You’ll be able to see the shifts brought about by dietary changes, lifestyle changes, or Pet Essences. Sometimes a Pet Essence formula stops an unwanted behavior in its tracks, such as the Calming Solution before a veterinary appointment. But other times the change is subtle and takes months, like when building the Immune System.

The animals around us respond to our intentions and vibrations. Just the loving act of taking a few minutes every day to dedicatedly write down how your animal is doing can be a part of the healing process and the deepening of your relationship.