Healing Like The Hounds

I was recently flipping through my new set of TV channels and came across a vet program (yep I got the nature channels bundle, not nerdy at all, I know) and saw a dog all wrapped in bandages right from his nose to his hips - so naturally I had to pause and see what the story was. I had tuned in late but eventually gathered the dog had been victim of a fire and had burns all over his poor body. A specialist in animal burns was even flown up and was using fish skins to help cover the wounds and create a graft for his own skin to heal over - Aaa-mazing! No easy task for the body to heal from that bad an injury, with so much tissue damage to that much of the body. But as I watched, there seemed no doubt judging from the dog’s tail that he was up for the challenge and truly believed he would be fine again. Besides pain control at the beginning, really all of the other interventions that the vets were performing were simply techniques to protect the area and allow the body to heal on its own as quickly as possible. At one point the veterinarian made a comment that it would be a battle but his chances of recovery were good as dogs are such good healers because they take it one day at a time and don’t think about what’s going to happen tomorrow. 

I finished the show (of course I had to see how he made out) and sure enough good ol Archie was running and chasing his ball again just a few months later - he did have to wear a stylish coat to keep warm but otherwise was happy as could be! I pondered what the vet had said, and thought about how we too have the same potential to be great healers just like other animals -  when we don’t get in our own way. The body is obviously capable, it is constantly making repairs, replacing cells and healing and regenerating tissues every day and there is no shortage of “medical miracles” and unlikely comeback stories out there. So if you’re looking for “proof” that the human body can pull it off it’s there - I promise; it’s not just something unique to the dogs. Not interfering with our body, now in that department, I’d have to say the dogs are superior to most of us! But what if we learned a lesson from our furry friends and took it one day at a time? What if we weren’t so concerned with what tomorrow might bring (or rather what we “think” it might bring, seeing as although we like to pretend to be in charge, we never really know for sure)? What if we just focused on what we could do today, what we could do in this moment? Imagine the powerful messages the mind would send the body to heal if we didn’t even consider another alternative but healing, if we didn’t rain on its parade with how tomorrow would probably be just like today. Not even a brief moment spent entertaining a thought that we might not recover and be happy and healthy again. My friends, there is thinking positively in a not so hot situation, and then there is knowing and not even considering any other thoughts but the positive ones. I think there is a lot we can learn from our animals. They truly have mastered the ability to allow innate healing to work it’s magic. I encourage you to watch your animals and see what other tips they have for you, I know I’ve learned a few and in some ways, wish I could be more like Echo. I remember I watched her heal quickly from a surgery and thought, man if that was me and I even saw those stitches walking past a mirror I would think I must be in terrible pain and probably shouldn’t have much to wag my tail about. Even if we weren’t in a lot of pain before, you can guess what our mind would get busy doing if we planted that seed in there. 

Healing like our hounds do is one heck of a tall task and no doubt an incredibly difficult one to pull off as it requires us to harness our complex minds and our perceptions of what our future might be like and rein them in big time! But we do like to think of ourselves as the “superior” species after all, so if our furry friends can do it, and rock it - then there’s nothing stopping us from being able to try it out too!