Welcome back to Macy Monday, where I talk about parenting my beloved 11 years young Shih Tzu, Macy!
All photos in this post from our little family trip to pick apples in September 2014. This orchard (Pennings Farm Market in Warwick, NY–about 90 minutes outside of NYC) had so much fun stuff, including a huge outdoor scrabble game but sadly no tiles!
When Macy was going through the recovery process from her ruptured disc surgery in July 2014, we had no idea that getting her back to normal was going to take as long as it did. We were told she would make either a full or nearly full recovery but not how long her road back to wellness was going to take. (To be fair, we were in such shock about everything I don’t think we asked.) I also think that her reaction to one of several factors made her recovery much more dramatic and difficult for her emotionally than it is for many dogs.
I haven’t isolated exactly what happened to trigger her deeply anxious response for certain. Animal professionals, psychics and friends have postulated either the surgery itself, the seven days in the hospital (I visited her every day, sometimes twice a day, while she was in there), or the anesthesia had a lingering affect. It was also mentioned by a friend of mine who is psychic that it is very likely that because I’m an empath, Macy is probably an empath, and her being in the crates at the hospital with all of those scared dogs really affected her emotionally. I have noticed that she prefers in home grooming so much more than going to the groomer, in part to avoid those walls of crates with the other stressed out dogs.
Regardless of why, post surgery Macy was a basket case for about two and a half months. She was on crate rest her first week home and I couldn’t leave the room without my normally really well-behaved dog howling for me. I had to go to the bathroom with her in my arms. I contemplated getting one of those baby bjorn things for attachment parenting but was worried it would hurt her back somehow. I stayed home with her for a full week, then I started taking her with me everywhere I went because I couldn’t stay home literally all the time it was affecting my mental health.
Meanwhile, Dara was getting her radiation treatment for breast cancer on the Upper East Side, and it was bumming me out big time that I couldn’t be there for Dara because I had to be there for Macy. Eventually Dara’s therapist got her a letter to have Macy as her emotional support animal for cancer, which helped with having Macy with us all the time.
Because we didn’t know what was causing Macy’s anxiety, we decided to have a consultation with a Pet Empath, Dawn’s Animal Connection, that many of our friends had used. I figured, why not? I had heard good reports, from a friend whose cat was having accidents communicating that she wanted to use a piddle pad rather than a litter box, from another friend who had a posthumous reading with her dauchsunds. (Ever since I heard from her that the dogs complained about their food during the reading I seriously have been conscientious about what we feed Macy, and it inspired our changes to her diet as much as nutrition.)
The reading with Dawn was via phone (way easier to schedule than in person) and we put her on speaker phone while we were with Macy. We prepaid via credit card and it was less expensive than I would have paid someone in person or in NYC, which made me even more inclined to try. At $60 for 40 minutes that’s pretty accessible.
We asked lots of questions. Mostly about how Macy was feeling, did she understand what had happened to her, why can’t she be alone in a room, what could we do to help her feel better.
We didn’t get an answer about why she was feeling the way she was, but we got interesting information about how she was feeling physical “zaps” in her body and brain, that reminded Dara of “zaps” she felt while she was going through chemo. Macy was very clear that she needed us to be with her all the time.
So even though the telepath didn’t really give us an answer of how we could be released from 24/7 dog care, we did understand a bit better what was going on for Macy.
We bought this backpack for her and she absolutely loves it. She tolerated being in dog purses for me for many years, but since I wanted something more gender neutral for Dara to carry her around in, I thought a backpack was a good choice. I think she digs the mellow motion of walking and the mesh so she can see everything and doesn’t get too hot. I got this one from Amazon–it was $44 when we bought it, now it is up to $60. It lasted a good year and then a zipper broke, but we use it a lot as New York City folks who take our dog lots of places.
The end of the Macy anxiety story is that about 3 months after her surgery and literally taking Macy with us everywhere all the time or hiring a dog nanny (seriously, we hired someone to come sit with her when both of us had to go to work meetings), we were finally able to start leaving her at home for short periods of time, and then longer periods of time until it was back to normal.
Honestly, I wasn’t super blown away by the first reading with the telepath. Usually I have a moment of evidentiary based “There’s no way you could know this and not just be guessing well” whenever I have a good psychic reading/tarot reading/astrology reading. But, that happened the second time we had a meeting with Dawn.
This summer Dara and I were wondering if we should take Macy with us on this long road trip to the World’s Longest Yard Sale, her niece’s Bat Mitzfah, and other Midwestern stops. Well, mostly Dara was wondering and I was saying we should leave her with a sitter. For $40 if you’re a returning client you can get a 20 minute reading with Dawn, and split two ways $40 to resolve an argument about dog care is a pretty good deal.
I actually really loved this second reading with Dawn. She knew lots of stuff she wouldn’t be able to know. She knew how Macy felt about her dog sitter (she feels like it’s a second home–which it really is, she’s been staying there for probably 8 years most of the times when I go out of town), how Macy felt about the cat that lives there and sometimes bullies her, but the best was the last thing the telepath told us.
We had a bit of time at the end so we just started asking the questions you’d ask your dog if you had the option. I asked what kinds of things does she like that we do with her. The answer surprised Dawn. She said, “I don’t know why she’s saying this but she likes to be scratched on her face and her belly but doesn’t like when you touch her eyeball. I don’t know why you would be touching your dog’s eyeball and why she is saying that.”
Well, in fact, I touch Macy’s eyeballs four times a day! I have to put in Optimune, this eye cream she has to have twice a day forever, in each eyeball, because she has a chronic dry eye condition common for Shih Tzus. Sometimes my application is really good and I can kind of hover in there and get the cream on without touching, but sometimes I miss a bit and touch her eyeball (gently, of course). This is a dog care activity exclusively on my side of the fence because Dara has a thing about eyeballs.
There was a little farmyard at the Penning’s apple orchard we went to. I love sitting and watching chickens in a barnyard, I find it really soothing.
I would recommend seeing an animal telepath if you have mysterious things you’re interested in asking your animal companion. Especially with regards to resolving animal behavior stuff, it’s really nice to know what’s behind it.
If you reach out to Dawn’s Animal Connection, tell her I sent you! I’d love to hear what your experience is (come back and comment on this post!) because I adore woo modalities and love animals! I’m also super interested in learning to become an animal telepath, and I know Dawn does workshops.