The healing nature of animals

Now I don't want to sound like a Walt Disney movie here, but animals do have the uncanny ability to sooth and heal.

Now perhaps I lost sight of this today as a trip to the vets and animal feed shop cost me 64£!

The shopping basket comprised of:-

Stockholm Tar to cover feather pecked wings,

steroids, antibiotics and medicated shampoo for William,

flea treatments for all the dogs, (and Albert)

antibiotic spray for Gloria's sore foot,

red mite powder and poultry wormer

and frontline field mite treatment for George

Jane, Belle's sister, and one of my best layers strangled herself to death in some discarded cord yesterday and I have spent a somewhat fraught morning trying to clean Maddie's teeth for the very first time...so animal care is not all fluffy bunny, "let's have a group hug"kind of moments......BUT.....I have often witnessed just how healing contact with animals can be for people.

Almost daily the grieving family of a local lady who died unexpectedly, visit her grave. I have mentioned before how they will bring their children and grandchildren to the field to feed the pigs and hens after they call down to the graveyard, and I watched their latest visit from afar, as I was filling the water feeders.

The animals swarm around , with glee, awaiting their titbits of bread and fruit , but it is a certain stillness of their visitors that I notice the most. The interaction between sad human and the animals that demand noting more than a food treat, is I honestly think far more therapeutic than any psychiatrist's chair.....Simple interactions between species are ordinary but I think quite magical.

This got me thinking of Finlay. For those that don't know, Finlay was our first dog, He was a bouncy, demanding Welsh terrier, and he and I were totally inseparable.when he was around 18months old I remember taking him to work with me, and for an afternoon he was the centre of attention on the Spinal Injury ward.

One patient I wanted him to "meet" was a 17 year old farmer's son from Norfolk. He had sustained a particularly nasty spinal injury following a car accident and was on strict bedrest after being paralysed from the neck down. The boy always talked in glowing terms of his farm dogs and missed them dreadfully, so I thought a "dog" visit may be beneficial, especially as frustrations and grief reactions seemed to be translated into, what some health care professionals described as, "difficult behaviour"

I always remember putting Finlay onto this boy's bed and quite gently he lay down in the crook of his arm, with his head resting on the boy's shoulder and neck. There was no silliness, or usual frantic lip licking, but there was a stillness from both animal and patient which I remember well to this day.

Finlay provided a warmth and a contact that the boy so desperately needed but couldn't quite verbalise and the emotion that followed was terribly moving to witness.

I have said this before but it is so funny what you remember isn't it?

Even two years after Finlay died, I can still shed a tear thinking about him

(Above) photo of Finlay at Christmas 2004