Suzy's Blog

What makes animals different from each other? What makes their personality? Are we acknowledging their differences?

All of us who had a few different animals in our lives can say that there are no two that are alike ever. Even in my working with people I have never encountered an animal that is exactly like another. Yet so often I work with people that expect their newly acquired animal to be like the one that passed and that was the beloved pet. To me this is a very interesting phenomenon, since when I ask you, if you ever had two animals that were alike, you will say 'No', but somewhere when you get another animal you expect to see them be like 'Fluffy'. What is the compulsion to compare?

Would you be willing to recognize that with that approach you are asking the animal to be different then who they actually are? You are asking them to fit into your idea of what they should be rather than acknowledging the being that they are. What does that mean? Every being is different in the way they see the world. May it be dog, cat or horse, they all will have their own unique way to be in the word. They will have certain things that come easier to them and others that may not. Some horses like to jump, others don't, some dogs like to chew on things, others cannot be bothered with that, some cats like to cuddle, others don't and there are endless variations of these examples.

So what makes us look for the sameness, instead of celebrating the being of each individual? Of course not every behavior of an animal is who they be, in other words there can be behaviors that were created out of experiences that were pleasant or unpleasant that have the animal stuck in a pattern, which has nothing to do with who they are as a being. Those behaviors we can assist them to overcome if necessary. That has nothing to do with who they be. You cannot make their being into something else, like you cannot make a cat into a dog. But if there is a behavior that has an animal stuck, we can change that!

How will you know what is what? Which is a behavior and which is the animal being themselves? Well, you can ask a question, like 'Is this a behavior issue?' And when your animal is doing something that is "off", you can ask them "Who are you being?" And the interesting thing about this is that you may not get a verbal answer about this, but you will get an energetic one. And that will start to open the door for you to a different way to look at your animals and their behaviors. Please start to ask the question and please be willing to see your animal for who they be, not for who you think that are!