My Wolf Dog Helpers
My dogs are my greatest teachers. They are my children, my friends and companions, and
my helpers. It is rare that they are not by my side.
We share a home and roam the land together. They teach me about caring for and loving them regardless of how I may be feeling myself. They are frequently a very important presence for the people who visit me for help. They teach me about presence and alertness.
My friend above is Atma Yo now and was my most recent new friend and my most recent loss. I have had many dogs in the last 33 years, many them pictured on this page.
I had my ceremony today for Hanta yo. I blessed all my dogs graves looped them together in an infinite flow of rocks wrote their names on their heart rocks. And then went to my Medicine of One Circle in my back yard with Hanta YO’s paw print and opened his rose wood box of white ashes. Hanta yo was a temporary name. He was growing into his medicine dog name Atma YO. Atma is the Sanskrit word for the true self, the only truth. I crossed out Hanta on the box and wrote Atma. I also wrote Atma Yo on his clay paw print. For now he is truly Atma Yo. And though I wish that it had not happened so suddenly, only after having him for 9 months, he taught more in that time then I can express. That is a hard tru th when he is still breathing beneath your hands with a hemorrhaged tumor in his breast and his lung are being squeezed from the pressure of blood and you must free him from his body. But I am there now and ready for the spirit dog to enter my life. I will never stop welcoming them unless I can no longer get out of bed and even then, I will be there for them to lay down next to me. May I pass from this earth with one of my wolf Dog friends lying by my side.
I have another sad story to relate here. I saw a potential new dog on the Verde Valley Humane Society page.
I hung out with him and we hit off very well. I made arrangements to bring him home the next morning. They called me in the morning “We are looking at your web site and the page of your dogs”. And then they began interrogating me based on the apparent free life style of my dogs and statements about their deaths teach me much. Somehow the so called “Team” they were not going to let me adopt my new friend based on this page. A page which only honors all my dear friends and speaks of how important they are too me. “Do you let your dogs off the leash”. “Out in the middle of no-where of course I let me dogs off the leash when I am attentive to them.” And when working with clients they are hooked so I am in control.” They had already judge through their own lens of fear. May this earth be free of this kind of fear. They chose to keep that dog incarcerated.
cial wall in my house with the pictures of the wolf-bear dogs who have graced my life and are now gone. Every one of these dogs has taught me in manifold ways about myself, about working with emotions, about dogs and their world. Had I not loved and cared for them I would not have experienced any of these losses. But then I would know nothing about life. They taught me to let go of my need for them, and not to hold on to them so tightly that I prevent their spirits from experiencing the full spectrum of their soul. And they taught me to go on loving, despite the certainty that I will lose what I love, and that emptiness will visit me along with a host of feelings depending on unique story of that loss.