Welcoming a New Animal into the House
Allowing Time and Space to Adjust
Please give a warm welcome to the new little being who cracked my heart wide open again!
Her name is Ziggy Stardust, and she loves running (especially through greenery that’s taller than her), digging, zooming, leaping, burrowing, chewing whatever she can put in her mouth of tiny knives, exploring, cuddling, and WOW WOW WOW, does she love her brother Max at the moment, though, it’s a long-distance love between them, filled with deep longing (on her side), through baby gates.
Max has needed time and space to adjust.
I have needed time and space to adjust.
In my last blog post, which I wrote just before we brought Ziggy home, I talked about my anxieties about bringing Max (who is 14 years old) and Ziggy (a puppy) together.
I had connected psychically with Max before Ziggy’s arrival and asked him what he needed to feel safe and comfortable, and one of the things he told me was to trust him.
Trust. It’s one of my big soul lessons. All of my animals have been working with me on trust in different ways.
The thing about trust is that you can’t just decide to trust.
I wish I could, and I’ve tried. When I don’t feel safe, my default mode is to try to control things—including my own growth. I want to find the “steps” that will give me this “trust thing,” and do them, and then be better.
I want to find the magic formula that can make me a better person, a perfect dog mom who is super chill about everything, a better human who doesn’t feel anxiety or fear. (In other words, I don’t want to be human.)
But animals have mastered unconditional love.
And when they’re working with us, it’s never to make us more perfect, more like someone else, or more like the critical voices in our head want us to be.
And so my trust journey with my animals has been a long, windy path that, rather than helping me “fix” myself, has softened my expectations of myself, softened my self-judgment, taught me how to identify my needs, as well as how to speak up for myself and honor my needs. It’s a process that has made me a kinder, more compassionate person to myself.
Bringing Max and Ziggy together is a big part of this trust path.
When Max and Ziggy first met, Ziggy tried to jump up and sniff Max, and Max growled at her. I jerked Ziggy’s leash, not hard, but in a scared way, and this scared Ziggy, who dove behind someone’s legs.
I recognized that I was not in a good place to try again.
I didn’t know when I would be.
I needed time.
I blamed myself for things not going “right.” I blamed myself for Max growling at Ziggy. If only I was able to be calmer. If only I was able to be a different person. If I wasn't there at all. If only, if only, if only…
Later, when I was able to relax enough to connect with Max again (once we were home, once baby gates were put up, once I slept and my nervous system began to drop down), Max let me know that what I was seeing as a “problem” (and blaming myself for) wasn’t actually a problem at all.
In truth, things didn’t go badly. Max growling at Ziggy didn’t mean that something was wrong. He was teaching her not to jump on him. But in my heightened state of PTSD, I can’t see clearly. I can’t differentiate danger from not danger. This is one of the things I need time and space for—to allow my nervous system to relax so that I can see clearly.
Max also showed me that although I wanted to trust him, I was still attached to a particular outcome, which meant that I wanted “trusting Max” to look a certain way. If I trust him, then what I think is “the right outcome” will happen. Anything else—Max growling, the two of them not “getting along” right away—confirmed my old beliefs that I was right not to trust, or that there is something wrong with me that messes things up.
But “trusting Max” has meant something else entirely than trusting him to do the thing I want.
It has meant trusting the path he’s walking me down, even when I don’t know where we’re headed, what it looks like, or what the outcomes mean.
I spent Ziggy’s first weeks apologizing constantly to her and Max.
They would sniff each other through the gate (a good sign! But I’m still not ready…), and I would say, “I’m sorry I’m taking so long to feel comfortable with this! I’m sorry you have to be out there, Max! I’m sorry you have to be in here, Ziggy!”
But when I connected with Max, he thanked me for allowing him the space and time he needs.
And when I connected with Ziggy, well, she let me know everything was AMAZING and she was so in love with EVERYTHING and ALL OF US, that whatever we did was ok!
It’s hard to see ourselves as our animals see us—as perfect in our “imperfections,” as worthy of love, no matter how anxious or afraid or “not ready” we feel.
Max and Ziggy are just fine with taking things as slowly as I need to take them.
Max also let me know that he’s modeling something for me. When he leaves the room and goes into the bedroom, he’s not apologetic. He needs space, and he takes it for himself. Simple as that.
He lets me know that I am just as worthy of my needs as he is of his.
But WOW! That’s hard to feel.
Meanwhile, little Ziggy has been working on my heart. Infusing it, and me, with a lightness I couldn’t have predicted allowing myself to feel.
And as time passes, I discover there are things that I’m comfortable with, which I wasn’t before:
Max and Ziggy on the bed together, when Ziggy is calm in my lap (which she can do!)
Max and Ziggy in the yard together when Ziggy is on leash and able to sit and watch Max calmly.
More prolonged sniffing through the gate.
I haven’t “fixed” myself. But I’m allowing myself time and space. And we created a structure and system in the house that helps my nervous system know that in here, I can relax.
Maybe I’m taking too long. Maybe I’m messing everything up. Max and Ziggy assure me that I’m not, but it’s hard not to pressure myself.
For some of us, this is what being a dog parent (or kitty/bird/lizard/snake/ horse/goat/etc. parent) looks like:
We feel fear and self-doubt.
We teach them with “sits” and “stays,” and sometimes we don’t do things “right.”
We use the wrong tone of voice; we sometimes beg or whine instead of lead; we feel anxious a lot of the time.
We believe everyone but us has figured it out.
We wonder how we will ever survive this love that feels bigger than the sky, the universe.
We wonder how we will ever survive when they’re gone.
We get our hearts broken when they die, and then, somehow, still aching, we say yes to love again, even when it doesn’t always feel safe.
We love our animals in ways we don’t allow ourselves to feel with people.
We wake up each morning and try our very best to be worthy of these beings, who seem to love us no matter what we get wrong.
We wonder how we ever got so lucky, to be so loved.
We know we’ll do anything for our animals.
Including grow.
Including challenging ourselves to face our fears, to ask for help, to take care of ourselves, because that’s what our animals have asked us to do.
This is the power of our bond with animals.
This is the power of unconditional love.
I felt humbled every day when my dog Lorca led me through his transition process and helped me through what felt like a nightmare, but grew into a beautiful gift.
I feel humble everyday when Max says, “Trust me.”
And I feel humbled, again, as new little powerful Ziggy Stardust and my sweetheart Max continue to lead me toward what’s possible.
What I am capable of doing and being.
What we are capable of creating together.
As they help me move through all that stuff in the way of being able to simply love and be loved.
