Tag: animals

TFT After Cougar Attack

Cougar

Martin Law, C.Psych, describes how he used the TFT trauma technique to relieve his wife’s severe trauma after having witnessed the killing of their dog by a cougar:

It was a beautiful Fall Saturday in November 2001 when my wife (Viv) decided to go for a walk into a forested area close to our acreage west of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Our one year old Samoyed dog (Nakoda) happily trotted along with her.

One of our twin sons (David) tagged along as well, then decided to turn around for home after walking for 75 metres. To this day we are thankful that he chose to turn back for home.

About a half-hour into her walk a flash of light brown came bolting from behind a tree, knocked Viv to the ground, suddenly did a 90 degree turn and pounced on Nakoda.

Totally stunned and bewildered, Viv stood up to witness the cougar mauling Nakoda. The sights and sounds of Nakoda’s death were seared into Viv’s brain as she began to take in what was happening. In a panic she fled the scene, feeling helpless, confused and disoriented, as well as guilty for leaving her beloved dog to the mercy of this wild animal.

I was with our oldest son 60 kilometres away at a tennis tournament when all this took place. Fortunately, a distant neighbour who lived close to the site of the attack was home when Viv came crashing through the bush. He drove Viv home.

While this was a short drive, Viv was panicking, not knowing if David had made it home safely. Fortunately he had and for the rest of the day, Viv and our twins stayed with our neighbour until I got home.

Up until this time, we had no idea that cougars would be anywhere near our acreage. We later deduced that this particular cougar had actually been prowling around our home!!

When I arrived home, I heard the whole story. Not surprisingly, Viv was incredibly shaken up. We talked about what happened and I basically followed the standard protocols for defusing following a critical incident (per the Jeff Mitchell CISM model).

That evening Viv could not sleep, with classic flashbacks to the event, a re-living of the sights and sounds of Nakoda’s last minutes. The next day we Continue reading “TFT After Cougar Attack”

TFT and Animal Trauma

Tiny in boxThought Field Therapy isn’t just for humans. Many animal lovers are using TFT on their pets. You might be asking how can I use this for my pet and for what? Well, animals have emotions and can experience many of the same things we people do like anxiety, depression, sensitivities, loss of a family member, pain and trauma.

My Yorkie that I’ve had for 8 years was a rescue dog. Tiny Nugget was abused as a puppy and suffers from pain from his two broken legs that he got as a puppy plus separation anxiety, and fear of men and small children. He becomes very agitated when there are new men or small children running around.

Recently, I had to be gone for 2 weeks which is the longest I’ve ever had to leave him. My dad called me a couple times to let me know he wasn’t really eating and my dog had to be carried outside to relieve himself because he wouldn’t go outside on his own. By this time, he had diarrhea. I had my 17-year-old take him to the vet. They said he was still hydrated enough but took some blood to be tested just in case and put him on an IV for a couple hours.

After returning home from my TFT advanced training, he wouldn’t get out of his doggie bed and even acknowledge I was home. His eyes were glazed over and I almost thought he was dead. Normally, he would zip to the door and bark and carry on until I picked him up and ran around the parking lot with him.

I immediately picked him up and laid him in my lap. I used myself as a surrogate for him and started tapping on myself while thinking of him and the trauma of me being gone and what he endured at the vet’s office. When I was done, I then tapped under his eyebrow, eye, under nose, under leg and collar bone, just as if I were doing it on a human.

It didn’t seem to work at first so I decided to do a diagnostic test to see if there was something else going on. I tested him for sensitivities to his food and outdoor allergens. His food was fine yet he was sensitive to weed pollen and tree pollen. I used myself as a surrogate again and then treated him for those things and he started perking up.

I treated him for anxiety as well. I even treated my border collie for the trauma of me being away because he was not his usual self either. Sammy was too big to fit in my lap so I just knelt down next to him and worked on him.

Within 2 hours, Tiny Nugget was back to his usual happy little self and barked insanely until I took him for a long walk. I had my two shadows and buddies back.

Chrissy Mayhew, TFT-adv