I healed my dog with shamanic methods

Trigger warning: dog attack.

After his old dog died, my previous partner, Todd and I adopted a border collie with eyes full of soul. After herding the cat, chasing after the vacuum, and chewing through the legs of our dining room chairs, he proved to be very trainable. In a few short months he became the master of fetch at the dog park and charmed kids by gazing at them like they were the most important person in the world.

Soon I was using Fergus in my family therapy practice. I worked with kids who had been abused or traumatized. Fergus gave them a sense of power and belonging by obeying their commands and giving them his total attention.

Then our neighbor Chris adopted his own dog. Chris was the neighborhood curmudgeon. In his mid 60s, short and round, with a buzz cut, he bragged about his guns, raced stock cars, and picked fights with all the neighbors.

Sniper was a gray and white double-wide pit bull built like a tank. His chest muscles rippled like a weight lifter on amphetamines. Ears torn from being forced to fight, eyes bloodshot, he was pissed off at everything that breathed.

Any time Fergus went into our back yard or a bird flew overhead, Sniper snarled and threw himself at the wooden fence that divided Chris's property from ours. The dog was so strong that the fence poles started going askew.

“It's only a matter of time before that dog knocks over the fence and hurts one of us,” I said to Todd, “Chris has got to get rid of him.”

I called Animal Control. They said they couldn't do anything until a crime was committed.

“Are you kidding? You want to wait until that animal kills someone?” The point was to prevent a tragedy, but Animal Control didn't care.

One Saturday Todd took Fergus for a walk while I cooked breakfast. As the smell of chorizo wafted from my kitchen, I heard Sniper snarling and someone whimpering like a child.

I ran out the front door. Sniper was attached to my Fergus at the neck. They rolled on the lawn. All I saw was gray, white, black and the red of blood. A blur. Chris yanked on Sniper's leash. The dog overpowered him. Todd tried to get a hold of the pit bull's choke collar. Fergus flopped about like a rag.

I shrieked. I didn't know what to do. It was terrifying to think about stepping between the dogs.

I don't know how Todd managed to finally yank Sniper off Fergus’s neck, “Take your fucking dog,” he yelled at Chris.

Todd carried Fergus into our house. Blood spurted all over the couch and carpet. No time to feel. I wrapped Fergus in a blanket. Todd opened my car door. I got in and we raced to the vet up the street.

Two people in scrubs took our shivering puppy to the back.

Poor, noble Fergus. What pain and fright he must be going through. I wanted to blame someone, so I blamed Todd. “Why on earth did you get anywhere close to Chris and his fucking dog?”

There was nothing he could say.

Then I saw his bleeding hand. Sniper had bit him pretty bad. I took a photograph of the canine-sized holes in his fingers and palms, hoping that Animal Control would finally do their job. I drove him to urgent care.

Todd didn't lose any fingers. Fergus survived. A contrite Chris paid a thousand dollars for his surgery. Fergus had to wear a cone around his neck to prevent him from licking his wounds. We had to medicate him for pain and to prevent infection. He spent his time slinking around in terror and exhaustion, a shadow of his former exuberant self.

A few days after Fergus returned home, Chris left a note on our doorstep, “I am sorry Fergus got hurt. I want you to know I put Sniper down.”

I couldn't help feeling sad for Sniper. It wasn't his fault he'd been abused. Was the only solution to kill an animal because cruel humans had made him vicious?

I had heard many stories of animals whose personalities changed for the worse after suffering an accident or injury, never to recover. I didn't want that to happen to our dear pup.

At the time I was in the middle of my advanced shamanic training and I had learned to do soul retrievals. A pet psychic friend said, “You should do a soul retrieval for Fergus. Just wait until he recovers from surgery because if he goes back to his old perky self right now, he'll move a lot more and his sutures won't close.”

After the vet removed Fergus’s stitches and cleared him from wearing the cone, I got to work. I set up an altar with the crystals from my medicine bundle, a bowl of water, a bowl of earth, and a candle. I lit a candle and smudged us both, blowing sage smoke over our bodies with my fan of feathers. As the fragrant smoke wafted upward, I prayed to the seven directions and asked the spirits for help. I laid Fergus down on a blanket with a toy full of peanut butter to keep him entertained. To open his field, I shook my rattle all around him.

First I called for a spirit to give Fergus power, sheer energy for the healing of his body. The spirit of the Tortoise offered help, which seemed fitting because Fergus needed a protective shell. I asked the Tortoise to come between my hands. When my hands felt hot, as if an incandescent light bulb glowed between them, I blew that hot energy into Fergus through the crown of his head.

Then I scanned his physical body looking for anything that needed repair. The spirit of the Spider appeared. It multiplied into a hundred little spiders, which wove and rewove the tissues of Fergus's neck and chest.

Finally, I called for a spirit to help me retrieve the part of Fergus's soul that split off from him during the attack. The Crow spirit flew to the past and showed me a happy Fergus romping through a grassy field. I called him and he jumped into my arms. I explained he needed to come back to himself, so he could be whole and happy once more. I held my hands out again, palms facing each other, and waited for the hot sensation to happen. When it did, I blew this soul part into the top of Fergus's head. The healing was complete. I thanked the spirits for their assistance.

The very next day Fergus jumped off the couch, wagging his tail frantically. He was himself again, a super energetic sheepdog with sweet eyes, demanding a game of fetch. I dropped to my knees and held him. He butted my head with his. Infinitely grateful to have Fergus back, I thought about Sniper. What if the cruelty he’d suffered could have been undone? What if his soul could have been returned to him too, and made him fit to live peacefully among us, instead of forcefully euthanized?