We rescued our black Labrador, Josey, when she was about nine months old. Once she settled in we realized that she had not been socialized with other dogs and didn't even know how to play. Grass and toys were a new concept for Josey. When we would go on walks she would bark violently and just about pull my arm out of the socket if we passed other dogs or cats, even if they were behind a fence. This made it impossible to take her for walks. Another thing we realized is that belly rubs, normally loved by dogs, made her very upset to the point she would growl at us. We tried taking her to a well experienced dog trainer to help her work through these issues and live a normal dog life. The trainer said she appeared to have been crated and possibly tormented by other animals, like small dogs or cats, while left in the crate. During a group training class, which Josey had attended with me weekly for a while, she snapped and went after another dog and ended up biting me. We were unable to finish the training and gave up on working with her for a while as it was too traumatizing for me to risk her turning on me again. We found another training that used behavior modification with an electronic collar which came highly recommended by friends. That worked well when taking her on walks and getting her attention when she was going after other animals but she still had trouble fixating on attacking other pets. We knew there had to be underlying issues from past experiences when she was a young puppy. Naturally we wanted Josey to be happy. I personally have used Splankna Therapy to help work through some former trauma and someone suggested that we try that with Josey. The therapy had made an immense difference in my life, freeing me from things that kept me from living my full potential. I believe God loves our pets too, in fact God physically healed my Basset Hound several years ago. So, why wouldn't He heal Josey? We met with Ms. Elliott and I acted as the surrogate enabling us to identify several negative emotions that Josey was suffering from like, fear, abandonment and denial. We cleared six emotions in all. Ms. Elliott said that Josey would probably sleep the rest of the day and she was right. Josey slept hard from about noon until the next morning taking just a few breaks from her nap to eat and go to the bathroom. I remember that following my Splakna sessions I felt so light, joyful and at peace, and had believed that Josey was also feeling that way. We didn't see much evidence of the effects of the therapy at first. But as time passed it was with much relief that we were able to walk in the neighborhood passing cats not far from us on their driveway and dogs barking at her from their yards, and she simply walked by. One day I was fully convinced she was free from that fear when a stray dog tried to walk up to us and she remained completely calm while I shooed him away. And then my husband took her walking and a stray dog actually followed them most of the time and Josey walked calmly without reacting to the other dog at all. It was truly a miracle that she was healed from that fear and other negativity that affected her ability to be happy and at peace.

Josey's Fur Mom