Reiki for Pets and you

This is a one day workshop and will attune you to the Reiki level one energy and teach you how to work on yourself and your pets.

Most sick animals will instinctively come to you for healing because they sense you can benefit them. When treating animals, remember not to excite it by forcing it to accept a particular hand position. Instead, allow the animal to become comfortable and work around it, or ease it gently into a position where your hands can reach the areas needing treatment. In emergency situations, calm the animal first by using a reassuring voice combined with gentle stroking over the head . Covering the head helps to calm.

Animals tend to respond faster to Reiki than humans. They generally have a more dynamic energy system and their powers of recuperation tend to be superior. They also have less accumulated stress, emotional blockages and self-sabotage tendencies. It also appears that the more domesticated the animal, the slower it's recovery time. Domestic animals tend to take on the stress and emotional traits of their owners. Those of us who have pets are all too aware of how much they can be a reflection of their owners. When you see a neurotic, tense dog you can usually assume that to obtain lasting results you will need to treat the owner with Reiki .

Plants also respond to Reiki because they are also living energy fields that can be out of balance and will respond to the harmonizing effects of Reiki.

By the fact that Reiki works on animals and plants we are able to discount any suggestion that the effects of Reiki are psychosomatic. It is very effective to use second degree Reiki on animals ,sometimes it can be difficult to give a hands on Reiki to an Elephant or a Tiger for instance.

I have been asked recently by a practitioner new to Reiki, if Reiki can be used on animals. This tells me that there are some teachers out there either just attuning people to the Reiki energy or not teaching enough information. Reiki is safe to use for any living life-form. This includes all species.....plants, animals, and humans. Since everything is composed of energy molecules, and the joining of molecules make up all levels of matter, then simply stated, Reiki is the energy that animates all living things. When all life-forms are first "created", they have a maximum amount of life-sustaining energy; but as they begin to age, there is a cycle of deterioration that begins. The body is de-stablizing as an object and there is an on-going loss of vital energy. So all of life is a "temporary" experience in a solid, form-body; and as this cycle plays itself out, all objects begin to loose their stability.... their ability to hold a full charge of life-sustaining energy. By giving any object a Reiki treatment(s), that object is filled with the maximum quantity of energy that it is capable of holding, at its present stage/cycle of reverting back to an energy-state. So you see that anything that is in solid form can use a shot of energy; a Reiki treatment. Depending on the state of balance of any object (i.e., loss of life-giving energy), some objects can use more energy than other objects. This is why some life-forms (plants, animals, humans) may receive more energy than other similar life-forms. And this is why some life-forms require more energy one treatment time than another.

Back to animals, because of the size of their bodies, small animals do not need as much energy as do larger animals; and animals that are imbalanced, need more than healthy animals (regardless of size). So if you have a small animal (i.e., newborn, miniature, rodent, bird, etc.) they can most often be held in the palm of one hand, and the other hand held "loosely" above its body, and treatment time will usually be short - less that 15 minutes. For moderate-sized animals (i.e., most dogs, domestic cats, fowl, rodents, etc.), you would only place your hands over most of their body. This may take more than one hand placement, but it would not take too much to cover the entire body; treatment usually lasts for 15 minutes to 1/2 hour. And for large domesticated animals (large breed dogs, ponies, big-cats, monkeys, etc.) you would place your hands over each area of their bodies; similar to hands position of humans, but more closely related to their organs and/or areas of malaise. Treatment may last from 15 minutes to one hour or more. Lastly, for the very "large" animals (i.e., tame zoo animals, livestock, work animals, etc.), you would want to gather several of your Reiki friends to come over and place their hands wherever they can, for as long as they can. Treatment usually lasts for 15 minutes to an hour. For all other animals, mostly of wild species, we only recommend "distance/absentee" treatments. For un-tamed birds in a cage, fish in a tank, poisonous animals in aquariums, etc., it is recommended to place the hands on either side (or top and bottom) of their container/home; Reiki will just go through the material and be received by the animals. One more point, animals are usually much more sensitive than humans, and as such, they may shy away from the energy at first. But they will grow accustomed to the feeling of the Reiki, realizing that it is good for them, and they will eventually allow much longer times of treatment, as time goes on. It is perfectly fine and useful to attune your animals to Reiki (teacher level technique), although it may be a bit of challenge to get then to sit in a chair while you move around them waving your hands in all manners of expression. So when they are lying down, sleeping/resting, you might be lucky enough to complete the attunement that way, or you could always do an "absentee attunement". It is our experience with our own cat, and with our student's animals, that as we do the initiatory attunements on their owners, many animals will come around the attuning chair, sometimes sitting in the lap of the attunee, or sitting under the chair. When the attunement is over, we very often see the animal get up and walk away; they seem to sense the energy and know when the energy has ceased to flow. Even when you are doing treatments, on yourself or others, animals may climb up and sit in the receiver's lap, or on the solar plexus, or somewhere nearby, in the auric field. Here is an interesting experience that we and other students/friends have had: when we/they are feeling "out-of-sorts", animals will sometimes sense that something is wrong, and want to be nearby, until the crisis is over. With Reiki-attuned animals, there are many reports of animals, especially dogs and cats, that will lie down with their "imbalanced" owners, and their paws will actually become warm, as Reiki flows through their bodies.

Reiki creates a deeper bonding between all species of life, when it is given freely, and without any expectations. Happy 'Reiki'ing.